Remaking the Citizen for New Times – History, Pedagogy and the Amar Chitra Katha

An accessible cultural and literary critique of the right wing in India.
 
How does orthodoxy maintain its power over culture? In Remaking the Citizen for New Times, Deepa Sreenivas explores how the Amar Chitra Katha, a widely read comic series started in 1967 in India, influenced the historical and national consciousness of young readers in a conservative direction. Tacitly blaming Nehruvian welfarism of the time for the moral decline of the nation, the Amar Chitra Katha emerged as a literary articulation of the Indian right’s Hindu-nationalist ideology in a modern, bourgeois guise. To renew Hindutva hegemony, the comic series gave orthodox ideas a new sheen, both in its form and content, merging Western comic styles with Indian visual storytelling traditions on the one hand, and combining mythological characters with political figureheads into harmonious narratives on the other—making it difficult to sift history from myths and legends. Sreenivas deftly argues that these mythological-political tales emphasized the instructive rather than the informative potential of history, encouraging neoliberal values such as merit and hard work while ignoring caste or class as systemic issues.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.