Bharatanatyam as an Object of Majoritarian Cultural Nationalism

by Guest Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:05 pm

Take the case of Bharatanatyam and how it was adapted in the late 1920s/early 1930s from its earlier version as Sadirattam or Dasiattam, performed by the socially ostracized community of devadasis (belonging to the Isai Vellalar caste). It was one of those elements of culture that was aggressively appropriated and transformed to fit an imagined, idealized Hindu upper caste cultural identity. When the original dance form that unabashedly portrayed eroticism and conveyed sensuality (shringara) transited to the upper class/caste Brahmin community in cosmopolitan Madras, it also resulted in a bowdlerizing and sanitizing of the form.

Often we find that dance forms originating in subaltern classes or non-dominant communities present a trajectory of upward mobility during specific phases of nation-building, during which these forms are fumigated, deodorized, gentrified and de-eroticized. During such clinical de-sexualization and domestication of the forms as they cross class/caste boundaries we also find a distinct transformation in body-usage, as the erotic charge is sublimated within false religiosity.

In the case of Bharatanatyam, this led to the rather swift conversion of the dance form into a platform for entirely mythologised and socially sanctified content, almost transforming it into a vehicle for proselytisation. A distinctly Brahminical content for the dance gained currency as the project for restructuring collective memory was initiated at the height of the national movement. While myth and memory conventionally serve to preserve identity and provoke bonding through the evocation of a shared cultural heritage, these can also be used as political weapons to impose a hegemonic memorial narrative that seeks to privilege a narrow vision of specific historical events.

Bharatanatyam is one among a few cultural objects today, like the Ganesh Utsav or Raksha Bandhan or the thickening sindoor that women across communities display or freshly minted greetings like ‘Jai Shri Krishna’ or the bhajan sandhyas which are being deployed on the side of majoritarian cultural nationalism.

http://thewire.in/50197/from-national-culture-to-cultural-nationalism-an-extract-from-on-nationalism/