Cartographic Anxiety: Mapping the Body Politic in India

Abstract

The parliamentary elections of May 1991 in India were disrupted by the assassination of the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi. In the aftermath of this event, one of the ubiquitous election posters of the Congress (I) party showed a picture of Rajiv Gandhi's identity card.1 On the identity card, the space allocated for designation of religion was filled by the word Indian. The not-so-subtle implication was that the slain leader had, in his lifetime, transcended divisive societal identities such as Hindu or Muslim and defined himself primarily as a secular citizen of a nation-state.2