Negotiating Nation and Cosmopolitan Identity: Nationalism, Synchronicity and Transcendentalism in Bhupen Hazarika’s Selected Songs in Bengali
Abstract
This research paper aims to explore the instrumental role of the ideas of Romantic nationalism, cosmopolitanism, synchronicity, and transcendentalism in identity formation and nationalist self-fashioning in selected songs by Bhupen Hazarika (8th September 1926- 5th November 2011) in the context of late twentieth-century India. Given the limited scope of this paper, two songs from his oeuvre, namely “Bistirno Dupare” (1952) and “Ami Ek Jajabor” (1968), have been selected for a postcolonial critical analysis. The methodology applied herein is a close reading of his selected songs, translated into Bengali by Shibdas Banerjee. Some elementary works have been done primarily on Hazarika’s influence on Assamese culture and literature through Marxist and thematic readings of transnationalism. However, this paper endeavours to contribute to the existing scholarship by situating Hazarika’s songs within the ideo-cultural context of late 20th-century India, arguing that, despite their transnational bent, they remain deeply rooted in the ideo-political context of the same period, as they attempt a romantic nationalist self-fashioning of the newly independent nation.