ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a different approach in reconsidering the film’s preoccupation with Shakespearean legacy in England’s imperial narrative, and in doing so, it seeks to examine the social and cultural implications of “selling” William Shakespeare to a new but ambivalent Indian audience after 1947. By drawing some parallels between early modern travelling companies and the plight of Kendal’s troupe, the chapter cautions against the too-literal general response to the film, which interprets the decline of The Shakespeareana as a metaphor of India’s rejection of all things English or the inevitable “death” of Englishness in India. The chapter questions assumptions that regard The Shakespeareana purely as a vehicle of English propaganda, and argues that the troupe’s compromised future does not necessarily underscore the failure of the empire. Interpretations of Shakespeare Wallah as a work of cultural imperialism also overlook the dynamics of what it meant to spread propaganda in India.
