ABSTRACT

Murals, statues and inscriptions adorn the Indian parliament, a colonial building that houses India's democracy. Bharat is a term used in the Indian constitution to bring together the British and ancient Indian names of the nation. While sympathetic to Bourdieu's understanding of distinction and open to Ranciere's promise of/for aesthetics, the authors' approach focuses on the production of art by and through the state. She examines how this art affects the reproduction of privilege as well as its contestation. The author then focuses on the insights developed by postcolonial theorists, who try to understand not only the role that art played in movements of independence, but also how the form that art takes is framed by the histories of colonial inequality, nationalist aspirations, and collective imaginaries of freedom and modernity. She argues that these imaginaries are framed by privilege and affirms the legitimacy of the modern postcolonial state.