Year: 2014
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter deals with the political articulation of people at the grassroots, especially concerning democratic politics. Our focus is on understanding their language in defining politics and their expectations about politics, which lie in the hidden layers of their cultural expressions. We also highlight vernacular criticism of the official state-led democratic sphere-in-the-making in north Indian rural society. The term ‘grassroots people’ here denotes the mostly uneducated, illiterate, marginal section of rural people, struggling for their everyday bread, who are usually considered apolitical. Academics and political agencies usually expect direct replies and responses from grassroots people on political questions that are similar to the ones that we have developed from the mainstream mass media, but people at the grassroots have their own idioms for articulating politics. These grassroots people may also be called vernacular, in the sense that they speak in mostly non-official cultural resources of discourse and have practices that are historically accumulated and practical-morally embodied in the lifeworld of the villagers ( Tanabe 2007 : 569). Their creative reflections are expressed in idioms that are mostly rooted in the folklore and cultural traditions existing at the grassroots, which are often very different from the mainstream public sphere found in urban areas.
Source: Routledge eBooks
Author: Badri Narayan
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4293091833