Censorship in South Asia

Raminder Kaur is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Her books include Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism and Bollyworld: Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens.William Mazzarella is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and author of Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India.

"Censorship in South Asia traces the genealogy of censorship through time to reveal its ever-contested presence in Indian cinema and beyond.November 1, 2009"—Maria Khan, Feminist Review"[T]his insightful volume on a neglected topic shows that means and modes of censorship have kept pace with the mediums of communication, on grounds not dissimilar to the justification offered during the Raj."—Contemporary South Asia"The contributors to this volume investigate a wide range of cultural regulation, from cinema to painting, blasphemy to official secrecy and even advertising to nuclear culture. The essays enlighten readers and provide better understanding of the concept of censorship."—South Asia Research"[The] compelling volume Censorship in South Asia steps away from the media spectacle and, with great insight and precision, places such contemporary cases of public agitation and regulation in their regional and historical context. To do so, the editors . . . expand the idea of censorship beyond juridical repression exercised in the quiet of the state's backrooms and instead place it within a larger domain of 'cultural regulation'.33.1 2010"—South Asia"This is an exciting and innovative volume that will become the standard reference in the field for some time to come."—Thomas Blom Hansen, author of The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India

• Acknowledgments1. Between Sedition and Seduction: Thinking Censorship in South AsiaWilliam Mazzarella and Raminder Kaur2. Iatrogenic Religion and PoliticsChristopher Pinney3. Making Sense of the Cinema in Late Colonial IndiaWilliam Mazzarella4. The Limits of Decency and the Decency of Limits: Censorship and the Bombay Film IndustryTejaswini Ganti5. Anxiety, Failure, and Censorship in Indian AdvertisingAngad Chowdhry6. Nuclear RevelationsRaminder Kaur7. Specters of Macaulay: Blasphemy, the Indian Penal Code, and Pakistan's Postcolonial PredicamentAsad Ali Ahmed8. After the Massacre: Secrecy, Disbelief, and the Public Sphere in NepalGenevieve LakierList of ContributorsIndex