Paper short abstract:

I will screen 'Nuclear Hallucinations', which is part of my practice-based PhD project. The project explores the role of modes of comedy in destabilizing authoritarian knowledge claims in documentary.The screening will be followed by an elaboration about the formation of the processes of the film.

Paper long abstract:

In contemporary India, various people's movements contest the legitimacy of the nuclear project of the Indian state. However the narrative of "nuclear nationalism" (Bidwai &Vanaik, 2000) refuses to tolerate such contestations and very often anti-nuclear activists and protestors are labelled as 'anti-nationals'. This makes them worthy targets for state violence and the epistemological violence, which delimits the permissible 'facts' around the nuclear, has an intrinsic connection to this state violence. Pro-nuclear documentary films by state institutions like Films Division and Vigyan Prasar can be viewed as constituents in this epistemological violence. Using this context, my practice-based research project 'Nuclear Hallucinations' explores the possibility of destabilizing the authoritarian knowledge claims around the Indian nuclear project using modes of comedy. Through a film, which claims the name of documentary and performances around it, the project raises questions about the epistephilic dimensions of documentary as well as the impulses that prompt a film to label itself as a documentary. Theoretical framework of the project relies on the concept of relational reality from Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism and Rancière's (2010) idea of dissensus.

Bidwai, P., & Vanaik, A. (2000). New Nukes: India, Pakistan and global nuclear

disarmament. New York: Interlink Books.

Rancière, J. (2010). Dissensus : On politics and aesthetics. (S. Corcoran, Ed., & S.

Corcoran, Trans.) London ; New York: Continuum.