Singing the Nation: Baul Traditions, Rabindrasangeet, and Rabindranath Tagore’s Oxford Lectures

Tuesday, 1 December 2026, 2pm to 4pm

This lecture explores the relationship between the Baul-Fakir traditions of Bengal and the musical thought of Nobel Laureate and polymath Rabindranath Tagore, examining how vernacular music shaped his understanding of spiritual syncretism, cultural identity, and musical nationalism. Focusing on the Swadeshi movement of 1905, it considers how Tagore strategically drew upon Baul and other Bengali folk idioms in the composition of his Swadeshi songs (1905), transforming familiar musical forms into vehicles for anti-colonial mobilisation and collective participation. The lecture further examines how Tagore developed these encounters into a broader philosophy of universal humanism in his Hibbert Lectures, delivered at Harris Manchester College, Oxford in 1930 and later published as The Religion of Man (1931). Through musical examples and live performances of selected Baul/Fakir songs alongside Tagore’s adaptations, the lecture traces the enduring dialogue between folk traditions and Rabindrasangeet, demonstrating how musical borrowing, translation, and reinterpretation became central to Tagore’s artistic and political imagination.

Sahana Bajpaie is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning independent performance artist and practice-led researcher specialising in Rabindrasangeet and Bengali folk music. She holds an AHRC-funded PhD from King’s College London, titled, ‘Politics of Performance in Rabindrasangeet’. She is Senior Teaching Fellow in Bengali and South Asian Studies at SOAS University of London and currently a Leverhulme (ECR) Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Music, University of Leeds. Her work bridges music, politics, culture, sonic ecologies, South Asian music aesthetics and public performance across South Asia and its diasporas.

Term: Michaelmas, Week 8

Speaker(s): Sahana Bajpaie (SOAS University of London)

Series: MSAS

Venue: St Antony's College - Pavilion Room - Pavilion Room St Antony's College 62 Woodstock Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6JF United Kingdom

Department: Asian Studies Centre (St Antony's)

Organiser: Janaki Srinivasan

Host: Asian Studies Centre