Politico-cultural appropriation of Native American in American Indian poetry and drama: Unflinchingly documents the halfway existence

During the Twentieth century Native American literature evolved from anonymity into prominence by assuming a commitment to reflect the particular challenges that faced Native American people during last two centuries. Native American Literature illuminates about Native American lives, culture and how Indian values have changed from traditional tribal to mainstream ones that threatened tribal existence. The paper seeks to substantiate that this literature documents the horrible impact of brutal federal government on Indian’s lives through policies and programs designed to subject them to degrading and confining existence both on physical and mental levels. The paper also seeks to prove that the Indians in order to adapt themselves to the mainstream Euro-American ways lost their old ones along the way but could not adopt mainstream American lifestyle. At the turn of the Twenty First century, because of the coercive strategies for assimilation, American Indians residing on reservations could not become a part of mainstream America but the way back to traditionalism was also farther away and irreversible. The paper also strives to substantiate that Native American literature documents and provokes Indians to assert their tribal identity by retaining many of the tribal ways and values.

Reinventing the Universal Structure of Human Values: Development of a New Holistic Values Scale to Measure Indian Values

This article investigates the universal values scale, Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) for its applicability to measure cultural context-specific values. The study establishes a need to construct a new scale by identifying and incorporating Indian culture-specific values in SVS. Deriving data using self-assessment questionnaires from 709 respondents in 2 studies and analysing them using principal component analysis and structural equation modelling, the article reconceptualizes Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) and the 10 motivational value factors and develops a new 76-item Holistic Values Scale (HVS) to measure Indian values using well-established scale development methods. The article further presents the research and policy implications and future research areas in this domain.

#ImNotAChickFlick: Neoliberalism and Post-feminism in Veere Di Wedding (My Friend’s Wedding, 2018)

Released in 2018, Shashanka Ghosh’s Veere Di Wedding ( VDW; My Friend’s Wedding), dubbed as India’s answer to Sex and the City, evoked mixed responses. While many reviews of the film denounced it for its vulgarity and tawdriness, frivolity, flippant vision of women’s liberation and as a threat to Indian values, others, however, celebrated it for its frank depiction of female desires. This article undertakes a close study of the film to argue that while the focus on female desire and sexuality is rare in Hindi cinema, and thus VDW marks an important landmark, the film is not a feminist film, and it does not offer a radical politics of female solidarity. On the contrary, by locating it within its neoliberal and postfeminist politics and aesthetics, we will argue that it haphazardly borrows and superimposes tropes from the ‘bromance’ and ‘the buddy road movie’ genres onto its vision of what feminine choices entail and enable. Its casual evocation of elite lifestyles, denigration of working-class women’s life struggles, and sexual humour jeopardise a radical reworking of patriarchal and heteronormative frameworks, and it encourages us to settle for a future in which ‘women playing the same games as men do’ is the only mode of radicalism or emancipation on offer. While it is undeniably refreshing to watch the film’s push back against the repressive taboos surrounding women’s sexuality and desire, these are articulated only within neoliberal renditions of heterosexuality, matrimony, motherhood and consumerism.

“The Last Lecture on the Edge”: American Indians are not Invented for Public Consumption

“The Last Lecture on the Edge” is a chapter from American Indian writer Gerald Vizenor’s novel The Trickster of Liberty. The chapter tells a story which happened on the edge of the White Earth Reservation where anyone who wanted to drop over the edge can deliver a last lecture. This article mainly analyzes the lectures delivered by the first three lecturers Marie Gee Hailme, Coke De Fountain and Homer Yellow Snow. This article explores how the chapter satirizes those who utilize Indianness and Indian identity for public consumption. It is argued that Marie Gee Hailme overemphasizes the purity of Indianness and Indian values in Indian school education. She is stubborn to stick to her opinions towards education and tries to consume the education of the Indian kids. Coke De Fountain is considered in this article as a selfish mixblood who consumes Indian kids by selling drugs to them for his own interests. It is also pointed out that Homer Yellow Snow is a a pretend Indian author who consumes his spurious identity and readers’ trust.

Human Rights Are Eternal In Indian Values

The history of human rights in Indian culture and values are eternal to its civilization as it has evolved. The “Rigveda”, which is regarded as the oldest epic in the world, proclaims that all human beings are equal and they are all brothers. According to “Atherveda”, all human beings have equal right over food and natural resources. The “Vedas” including “Upnishads”(Shruti) are the basic source of “Dharma”, (an umbrella like term for all human rights and duties), the observance of which was regarded as essential for securing peace and happiness to individuals as well as to the society. The "Smritis” and “Puranas” are the collection of the rules of “Dharma” (which includes civil rights and liability towards society i.eVyavhara Dharma) and “Raja Dharma’ (Constitutional Law) which were developed on the basis of fundamental ideals incorporated in the ‘Vedas”. There were also several other authoritative works on “Raja Dharma”, the most important of them were the Kamandaks and Kautilya's Arthashastra, all of them have vouched for ensuring happiness to the society and the subjects.