ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the redefinition of the transnational Indian as the Hindu designer diaspora, keen on providing moral and financial support to the rising tide of Hindu nationalism in India. It does so through an aesthetic exploration of the fetishization of the role of the consummate Hindu woman in the schemata of creating a larger Hindu nation. Ubiquitous in Bollywood productions remains the festival of karwa chauth and as this chapter seeks to explicate; the ritual observance of the festival has emerged as one of the primary markers of the idealization of the on-screen Hindu woman leading to the imagination of the observing diasporic Indian woman as quintessential. Such representation also performs the function of exclusion of the non-archetypal woman and places her on the margins of the transnational Hindu universe. Furthermore, the chapter argues that the “Hindutvization” of the diaspora – particularly visible on social media platforms – remains a key epistemic response to and result of Bollywood cinematic content to which they have been continuously exposed. Based on visual analysis of selected Bollywood films such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Namastey London and so on, the chapter deliberates on the making of the ideal Hindu diasporic woman.
