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Examines Indian TV commercials to shed light on emergent aspects of the culture of globalization in light of the increasing number of multinationals in India. It is argued that the media formerly defined/reproduced private life in India as a small upper-caste, middle-class market, but globalization & liberalization have prompted changes in portrayals of desire in advertising, in order to convey messages to lower castes whose norms have traditionally been viewed as immoral. The discussion is framed within the context of the onset of globalization, increasing reliance on indigenous traditions within politics, & the 1980s establishment of TV broadcasting as an area that crosses language/literacy barriers. An overview of the evolution of advertising in a protected economy explores the impact of the recent prominence of Hindu nationalist politics; TV's influence on contemporary society; & its link to gender domination. Several commercials are described to illustrate the creation of new types of gendered consumers & representations of the middle class as a form of self-identification associated with a power that is both unifying & divisive. 43 References. J. Lindroth

According to the author, contemporary Hindu nationalism articulates a genteel multi-culturalist presence in the USA that is at odds with the militant Hindu supremacism in India. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of America trumpets Hindu culture as both a contribution to America's multiculturist experiment and as an example of successful multiculturalism in itself. The author looks at VHP's activities in the USA, its connections with the VHP in India and other Hindu organizations, non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in the USA and in other countries of the world, influence of VHP among NRIs, Hindu versus American identity of the Hindu Indians of the USA among other issues. (DÜI-Sen)

International communication as a field of inquiry is not very "internationalized." It has been taken as conceptual extension or empirical application of U.S. communication. Worse yet, much of the non-west has been socialized to adopt truncated versions of Pax Americana's notion of international communication. At stake is the "subject position" of academic and cultural inquirers: Who get to ask what kind of questions? It is important to note that the quest to establish universally valid "laws" of human society with little regard for cultural values and variations seems to be running out of steam. Many lines of intellectual development are reckoning with the important dimensions of empathetic understanding and subjective consciousness. In Internationalizing "International Communication" Lee and others argue that we must reject both America-writ-large views of the world and self-defeating mirror images that reject anything American or western on the grounds of cultural incompatibility or even cultural superiority

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I. Secularism's Historical Background -- Reflections on the Category of Secularism in India: Gandhi, Ambedkar, and the Ethics of Communal Representation, c. 1931 -- A View from the South: Ramasami's Public Critique of Religion -- Nehru's Faith -- II. Secularism and Democracy -- Closing the Debate on Secularism: A Personal Statement -- Living with Secularism -- The Contradictions of Secularism -- The Secular State and the Limits of Dialogue -- Secular Nationalism, Hindutva, and the Minority -- III. Sites of Secularism: Education, Media, and Cinema -- Secularism, History, and Contemporary Politics in India -- The Gujarat Experiment and Hindu National Realism: Lessons for Secularism -- Secularism and Popular Indian Cinema -- Neither State nor Faith: The Transcendental Significance of the Cinema -- IV. Secularism and Personal Law -- Siting Secularism in the Uniform Civil Code: A ''Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma''? -- The Supreme Court, the Media, and the Uniform Civil Code Debate in India -- Secularism and the Very Concept of Law -- V. Conversion -- Literacy and Conversion in the Discourse of Hindu Nationalism -- Christian Conversions, Hindutva, and Secularism -- Appendix: Chronology of the Career of Secularism in India -- Works Cited -- Contributors -- Index