Desecration and the politics of ‘image pollution’: Ambedkar statues and the ‘sculptural encounter’ in India
Desecration and the politics of ‘image pollution’: Ambedkar statues and the ‘sculptural encounter’ in India
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Date
2020-01-02
Authors
Nayar, Pramod K.
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Abstract
This essay examines the culture of statue-desecration in contemporary India. The focus is the desecration of Ambedkar statues. The first section argues that the installation of Ambedkar statues is a process of sacralising, reconfiguring public histories and modernities, while instituting a new iconicity. In section two, the essay moves on to examining the ‘profane aesthetics’ of desecration. This includes studying the emergence of a ‘counter-spectacle’ in the political culture jamming of desecration, the creation of a culture of image pollution and the making of an affrontier.
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Keywords
B.R. Ambedkar,
desecration,
profane aesthetics,
public modernity,
statues
Citation
Celebrity Studies. v.11(1)