Violence and Nationhood

Abstract

The fourth chapter reviews the meanings and interpretations that the spectators associated with the keywords and motifs at the moment of their reception in performance. One of the questions examined in the course of investigation is how the process of dissemination of ideas and attempts to awake a national community were juxtaposed with alternatives, often by negatives too, produced in the same space. Swadeshi performance, in its space, attached a new meaning to the notion of nationhood. A modification was introduced in this dissemination, causing the idea of violence to be added to the notion of nationhood. This seeped into the mental habits of the people and became their custom in the long term, thereby engendering a nationhood that had a close nexus with violence.