Visual Memory in Grassroots Mobilizations: The Case of the Anti-Corruption Movement of 2011 in India

This chapter investigates the role of images in social movements in activating and nourishing collective memory as a process that has an instant recall value of the past in the present. Using the example of the India Against Corruption movement of 2011–2012, we unpack the role played by visuals as mnemonic devices to trigger and sustain protests and mass mobilizations. Our primary data shows how activists deployed images of Gandhi as well as Gandhi-related visuals to position their campaign within the long tradition of anti-colonial struggles in the country. The chapter contends that images can act as bridges between the present and the past and that they can also contribute to merging diffferent protest waves, hence blurring the lines between past and present.