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The dramaturgy of ritual performances in Indian parliamentary debates
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Balasubramaniam, Bairavee (2013) The dramaturgy of ritual performances in Indian parliamentary debates. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2611027~S1
Abstract
The content, style and form of MPs' performances on the floor of both Houses of the
Indian Parliament has undergone dramatic change within the last decade. For example,
97% of the productive hours of the Winter (Nov-Dec) 2010 Session were lost due to
intense disruption by MPs across the political spectrum seeking to stall the House.
Moreover, an increasing number of Bills are debated for less than an hour, if at all, on
the floor of Parliament - raising the conceptual question of whether legislation can still
be considered one of parliament's key functions in India. These changes require, at the
very least, an attempt to re-conceptualize the meaning and significance attributed to
various tropes of parliamentary performances, including those which seemingly subvert
all notions of parliamentary procedure, decorum and etiquette. In my thesis, I adopt a
novel interdisciplinary analytical framework, drawing upon performance studies, microsociological
dramaturgy of face-to-face interaction, interpretations of procedural
invocations, rhetorical political analysis and the study of political rituals. My primary
research question was whether the concept of ritual could usefully be mapped onto
performances of debates in the Indian parliamentary context. I then asked what the
significance of the absence or presence of rituals in this context would mean. Two case
were studies selected for this analysis, namely the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2001-
2004) and the Women's Reservation Bill (1996-2011), informed by a more general
ethnography of the Indian Parliament undertaken for this research. Both studies were
chosen using the logic of 'extreme case study selection' as these performances exhibit
extreme forms of dramaturgical violence, protest and polarized rhetoric that is
increasingly reflective of the everyday performances of the Indian Parliament. In my
research, I have adopted an interpretivist-constructivist approach to the ethnographic
method and have conducted two tranches of field research in New Delhi for that
purpose. My analysis demonstrates the presence of a diverse range of rituals of debate
being performed simultaneously during the legislative process within the Indian
Parliament, namely, procedural rituals, interpersonal rituals and disruptive rituals. These
findings corroborate the broader argument that the study of rituals are integral to an
understanding of parliamentary processes. Moreover, instead of dismissing certain
aspects of performance (e.g. physical obstruction of debate) as being symptomatic of
what many scholars have called the 'decline of parliament', my findings support the
cause for re-signifying, or re-reading parliamentary disruption as supporting, rather than
diminishing, the processes of political representation and widening the spectrum of
forms of political action considered as legitimate modes of political deliberation. The
evolution of these newer, sometimes disruptive, forms of representative ritual can be
read into wider processes of vernacularization and mediatization currently transforming
the ethos, identity and modus operandi of the Indian Parliament.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | J Political Science > JQ Political institutions (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.) | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Parliamentary practice -- India, Political oratory -- India, India. Parliament, Ritual -- Political aspects -- India, Performance -- Political aspects -- India | ||||
Official Date: | January 2013 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Politics and International Studies | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Rai, Shirin M., 1960- | ||||
Extent: | ix, 419 leaves. | ||||
Language: | eng |
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