The Bratachari Movement and the Invention of a 'Folk Tradition'

The Bratachari movement, officially inaugurated in 1934, was shaped by the bodily anxieties of educated middle-class Bengalis and aimed at the all-round development of the body, mind and soul through the invention of a specific tradition. Though the founder of the movement, Gurusaday Dutt, attempted to construct a martial' genealogy for the effeminate' Bengalis through adequately masculine', indigenous' folk dance forms, the ideology around which the movement was built was not entirely indigenous'. Indeed, it seemed to borrow from the English agenda of the revival of folk traditions and the German idea of Volksgeist to a large extent.