ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the semiotic and discursive politics of iconic representations of Bharat Mata with the help of two intertwining arguments. The first of these is that the figuring of the nation in such icons is exclusive and elitist rather than inclusive and ‘national’. The second argument is that most narratives of the nation are fundamentally melodramatic. These arguments are corroborated by the careful analysis of various popular images, short stories by Mahasweta Devi and cinema. The author also shows how notions of desirability and legitimacy undergird the figuring of the nation, nationalism and patriotism in hegemonic ways. The universalizing tendencies of these dominant metaphors and discourses guarantee that certain normative notions of family, motherhood and mother nation are privileged while other actual and diverse multiplicities are excluded, revealing the anxiety that underlies the carefully constructed and ordered bodyscape of the nation-as-mother.
