LAG JA GALE: Indian Conventional Cinema’s Tryst With Hitler

Description

Lag Ja Gale: Indian Conventional Cinema’s Tryst With Hitler,is a classic ‘leap of the imagination’, as it showcases the intimate connect between seemingly disparate worlds. It stems from the realization that like Hitler, increasingly, leaders all over the world, are coming to power riding the crest of massive mass support, by brazenly flaunting an aggressive majoritarian agenda, deeply imbued with hate for the ‘other’, and openly dismissive of all democratic institutions and values. Indian conventional cinema, operating within the formulaic hero/villain binary, not only replicates but also validates this discourse. Lag Ja Gale also delineates the processes and mindscape which engineer the emergence of the reel/real life Hero, with all its attendant veneration and mass adulation. Based on extesnive research, it foregrounds the commonalities/overlap between the Hitlerian and the filmicWeltanschauung(worldview). This book will be of interest to students of history, sociology, psychology, politics, international relations, media/communication/film studies, Indian cinema as well as the general reader.

Fareed Kazmi, political scientist and film theorist, author of the path-breakingThe Politics of India’s Conventional Cinema: Imaging a Universe, Subverting a MultiverseandSex in Cinema: A History of Female Sexuality in Indian Films, pioneered the interface between politics, cinema and society.Lag Ja Gale: Indian Conventional Cinema’s Tryst with Hitler, a logical culmination of earlier writings, completes Kazmi’s trilogy on Indian films.

In Indian film studies, perhaps the foremost proponent of political economy theory has been Fareed Kazmi, the author of two landmark books… -Keval J. Kumar