Roja revisited

Venkatesh Chakravarthy and M S S Pandian's response ('More on Roja', EPW, March 12, 1994) to my article ('Integrating Whose Nation? Tourists and Terrorists in Roja', EPW, January 15, 1994) helps open out the debate on contemporary popular cinema in important directions. As both our interventions make evident, the debate is not just about one film but about how to characterise dominant representations of the nation, the state and the Indian middle class today. Chakravarthy and Pandian argue that "the entire narrative of the film is keyed to the disavowal of the state and the proclivities of female subjectivity" and that "the apparent inability of the state" therefore "actually masks its silent and powerful ability", making the "ultimate victors" in the film "the state and the Hindu-patriarchal cultue".