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Folklore and Ideology: A Critical Study from Indian Perspective

Molla Hafizur Rahaman (W.B.E.S) Prof. (Dr.) Sujay Kumar Mandal

Abstract:
The German term ‘Volklehre’ means ‘people’s customs’. The term ‘Folklore’ has been
derived from the German term Volklehre. Now, the term ‘Folklore’ has been used to denote myths,
folktales, legends, folksongs, chants, formula, prayers, speeches, puns, proverbs, riddles and a
variety of forms of artistic expression whose medium is the spoken word. Folklore includes all types
of verbal art. Folklore is an expression of human existence, with folk painting, narratives, language,
culture and literature. Literature was basically folk literature due to its orality. Writing developed
in the years between 4000 and 3000BC. Various groups handled their folk literatures in their own
ways. Folklore influences consciously or unconsciously human civilization. The journey of folklore is
actually the journey of a nation. A nation’s progress or regress is silently recorded in its folklore.
The history of the marginal section of the society is artistically delineated in its folklore. Sometimes
the dominant classes of the society utilize folklore so that they can remain dominant in the society.
Indian folklore has been used as Ideological State Apparatus. The aim of my paper is to show how
folklore has been treated in India since the period of colonization.
Keywords: folklore, ideology, colonization. ISA, cultural integration

Introduction:
Jacob Grimm(1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) made an extensive effort to
collect German folklore materials to trace the root of German language by studying German words,
folk narratives, myths and tales and the result is the significant books related to folklore—Deutsche
Mythologie and Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Children’s and Household Tales). These two epoch-
making works of Grimm brothers imparted decisive influence on folklore studies in later times and
guide the scholars about data collection, methodology of study and publishing of folkloric materials.
They were influenced by the industrialization that started to annihilate the traditional landscape and

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traditional cultural resources of the peasant communities. The diachronic study of German oral
poetry and narrative forces the emergence of ‘mythological school’ in later times.
Discussion:
In 1846 British antiquarian William John Thoms coined the word ‘folklore’ to denote
manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs and other materials of the older time.
Prior to that in England it was termed as ‘popular antiquities’ or ‘popular literature’ and in Germany
such resources were called as volkskunde. Under the pseudonym of Ambrose Merton, William John
Thoms argued in the journal The Athenaeum that the word ‘folklore’ is the composite of ‘folk’
(people) and ‘lore’ (knowledge). His observation or argument led to the establishment of an
international discipline known as folklore, folklore studies or folkloristics.
Folklore materials like tales, songs, traditional customs etc are as ancient as human
civilization. The systematic study of folk materials in the spirit of modern academics is of relatively
recent origin. German scholars and intellectuals like Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm showed
sincere fascination in the collection and study of the various forms of folk materials in the nineteenth
century. The meaning of the term folklore is little bit confusing. Different countries followed
different opinion about the meaning and scope of folklore. Folklore used to suggest the so-called
unsophisticated peasant culture comprising of community performance of music, dance and festival
in some parts of South Africa and Europe and at the same time the relics of the past, ballads, tales
and superstition were accepted as folklore in America.
Because of multifaceted features of folklore materials researchers from various disciplines
like literary studies, anthropology, psychology, history etc. have explored and enriched the
theoretical and methodological aspects of folklore studies.
Simple ignorant and uneducated or semi-educated people, especially the rural peasant folk
are generally associated with folklore while the elite class of the society are connected with high
classical arts.
Folk culture cannot be limited through geographical notions or literary reasons. It overcomes
geographical boundaries. It is a close human to human interaction. It is noticeably moulded by
technology and highly developed modern society. Individual creations may be regarded as an
ingredient of folk culture when the creation is shared and disseminated cutting across various
boundaries of the existing society.
Folk is not limited in just rural or lower peasant class it is also clearly visible among strong
urban civilization. Jokes, songs, stories, myths, proverbs are also parts of folklore and they have been
highly impacted by television, computers, mobile phone, Facebook, WhatsApp and countless
electronic gadgets. Folk ideas are communicated in the society by both print and visual media also.
Folk culture is dynamic, alive and vibrant because it changes its meanings, scopes, and

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aspects with the passage of time and context. Many scholars think folklore is closely related with
falsity, fantasy, and incorrect facts but falsehood is not inherent in it. It is very much associated with
material life of the people, their habits, rituals, nationalism and their various institutions and
expressions. Folk culture encompasses whole human existence.
Through informal methods or means in the society folklore is transmuted orally. It is largely
verbal. World famous creative personalities ventilate their thoughts, emotion, passion, feelings, and
valuable values through their artistic creations such as theatre, dance and painting. Sometimes they
discover folk motifs in their artistic works.
Folklore is always in the state of flux. It is traditional, dynamic, symbolic, creative,
imaginative, inherently and inconsistent but it values morality, filial love, love between mother and
child, family bonding, patriotism, unity between man and nature. Sometimes it binds men with songs
and passions but humiliating jokes separate man from man. So contrasts are inherent in folklore.
Folklore may be personal or public, global or local, national or international, authentic,
reliable or imaginative and anonymous. Aesthetics and the appreciation of beauty, sense of style and
artistry are also closely associated with folklore. It is not detached from social process and its
functioning. Education, religion and political set up, economic structure, family life, aesthetic and
cultural values, rituals, patterns of belief and behaviour, expressions and institutions of any society
are important and so quite significant is the folklore.
So folklore is intimately linked to the nation as in most cases it addresses the lower levels of
the social hierarchy. Folklore is a broad category which includes culture of any group spread through
verbal or expressive literature, behaviours visible through material life.
Relationship between folklore and ideology:
Marxist criticism suggests that all cultural forms seek to ensure that the dominant classes in a
society remain dominant. In order to do so, it must convince the working classes and the oppressed
not to rebel or revolt. The dominant classes usually achieve this by suggesting to the working classes
that the present social condition is ‘natural’, benevolent and ultimately beneficial to them. They use
cultural forms to carry the message that things are quite all right. They are shown films and plays
created from the upper –class point of view and they naturally believe the twist of reality. This twist
of reality is what Marxist criticism calls ideology (Nayar, 2010)
In The German Ideology (1867) Marx and Engels opine that ideology is a world of false
conceptions about what [human beings] are and what they ought to be (Chakraborty, 2019). Ideology
refers to those ideas that corroborate the existing mode of production so as to protect the interests of
the elite (Chakraborty, 2019). In Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays (1971) Althusser says that
ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real condition of existence. In a
capitalist society there are institutions like the police and army which maintain the social

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superstructure and existing relations of production through the use of force (Repressive State
Apparatus or RSAs). Institutions like schools and churches ensure intellectual or spiritual submission
to the status quo (Ideological State Apparatus or ISAs). ISAs contribute to the proliferation or
consolidation of dominant ideologies. Althusser lists many ISAs like family, educational
institutions, churches or any other religious equivalent, constitutionally sanctioned legislative bodies,
mass media, literatures and the arts, sports and so on (Chakraborty, 2019). Following this logic
various forms of popular culture may also function as Ideological State Apparatus. Folklore is one of
the visible ingredients of popular culture.
Folklore is intimately and intricately associated with political ideological motivation. The
various elements of folklore are always associated with a kind of collective pride and national glory.
This collective pride and national glory prompted Grimm brothers in Germany to be keenly
interested in German folklore materials for the study of the roots of German language.
Folklore was initially regarded as the lore of the unsophisticated ordinary rural people, it was
highly humanistic, and it was very close to nature. For that reason folklore attained especial status
during the age of romanticism. For various political ideological motivations folklore had extensively
been used in Norway, Finland, Soviet Russia and India.
Indian Folklore:
India is a land of countless folk traditions. India is famous for its bewildering richness of
various oral traditions. It is house of Vedas, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Puranas and the
Upanishads and the birthplace of the folktales like Hitopadesa, Brihatkatha, Kathasaritsagara,
Jataka and Betalpanchavimsatika. It is multilingual, multi-cultural nation. Its multiracial,
multilingual and multicultural traditions attracted and charmed eminent anthropologists and
folklorists like Max Muller and Benfey who were enthralled by the beauty and variety of Indian
myths and folktales. But Indian folklore was seriously dealt with the arrival of British colonizers in
India and the contribution of Jawaharlal Handoo, one of the eminent scholars of folklore studies in
India cannot be forgotten. According to Handoo the growth of folklore study in India may be divided
into three different periods like— the Missionary Period, the Nationalistic Period and the Academic
Period (Handoo, 1989) .
Utilization of folklore in India:
Because of highly political ideological motivations folklore had not only been utilized but
also created a new to meet the definite socio-political objectives of the nation. According to Russian
scholar Y. M. Sokolov ‘folklore is an echo of the past, but at the same time it is also the vigorous
voice of the present. And in this context India is not an exception. India possesses massive body of
folklore materials as India owns many racial, cultural and linguistic communities. Many intellectuals
and literary scholars discover nationalistic spirit in folklore. In the colonial period, Indian freedom

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fighters very effectively deployed folklore symbols for the reconstruction of identity.
The ideologies of the Christian Missionaries in the Indian Missionary Period:
The Christian missionaries visited India with an ideology of spreading Christianity among the
rural Indians. They collected and published the first-hand resources of Indian traditional cultural
lives to materialise their ideology of spreading Christianity. Jawaharlal Handoo noticed ‘These
Anglo-Saxon fathers recorded all kinds of information –habits, manners, customs, oral traditions,
rituals etc –about their subjects. They used some of this information in spreading the Christian faith
and were successful in delivering their main message through the native symbols.’( (Handoo, 1989,
p. 135).
Besides the Christian missionaries, some powerful administrators of the British Government
in India showed sincere interest in collecting and studying Indian folklore materials in the
Missionary Period. The objective of study was to rule India effectively by gathering local
information.
Utilization of folklore in the Nationalist Period and ideology:
It cannot be denied that Christian missionaries and the colonial British administrators handled
data of Indian folklore with their non-Indian viewpoints but their study undoubtedly awakened newly
emerging intellectual groups. Educated by the colonizer the new group of Indian intellectuals
initiated a renewed nationalistic attitude towards their own societies, cultures, traditions and
folklores. Newly discovered Indian local traditions indirectly contributed a sense of nationalistic
consciousness among the Indian intellectuals. Indians started to explore their own cultural roots and
traditions. Folklore resources aligned with Indian national unity and identity. In this context
Mahatma Gandhi’s Khadi costumes and spinning wheel may be mentioned. Folklore was utilized
for promoting ideologies of the Indian freedom fighters.
Folklore in the Academic Period:
India got political independence from the British colonizers in 1947. After independence
folklore get enormous importance in India. Gauhati University started a Folklore Archive, the first
department of folklore in an Indian University. Now, folklore has been used to trace glorious past
traditions of India. Indian Folklore scholars like Birinchi Kumar Baruah, Birendranath Dutta,
Indranath Choudhury , A.K. Ramanujan, K. Sachindanandan, Manoj Das, Jawaharlal Handoo,
Prafulladatta Goswami are trying their best to present a true picture of Indian folklore through their
artistic creations. Various Government and Non-Government Organizations are striving sincerely to
promote and spread Indian folk tradition in the international world.
Conclusion:
Many folktales and folksongs were composed during the Indian National Movement, which
helped in awakening the masses. Folklore exerts its assertion in the political world also. Now-a-days

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during the general elections, we notice various political parties shrewdly choose folklore as medium
of their party propaganda. Different political parties compose different popular folksong to woo the
voters. Folklore plays a vital role in bringing about the emotional and national integration of India.
Importance of folklore cannot be overlooked. The true picture of a nation is no doubted reflected
artistically through folklore, through oral tradition not through written history. But sometimes
folklore becomes apparatus for spreading ideologies of the dominant groups in the society.
Ideologies change with the passage of time. In India the shifting nature of ideologies is visible in
Indian cultural history. In the Missionary Period Indian folklore was used to execute the ideologies
of the missionaries. But in the Nationalist Period and Academic periods Indian folklores are utilized
to project unparalleled unique India in the international domain.
Bibliography:
1. Chakraborty, A. (2019). Popular Culture. Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan.
2. Handoo, J. (1989). Folklore: An Introduction. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.
3. Nayar, P. K. (2010). Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory From Structuralism to
Ecocriticism. New Delhi: Pearson.
4. IGNOU Study material for Folk Literature and Language: Research and Pedagogy.

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