ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the Indian dancing body makes visible the tensions between nation state and diaspora and in particular the divergent pulls of cultural nationalism and multicultural assimilation. It connects the idea of dancers as laborers and the ways that migration allows us to examine the contradictory relationship of power, nation states, and bodily practices. The chapter examines these issues within the nexus of deep racial and misogynist anxiety present in the US and the emergence of the problematic development of the Hindutva government in India that encourages Hindus all the over the world to proselytize Hinduism, raise capital and take over spaces to mark them as Hindu. It also looks at how diaspora makes visible the pulls of multiple citizenship and dance practices in particular, and enables us to see contradiction and simultaneity in response to the pulls of nation and diaspora.
