Love beyond Boundaries: Subjectivity and Sexuality through Bhawaiya Folk Song of Bengal

Abstract

Boundaries mark limits, and as such the transgression of boundaries is inherently subversive. My research on the Bhawaiya songs of Bengal examines this transgression. Most love songs in Bhawaiya are about ‘illicit’ love, deviating from social norms and often occur in reaction to oppressive marital circumstances. They are a gateway to exploring female narratives of subjecthood and desire, in which women are the agents of their own sexuality. My focus is on deviance from marriage in the Bhawaiya folk songs as a form of subversion. Understanding Bhawaiya and its subversive existence requires an understanding of political, religious, linguistic and cultural boundaries of the Bhawaiya areas. Cooch Behar, the birthplace of the Bhawaiya genre, has historically been situated on blurred boundaries: between the cultural borders of Bengali and Rajbangshi, the religious borders of Islam and Hinduism, the governmental borders of the British Raj and Hindu kingdom and the borders of the Colonial and Bengali nationalist narratives. Even now, the Bhawaiya areas are divided by the international borders of Bangladesh and India. These blurred boundaries create a space for marginal peoples to develop and create their own cultural products, using the language of affection to resist and subvert patriarchal social rules. In my article, I will explore the subversive existence of female desire within Bhawaiya, and examine its feminist possibilities.