Thinking about culture in the humanities is dominated by a historicist approach derived from a nationalist, 'postcolonial' consciousness marked by a disavowal of modernity. The study of contemporary culture, in particular the cultural context overdetermined by capitalist processes, shows up the limitations of this paradigm and foregrounds the need for a concept of the contemporary. As a first step towards this goal, the article takes up for analysis certain key ideologemes of modern Indian life which hinge on the sense of a recovery of identity, and tries to demonstrate their inadequacy for a rigorous sense of the present.
Breckenridge, Carol A., ed. (1996) Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
2.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh (1997) 'Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for "Indian" Pasts?', in Padmini Mongia (ed.) Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, pp. 223-42. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
3.
(Previously published in Representations37 [Winter 1992]: 1-26.)
4.
Chatterjee, Partha (1997) 'Beyond the Nation? Or Within?', Economic and Political Weekly (4-11 Jan): 30-4.
5.
Dhareshwar, Vivek (1995) '"Our Time": History, Sovereignty and Politics', Economic and Political Weekly (11 Feb.): 317-24.
6.
Fanon, Frantz (1990) The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin.
7.
Nandy, Ashis (1994) The Illegitimacy of Nationalism. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
8.
Prasad, M. Madhava (1998) Ideology of the Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
