This book deals with Indian Shakespeare adaptations on stage, on screen, in translation, in visual culture and in digital humanities and how these constitute Indianness. It is envisaged as an important intervention in the ongoing explorations in social and cultural history, into the questions of what constitutes Indianness for the colonial and the postcolonial subject and the role that Shakespeare plays in this identity formation. Even as the conscious project of dismantling colonization and its intellectual apparatus in various forms was on from the 19th century onward, the Indian literati, intellectuals, scholars, dramaturges and film directors were engaged in deconstructing the ultimate icon of colonial presence: Shakespeare. This project was both the text and the sub-text of cultural activities like translation and stage performance and, later, cinema. Fourteen of the essays in this collection were originally papers presented in an international conference on Shakespeare in India by scholars, theatre persons and translators. The four new essays added for the revised edition along with the Afterword by renowned Shakespeare scholar Jyotsna Singh, update the ongoing narrative of the previous essays and are connected by the common thread of extraordinary negotiations of post-colonial identity issues, be they in language, in social and cultural practices, or in art forms.

This book is envisaged as an intervention in the ongoing explorations in social and cultural history, into questions of what constitutes Indianness for the colonial and the postcolonial subject and the role that Shakespeare plays in this identity formation. Performing Shakespeare in India presents studies of Indian Shakespeare adaptations on stage, on screen, on OTT platforms, in translation, in visual culture and in digital humanities and examines the ways in which these construct Indianness. Shakespeare in India has had multiple local interpretations in different media and equally wide-ranging responses, be it the celebration of Shakespeare as a bishwokobi (world poet) in 19th-century Bengal, be it in the elusive adaptation of Shakespeare in Meitei and Tangkhul tribal art forms in Manipur, or be it in the clamour of a boisterous Bollywood musical. In the response of diasporic theatre professionals, or in Telugu and Kannada translations, whether resisted or accepted with open arms, Shakespeare in India has had multiple local interpretations in different media. All the essays are connected by the common thread of extraordinary negotiations of postcolonial identity formation in language, in politics, in social and cultural practices, or in art forms.