Page 274 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

nomic and social—of the citizens have to be reconciled and harmonized. This
approach follows from our national heritage and from the concepts of Gandhiji’s
Ram Rajya and Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism. The holis-
tic, total and comprehensive philosophy must suffuse all of us in national effort
toward all-round economic development. (BJP Economic Resolutions 1995, 1–2)

The focus on individualism is seen as a response to the stultifying consequences
of the traditional socialist state while at the same time linking this individual-
ism to an organic notion of “Hindu” culture.
The discursive consolidation of a transnational Hindu identity is embedded
with the economic and political dimensions of globalization, and this can be
seen in numerous discourses around the place of Hindu wisdom in a transna-
tional context. On the eve of the millennium, Francois Gautier, writing in the
Indian Express proclaimed:

But there is something in¤nitely more important, which India can bring to the
West. And that is her spirituality. India is a vast and ancient land which alone has
managed to keep within herself thanks to the stubborn will of her people and by
the silent tapasaya of her yogis hidden in their Himalayan caves the immaculate
truth, the ultimate knowledge, the secret of our destiny. At a time when the world
has never been as disoriented as it is now; at a time when mankind is erring on the
road to evolution; at a time when man has forgotten the “why” and “how” of his
existence and all religions have failed, India holds the key to man’s future. And
what is this knowledge? It is not some mystical, faraway and smoky Utopia, but a
pragmatic, down-to-earth, Cartesian knowledge which can be put immediately
into practice. Take pranayama, for instance, the most exacting, precise, mathemati-
cal, powerful breathing discipline one can dream of. Its effects and results have
been observed and categorized by Indian yogis for millennia and it brings in, very
quickly, wonderful results in both the well-being of the body and the quietude of
the mind. (Gautier 2000)
Further, Gautier reminds us, in his enthusiasm for Hindutva as the panacea of
the ills of contemporary life, that “India is also a bastion of the pro-western,
open-minded, English-speaking, highly cultured upper and middle classes. . . .
No western nation could wish a friendlier country than India, whose elite
dreams of sending their sons and daughters to study in Harvard!” (ibid., 37).

Visual Culture and the Modernity of the Aura
Given the above discussion it should be apparent that, by insisting on its
alterity precisely through its engagement with global capital, technology, and
cultural hybridity, the proponents of Hindu nationalism cannot be understood
as occupying a “minor” position within the teleological grand récit of the end
of history with the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a powerful player in both
the national and regional geopolitical sphere and now as a prime economic ally
and political game player (especially after the events of 9/11), Hindu national-
ism is imbricated within the very triumphalist discourses of progress. How does
this relate to visual culture? The relationship can be seen by looking at both the

Gods in the Sacred Marketplace 263