Tamil beautiful speech; Italian public performances

[Jim Wilce]

To Barney and Vershawn:

Barney, I wonder if there is in Tamil Nadu anything comparable to what
appears to be "troping on" traditional lament forms by Hindu nationalist
rhetoricians like Rithambra. Here's a paragraph from a chapter I wrote in
the forthcoming book (ed. by Gary Palmer and Debra Occhi), Languages of
Sentiment:
In the Hindu nationalist rhetoric of the Indian orator Rithambra, wailing
is invoked as a form valued in the past but one now enlisted in her cause.
The use to which she puts this entropized lament was in depicting the grief
she called Hindus to feel in the aftermath of the secular government's
attempt to resist her own nationalist followers who were trying to demolish
the Babri Mosque.  A few attackers were killed some months before a large
number of others succeeded in pulling down the mosque.  Rithambra stirred
up her audience at that time to "listen to the wailing of the Saryu river
[site of the government crackdown on her forces, putative drain for the
blood of the martyrs Rithambra discursively creates]" (cited by Kakar
[Colors of Violence, U Chicago Press] 1996: 163).

Do you suppose this is common at least in RSS-type speech, Barney?  I
believe Rithambra's speeches are in Hindi; are speeches from the Hindu
right in Tamil perhaps radically different?

I also wonder if Vershawn could provide citations for the Farr pieces
you're citing, and whether Nardini has published any of her work (or
whether her finished dissertation is available through UMI).

-- Jim

Jim Wilce
      Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Asian Studies
        Northern Arizona University
        Box 15200
        Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5200

fax 520/523-9135
office ph. 520/523-2729
email jim.wilce at nau.edu
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ (includes information on my 1998 book,
Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural
Bangladesh)
http://www.nau.edu/asian