[Reader-list] Politics as Pathetic Performance: 24th March, CSDS, by SV Srinivas

[ravikant]

*Centre for the Study of Developing Societies*


*Programme for Social & Political Theory*
/(Rethinking the Political Series)/

invites you to a lecture

by

Professor S V Srinivas on

*'Politics as Pathetic Performance' *


The lecture is scheduled to be held on March 24, 2011, 3.00 PM at CSDS 
Conference Hall.

*Abstract*
In 1983 the Telugu film star N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) became the first 
non-Congress chief minister of Andhra Pradesh after a nine-month long 
election campaign. I revisit the moment of the star’s crossover to 
politics to ask what it might tell us about the relationship between the 
mobilizer and the mobilized. NTR’s campaign style was marked by a 
high-sounding Telugu that was directly traceable to mythological films 
while his exaggerated body language and accompanying histrionics at 
election rallies were typical of his screen appearances in general. So 
striking was the recall of his film career during the campaign that 
political opponents called him Drama Rao and claimed he attracted crowds 
of /cinema janam/, film buffs, who would never vote for him. NTR staked 
his political future on his /pathetic performance/, one that was highly 
emotional and laughable at the same time. This singular campaign was 
mediated by saturation newspaper coverage by the standards of the day, 
anticipating the transformation of Indian elections into entertaining 
media events. A re-examination of the equivalences the ageing actor set 
up—between an ‘excessive’ performance typical of popular Indian cinema, 
a media-consuming public and its purportedly timeless cultural 
affinities—offers insights into the dynamics of contemporary mass 
mobilisation, whether or not these are centred on film stars and 
linguistic identity.

_*Bio-sketch – Professor S.V. Srinivas*_

Professor S.V. Srinivas is a Senior Fellow at Centre for the Study of 
Culture and Society, Bangalore. He works on popular cinema, its markets 
and constituencies. A key focus of his research has been the social and 
political contexts of film exhibition, in particular the linkages 
between film consumption and democracy in southern India. He is the 
author of /Megastar Chiranjeevi: Telugu Cinema after N.T. Rama Rao/ 
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009). He has published essays on 
Telugu cinema, south Indian stars and the circulation of Hong Kong 
cinema in India. This lecture is a part of a book project on the social 
and political history of Telugu cinema supported by New India Foundation.

*You are cordially invited to attend the Lecture.*


Praveen Rai
Academic Secretary
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29, Rajpur Road
Delhi - 110054
Phone: 91-11-23942199
Fax: 91-11-23943450
www.csds.in <http://www.csds.in>