ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents an interview conducted with Aanchal Malhotra, a multidisciplinary artist and oral historian. India’s emergence as an independent sovereign state set in train an extended, and continuing, process of political, social, economic and cultural transformation. Much contemporary Indian literature and film is concerned with the rise of India in the 21st century; tradition versus modernity; sexual, religious and gendered oppression; the place of minority groups; and the recovery of hidden histories. India at 70 suggests several important areas for interrogating recent Indian history, contemporary politics, literature and visual culture, without claiming to represent an exhaustive or definitive analytical template. India at 70 re-evaluates the agency exercised by both elite political actors and ordinary citizens as they have worked to fashion Indian society in a multitude of different ways, and with varying degrees of success.
