ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author looks at two full-length rural performances, one from each region—a Durga Puja performance in the village of Boro Sangra (Birbhum, West Bengal) and a Kali Puja performance in the village of Majumdarkandi (Chandpur, Bangladesh). The demarcations of ‘us’ and ‘they’ coloured Monoranjan's musings on Kobigaan, thus indicating much more complex cross-border politics concerning religion, caste identities, and citizenship. Hailing from the Namasudra community—one of the Scheduled Castes in Bengal—Monoranjan Sarkar spoke at length on caste hierarchies, marginalisation, the Matua movement, and Kobigaan as a medium of protest through performance. Monoranjan Sarkar extolled the Matua community's achievement in securing a Kobigaan Academy—an institution sanctioned by the government of West Bengal to ‘educate’ aspiring performers and confer degrees to them, among other tasks and duties towards preservation.
