ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 discusses the second major transformation of society that came with the commercialisation of agriculture in the mid-nineteenth century. A class of new rich emerged, while some of the old dominant classes became impoverished, and the poorer classes were reduced to the status of agricultural labourers. As regards anti-colonial movements, there was an incongruity and an uneasy alliance between elite nationalism and popular patriotism. Elite nationalism depended on the discourse of public rationality and progress as its main ideational framework. It also sometimes used religion and kingship as national symbols since these symbols represented a shared culture of homogenous national space. For the popular masses, however, the Gajapati king and Jagannātha had ontological significance, as relationships of service and devotion guaranteed each person’s idiosyncratic place and identity in the cosmic whole. The incongruence between the ‘techno-rational’ political idea of the elite and ‘religio-ontological’ cultural identity of the popular masses was to pose continuing problems and dilemmas for postcolonial India and Orissa.
