Making of the Hindu Nation, Masculinity and the Citizen – Critical Reading of Children’s Magazines in South Asia and the Place of Muslims

This study critically analyses popular and children’s science magazines published in Kerala, a southern state of India. It examines how these magazines construct an ideal Hindu nation and citizen through different narratives. Here, I argue that the imagery of popular children’s magazines in Kerala i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Noorunnida, M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2024
In: Hawwa
Year: 2024, Volume: 22, Issue: 1, Pages: 68-90
Further subjects:B Rationalism
B Masculinity
B Nationalism
B Hegemony
B Childhood
B Citizenship
B Hinduism
B “other”
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Summary:This study critically analyses popular and children’s science magazines published in Kerala, a southern state of India. It examines how these magazines construct an ideal Hindu nation and citizen through different narratives. Here, I argue that the imagery of popular children’s magazines in Kerala is rooted in the Hindu ideal – wherein dominant masculine characters and a glorified Hindu cultural past are foregrounded. In these magazines, the idealisation of Hindu masculinity takes place through presenting Muslims as less progressive / incapable of acquiring “modern standards”. In this context, the Hindu emerges as a reformer who helps the Muslim to “acquire modernity”. Also, children’s science magazines view science as a means for liberation from religion and irrational beliefs through critiquing “irrational” stories in popular Malayalam children’s magazines. But a close examination of science magazines reveals that it is embedded in the very religious ideologies from which it is seeking liberation.
ISSN:1569-2086
Contains:Enthalten in: Hawwa
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341413