The Making of Neoliberal India: Nationalism, Gender and the Paradoxes of Globalization

This book examines the impact of globalization on the discourse of Indian culture and identity. Though concerned primarily with developments following the liberalization of the economy in the eraly 1990s, an extended history is provided on each of the issues addressed, which reveals the gradula mutations in definitions of 'women's liberation' or 'national security'.

Three sites of public debate are explored--the introduction of satellite television and the opening up of the airwaves; the 1996 Miss World Pageant; and India's declaration of nuclear capability in 1998. Drawing on sources ranging from court cases to commercial advertising, the author tracks the efforts to realign teh borders and boundaries of the nation-state through the rhetoric of safeguarding sexual mores and of masculine virility.