Dialogue

I am posting, with permission, an email exchange with Nandita. She makes some good points, I respond with jet lag and ramble... Ah well. Others may like to join in, please feel free...

Nandita 1:

Thanks for providing the opportunity for this dialogue. It was a really interesting and enriching experience to open a new verandah for me yesterday. Thanks a lot for it. Could peep into a whole new world of understanding!
was carrying back a lot of learnings from yesterday which made me think... however, i will like to point out two intriguing areas of research for me.
one being the connection between economy and culture that you pointed out yesterday and i look at it through the gender lens in the Indian context. it reminds me of the ways in which liberalisation of economy coinciding with rapid changes in the world of media, especially television, challenged the dichotomy of the economic/cultural. how there were prevailing anxieties about the gendered 'private' domain of the home, predominantly considered woman's place where culture is fostered, being threatened by the unmediated intrusion of satellite and cable television. there was a perception of threat from infiltrartion of 'western' images of sexuality challenging Indian ideologies of domesticity, family order, and control of women's sexuality. this was becuse, as a bearer of Indian culture and tradition, the 'new Indian woman' was held responsible for reproducing cultural capital, a marker of middle classes. thus, the 'new Indian woman', working as a manager of a capitalist enterprise was still the ground on which questions of modernity and tradition were framed; she was the embodiment of boundaries between licit and illicit forms of sexuality, as well as the guardian of the nation's morality.
the second one being the larger question you asked about the research of fascism in India and whether fascism is a term that can be used say for the present Hindu Right conglomerate. I was reminded of Partha Chatterjee who argues that the majoritarianism of the Hindu Right is perfectly at peace with the institutions and procedures of the ‘western’ or ‘modern’ state; the state policies of religious intolerance neither require the collapsing of state and religion, nor presuppose the existence of theocratic institutions. This,according to me, in a way, opens the door to Hindu majoritarianism in India and institutionalises violence against minorities. it ensures and provides legitimate grounds on which the terms of the discourse in the future will shift to the right, leading to mainstreaming of the Hindutva rhetoric. The Hindu Right locates itself quite firmly within the domain of the modernising state and uses all the ideological resources of the state to lead the charge against people who do not endorse its version of ‘national culture’. 
Just wanted to share these thoughts

John 1.

Thanks heaps for this. I will read it again tonight as i just picked it up going out the door. We shall have more on this I am sure. In the meantime, there are other points to make about verandahs in the ways you so ably suggest. If you have time, a short talk also in part on verandahs is here:
https://hutnyk.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/on-the-courtyard-talk-at-tate-from-january/

John 2.

Reading this again, am very much interested in how you might further describe 'the embodiment of boundaries between licit and illicit forms of sexuality,'. I have been working on illicit labour, so should bring tis into the discussion of unpaid reproductive work, upon which capital also thrives.
On the second theme - I wonder at the place of fissures within the Hindu Right that might be something to open wider if at all possible, since I suspect its not every part of the ' Hindu Right' that  'is perfectly at peace with the institutions and procedures of the ‘western’ or ‘modern’ state''.  

This conversation might be better on the blog though. What do you reckon? I feel that its worthwhile to share your thoughts.

Nandita 2.

I was hinting at a lot of possibilities including the dangerous sexuality of the 'non-mother', the 'irresponsible promiscuities' of the poor women, 'menacing' sexuality of the commercial sex worker, the non-normative sexualities, etc. It will be interesting to re-look at these in the context of the rise of 'reproductive engineering', given that with the latter childbirth is being socialised and commodified, and also in ways that surrogacy is being critiqued as immoral by equating it with prostitution. All these open a whole range of debates challenging the binary of 'licit' and 'illicit' forms of sexuality.
on the second theme, it is of course necessary, as you say, to look at the fissures within the Hindu Right and look at the varied positions which their organisations take depending on the contexts. yesterday, I was going through an interview with Achin Vanaik in a Bengali newspaper where he talks about the dangers of the BJP forming the government in India. I completely agree with him when he says that all wings of the Sangh Parivar are working on the larger objective of the Hindu Rashtra (which I believe according to their different factions ranges from overt to covert ways) and the moment they achieve that, it will be a fascist state. So even if the BJP is not talking overtly about a Hindu Rashtra, it is because they are testing the waters. however, I am hopeful that we will not allow this to happen and as Vanaik said the need is to resist and oppose these forces strongly, not just on an activist and political level, but on an academic level as well,as these boundaries too are porous and definitely not rigid.
and if you feel it is worthwhile, I don't mind having the conversation on the blog. 

John 3.

I'll post it on the blog so others can join as I think the clarity of your expression would be appreciated. (evocative phrasings like "the dangerous sexuality of the 'non-mother', the 'irresponsible promiscuities' of the poor women, 'menacing' sexuality of the commercial sex worker, the non-normative sexualities, etc. It will be interesting to re-look at these in the context of the rise of 'reproductive engineering'" do not come easily to me even as I care very much about writing). Maybe I can add it as commentary under a link to the article you mention by Vanaik. 

As to things like Vanaik's article, good stuff, but it, and other things I've accessed and read today, remind me how big a gap there is between trying to keep up from afar - reading EPW etc - and being here with others involved in the debates and discussing etc. My circle in the UK includes great scholars like Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay and Raminder Kaur, but I see that we each slip further away into a 'diaspora' of impressions, and ad hoc construction rather than anything better informed - so much for double consciousness. Though having said that I expect other dissociations are operative here, and it's probably jet lag induced paranoia and trembling at the stack of things I still need to read before class today ... please excuse me for rambling/wittering away about nothing much. Am just trying to say I greatly appreciate your comments. 

 Nandita 3.

i should acknowledge feminist scholars Mary John and Janaki Nair for the phrasings in the first part...on their edited book on Sexualities. I apologise for  not doing that earlier. But i appreciate the way they put it so very much that i couldn't but help use some of them. 
Regarding your point on Vanaik and others i surely appreciate what you have said.i understand that all the more because i come from an 'RSS family' and so have a 'different' perception on these...  Will love to share more on that and please continue with your 'rambling' as you call it for it is extremely important for my research..

Nandita 4.

Was wondering how you look at the work of Levi Strauss on the gift exchange of women between men in kinship systems which leads to sex oppression. Gayle Rubin looks at it in the article on 'The Traffic in Women' where she also looks at the taboos and marriage rules. she also looks at Mauss' essay on the Gift where she talks about how food, spells, rituals, words, names, ornaments, tools and powers are all circulated in exchange. Are these writings about gift exchange at all related to Bataille's work? maybe it is really silly to ask this...

John 4.

I strategically did not complete my MA on Lévi-Strauss (abandoned when offered a PhD scholarship). I had read all his later work but had not looked at his first book because others insisted we read Engels first, so I am afraid I cannot answer well on this theme.
But there is a relation, though Bataille is a generation older, he is also like L-S heavily shaped by the work of Mauss. As is Derrida in his gift book Given Time. Interesting comments On L-S are in De Beavoir's Second Sex.
You had mentioned an Achin Vanaik piece, but I could not find the one. Do you still have a link, assuming it was online?

Others can join in as they wish...