Indians and National Television in Indonesia : behind the Seen

Abstract

This is the first in-depth study of the critical power of the Indian (Sindhi) ethnic minority in modern Indonesian public culture. The research is a close examination of the success and dominance of the Sindhi community in the production of popular dramas for national television in Indonesia. Despite several decades of Sindhis' control over media production, scholars have ignored the significant influence of this South Asian community on contemporary Indonesian culture, economy and politics. Moreover, previous research has emphasised either unilateral dominance of the state over selected minority groups or resistance of minorities to state power, largely oversimplifying the existing relations between ethnic minorities and nation-state. Highlighting the collaborative nature of interaction between the Sindhi community and the Indonesian state, in the media production industry in particular, the study sheds light on the previously unknown aspects of ethnic politics in post-independence Indonesia and moves beyond the issues of assimilation or discrimination central to many existing studies of minority-majority relations. Likewise, in the midst of increasing scholarly interest in the Islamisation of modern Indonesia, the study serves as a reminder of unsettled ethno-racial tensions that continue to define the distribution of political, economic and social power in Indonesia.