Of Sankardeva, Sanskrit and Saraswati: The Interplay of the Regional and the National Symbols in a School in Assam

Abstract

In South Asian societies, nationalist projects have often relied on cultural symbols drawn from varied native traditions for their legitimacy claims. In a multi-ethnic society like India, with a multitude of narratives about collective pasts, it becomes difficult for such projects to achieve a multi-symbol congruence that is deemed necessary. The schools are key sites where such complex interplay of the production of locality (region) and national identity can be examined. Schools located in the state of Assam afford a vantage point to examine the vexed relation between the national and the regional imaginaries. The article draws on materials collected from a school affiliated to the Vidya Bharati Trust located in Assam. The Trust and the schools run by it have been extensively examined for their focus on promoting a certain ideology of nationalism which is based on the cultural supremacy of Hindu symbols. However, the branches of such schools in Assam carry a distinct regional character in their endorsement of regional icons and of Assamese language. This article examines the dynamics of nation, religion and region within educational spaces in the deployment of visual images and in the curricular materials used in a school named after Sankardeva.