Nationalism and Folklore: Swadeshi Movement and Trivedi's Bangalakshmir Bratakatha

The Swadeshi Movement of Bengal (1905-1908) came up to protest against the division of the Presidency of Fort William into two separate provinces. Its leaders attempted to popularise its ideologies amongst the masses by including ethno-cultural motifs. Religious festivals like Durga Puja and Kali Puja were celebrated by the Swadeshi leaders with the motive of spreading anti-colonial sentiments amongst the people and forging a nation. Urban writers experimented with the folk forms to propagate Swadeshi ideologies. Ramendrasundar Trivedi (1864-1919) wrote Bangalakshmir Bratakatha (1905) in the bratakatha (ritual tales) form and was an allegory of the nation of the Bengalis as visualised by the Swadeshis. Trivedi's aim was to preach the ideals of the Swadeshi movement among the women, the spiritual core of the nation in the making. However, the principles proposed in the Bratakatha reflect an image of a nation which is against the idea of pan-Indian nationalism propagated by the Swadeshis. Trivedi, rather, propagates sub-nationalist ideology. Based on the above made observations, the proposed paper aims to study the use of folklore to represent the ideology of the urban/political. The paper also attempts to study the formulation of nationalism/ sub-nationalism in Trivedi's work.