Beyond state borders and cultural boundaries, the reclamation of gnawing ethnic identity crisis of the Koch Rajbongshis calls for recounting the already existent history of their socio-cultural life. An account of the origin or an attempt of delving into the affectual trajectory of recounting unsettling cultural landscape have a performative dimension. In this paper, Bishahari, the ambivalent indigenous snake goddess provides an ideal frame to understand the cosmogeny and ritual life of the Rajbongshis in different compositions of language and discourse.
The Koch Rajbongshis spreading across India (Assam, West Bengal and Bihar), Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan embody emotions and sentiments of the unsettling grounds for performing their ethno cultural identities inextricably entangled with religion, affect, emotion and culture. Capitalizing on the socio-cultural and political spirit of the ongoing movement to carve out a separate state of Kamtapur (comprising the northern districts of West Bengal and the adjoining western districts of Assam) call for understanding the making and shaping of the bodies of the Bishahari gaan performers with its inextricably entangled political relevance of the evolving power relation of the politics of cultural display and religious performativity. An interpretation of the socio-cultural history of the community might string together overarching categories of practices, belief and customs in the light of the contemporary process of ‘cultural production’ and reconstruction of their lost ethnic indigeneity.
The affectual approach into the study of the indigeneity of the Koch Rajbongshi community serves as a productive site for understanding the scope of imaginations, rituals and engagements in shared spatial and material contexts in deeper context of the 'landscape' with shared consciousness of many possible discourses. The basic objective of the paper lies in deconstructing the political ladscape and look into the complex filigree of places and spaces represented by the performance of Bishahari Gaan.
