ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Susmita DasguptaSubscribe to Susmita Dasgupta

Sarkar: Re-presenting Amitabh Bachchan

The film, Sarkar, explores the image of Amitabh Bachchan. It tries to understand his anger and the enemies he implacably opposes. By exploring the theme of anger, the film also questions current trends observed in Hindi commercial film-making. Most films cater to the narrow urban middle class audience; moreover, in a rapidly globalising world where protests of marginalised sections are rendered invisible, Hindi films rarely depict an ideology of protest.

Why the Media Does Not Have a Theory

is above blemish and both can fall preys to Orientalism, yet a judicious combina- Why the Media Does Not tion of both schools have always set the true contenders apart from the pretenders in sociology. The media is not a repeated Have a Theory pattern of behaviour

Another Song of the Road

Another Song of the Road Viramma: Life Of A Dalit by Viramma, Josiane Racine and Jean- Luc Racine; Social Science Press, Delhi, 2000; Rs 450 (HB)

The State Resurrected-A Possible Reply To Harris s Questions

A Possible Reply To Harris's Questions Susmita Dasgupta NIGEL HARRIS's perspective on the recent World Development Report, 1997 (EPW, December 13-19, 1997) is unusually provocative, because it inserts questions without providing any answers. It attempts to put the reader in a state of agonising curiosity by refusing any explanation on the puzzlement which the article arouses. Harris throws a fusillade of questions to the reader as to why suddenly is there an anxiety that the state might disappear and hence a greater acceptability of this prime institution among the capitalists, the international bodies, civil society organisations and the intellectuals world over. Along with this he extols the reader to probe why the modern state should become the main institution, superseding all the other institutions of modern life and why that state sometimes become genocidical and abrogates human rights which it is supposed to protect. All this issues against the background that all through the 1970s and the 1980s, the main currents of intellectual thought assigned almost all social ills, economic failures and political nonperformance to the state.

Redeployment of the Feminine

Redeployment of the 'Feminine' THIS is being written largely in response to Dipankar Gupta's 'Feminification of Theory' (EPW, March 25). However, this is neither a critique nor a criticism, but an attempt to understand the issues raised by the author in greater depth. The article should be taken more in the spirit of a stimulant than as a provocation.

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