Maimansingha Gitika

Maimansingha Gitika (Bengali: মৈমনসিংহ গীতিকা, lit. 'Mymensingh Ballads') is a collection of Bengali folk ballads from the region of Eastern Mymensingh (now Netrokona) Bangladesh.^[1] They were published in English as Eastern Bengal Ballads. Dinesh Chandra Sen collected the songs, and Dinesh Chandra Sen was the editor; the collection was published by the University of Calcutta, along with another similar publication named Purbabanga-gitika.^[2][3]

Cover of Maimansingha Gitika

Historical and Geographical Context

Geographic

Maimansingha Gitika was first introduced to the world by Dineschandra Sen, a professor at Calcutta University, in 1923.^[4] The songs in this collection mostly focus on stories from the Mymensingh District and nearby areas, which is regarded as one of the richest regions in Bengali folk culture.^[5]

This cultural richness was supported by its favorable geography—the triangle formed by mountains and rivers, fertile lands, and easy transport routes. These conditions helped ensure both agricultural success and cultural growth. Even during times when folk culture declined elsewhere, Mymensingh remained famous for its music and oral storytelling traditions.^[4] Researcher Asaddor Ali from Sylhet claimed that some famous ballads of Maimansingha Gitika were actually related to the regional culture of Sylhet in origin.^[6]

Historical

The ballads are set mainly in the 18th century, a time commonly categorized as part of "premodern Indian literature," when spiritual and religious themes were dominant in literary forms.^[7] Gitikas, being one of the most popular formats in Bengali literature, naturally carried these cultural features. Therefore, Maimansingha Gitika not only reflects the literary style of that period but also serves as an important historical document offering insight into the lives, values, and beliefs of people in premodern Bengal.

Structure and Thematic Elements

According to Zbavitel (1963), the collection contains 55 ballads with over 21,000 lines.^[8] Among the most well-known ballads are “Malua,” “Chandravati,” “Kamala,” “Dewan Bhabna,” “Dosyu Kenaramer Pala,” “Rupabati,” “Kobko O Leela,” “Kajolrekha,” and “Dewan Madina.” Except for “Dosyu Kenaramer Pala,” most of these focus on romantic relationships between men and women, with both happy and tragic endings. Notably, many of the ballads are named after female characters.^[9] These heroines are described in vivid and emotional ways. According to Sen, these folk ballads allowed women to be represented more freely than in elite classical literature, which often restricted female expression.^[10]

Chandravati

Collection of Heroine-Centered Ballads

One of the most important ballads in the collection is the story of Chandravati. Zbavitel ^[11] provides a detailed summary. Chandravati knew Jayananda when he came to help her pick flowers. They fell in love and got married through a matchmaker. However, the heroine was badly hurt after her husband betrayed her and married another Muslim woman. Chandravati turned to the god Siva after the trauma. When Jayananda came to Chandravati asking for forgiveness, she was meditating and refused to meet him. Along with the end of the meditation was a farewell letter and the drowned body of the man. Her father encouraged her to channel her pain into writing, and she composed her version of the Ramayana, part of which was later published by D. C. Sen.^[12] Chandravati's Ramayan “is now considered as the first feminist text in its textualization of Rama narrative from Sita's viewpoint and rejection of Rama's normative masculinity.”^[13]

Sen further notes that Chandravati deliberately shifts the focus away from Rama and instead highlights Sita's suffering. She criticizes Rama's actions and includes personal commentary as the narrator. Rather than aiming to glorify divine characters, she tells a grounded human story. She wrote this not for the royal court, but for ordinary village women, whom she refers to directly. This suggests that her version was part of an oral and communal tradition, making it more personal and accessible.^[14]

Additionally, Sen explains that Chandravati's conclusion does not offer a happy reunion or spiritual resolution. Instead, the heroine gains power through storytelling itself. The story becomes a space where grief and injustice can be voiced rather than erased. This makes the ballad not only a story of love and loss, but also an act of protest.^[15]

Other ballads in the collection follow a similar pattern, often focusing on female characters who face emotional challenges and show resilience. As Ahmed and Chakraborty observe, the women in these stories are usually more expressive, courageous, and self-sacrificing than the men. Their experiences form the emotional heart of the narrative, allowing these oral texts to reflect female voices and perspectives.^[9]

Hindu-Muslim Mixture

Another unique feature of Maimansingha Gitika is its depiction of religious harmony. The stories include characters from both Hindu and Muslim communities and generally show peaceful coexistence.^[16] In the rare cases where religion plays a bigger role, Zbavitel notes that such elements do not dominate the overall tone of the collection.^[17] Instead, the Gitika reflects a world where cultural traditions blend across religious lines. According to Ali, these ballads teach moral lessons that rise above religious, caste, and racial boundaries.^[7]

This impact transcends literary appreciation and contributes to a broader awareness of gender identity among rural Bangladeshi women. The accessible language and touching heroines of the ballads enable women listeners to relate to their own lives and struggles.^[18] These gitika provide a strong example of female voice. Characters like Chandravati are more than just fictional characters; they become cultural images that challenge notions of female conformity. In this way, Maimansingha Gitika is both a storytelling narrative and a subtle social commentary that fosters early gender consciousness in people's daily life.^[9]

Cultural Influence and Political Significance

Maimansingha Gitika is one of the most celebrated and affluent treasures of Bengal. This is how Ahmed and Chakraborty describe the collection.^[19]

Maimansingha Gitika is widely considered a cultural treasure of Bengal. It reflects the values, traditions, and daily life of rural communities. Ali calls it a key archive of Bengali oral culture.^[7] The collection gained political importance during the Swadeshi movement after Bengal's 1905 partition. As Castaing notes, the ballads were used as examples of local creativity and cultural pride.^[20]

Sarkar explains that during this time, there was a renewed interest in folk stories as a way to promote national identity.^[21] In Mymensingh and nearby regions, groups like the Suhrid Samiti organized public performances of these ballads to connect with common people. These events were more effective than political speeches in spreading anti-colonial ideas.^[22] Figures like Dineshchandra Sen took the ballads not only as art but as tools for awakening national pride.^[21]

Sarkar also points out that some patriotic songs from this era appealed to both Hindu and Muslim identities.^[23] These songs show how folk culture was used to bridge religious divides. By placing Maimansingha Gitika in this context, it is easy to tell how oral traditions became part of a larger political and cultural effort.

The long-lasting impact of Maimansingha Gitika also lies in its ability to mediate between generations, transmitting not only folklore but cultural memory and ethical frameworks. In traditional rural settings, these ballads were performed during family gatherings, weddings, or festivals—occasions that reinforced communal connections and oral education.^[24] Through repetition and rhythm, moral values embedded in these narratives—loyalty, sacrifice, love, betrayal, justice—impress listeners of all ages. In this way, Gitika served not just as entertainment but as informal education.^[25] Over time, the characters and plots described in the ballads became shared reference points, shaping village conversations about social roles, virtues, and rules.^[26]

For women in particular, hearing and telling these stories provided a culturally sanctioned way to express emotion and articulate personal grievances, even in the absence of formal platforms. The lyrical and dialogic nature of the gitika format encouraged emotional engagement and identification. Heroines like Malua and Chandravati were not passive sufferers but active agents whose choices carried narrative weight.^[18] Their stories offered imaginative alternatives to women's daily experiences of restriction and invisibility, functioning as emotional rehearsals for empathy, solidarity, and critique.^[27]

In the broader social context, Gitika helped foster a sense of regional identity among Bengalis during a period of colonial disruption and nationalist resurgence. By focusing on local landscapes, dialects, customs, and relationships, the ballads reinforced a sense of rootedness in eastern Bengal—especially important as urbanization and migration began to erode traditional social networks. The popularity of gitika during the Swadeshi movement was not accidental: its rural origins, oral authenticity, and accessibility made it ideal for mass mobilization. It allowed cultural leaders and reformers to claim a living tradition as part of Bengal's heritage, distinct from colonial or metropolitan models.^[21]

Furthermore, as Sarkar notes, the deliberate integration of religiously inclusive language and imagery in gitika was part of a strategic cultural politics.^[23] It offered a counter-narrative to rising communal tensions, emphasizing shared values rather than sectarian division. The ballads' portrayal of Hindu-Muslim coexistence—while perhaps idealized—nonetheless provided symbolic resources for imagining pluralism. In that sense, Gitika served as both cultural artifact and aspirational model.

Today, the gitika continues to be studied not just as a literary collection but as a historical lens. Scholars examine how its narratives encode everyday life, gender relations, local cosmologies, and changing norms. Folklorists, literary historians, and gender theorists alike draw on its examples to understand how oral literature both reflects and shapes social consciousness. Though the oral performance culture that gave rise to gitika has largely diminished, its printed form remains an enduring testimony to the voices of common people—especially women—who were long excluded from the formal literary canon.

Globally, the collection helps showcase the richness of Bengali literature. Ali states that it contributes to world literature by showing how rural storytelling traditions shape collective memory.^[28] The collection’s publication also supported the preservation of the Bengali language, which might otherwise be marginalized.^[29] As the first shot, it is worth mentioning that the success of Maimansingha Gitika encouraged the later prosperity of ballad culture. Three more volumes were later published, which included more districts. Fifty-five songs were shown to the public after the fourth volume came out.^[30]

Debates on Authenticity

Zbavitel discusses concerns about whether the ballads are truly traditional.^[31] Some scholars, such as poet Jasimuddin, questioned their authenticity because he could not find similar ballads in the field. Nandagopal Sengupta doubted their age, and Sukumar Sen argued that the texts had been heavily edited.

Zbavitel divides the criticism into three types: (1) those based on the absence of these ballads in contemporary Mymensingh villages; (2) those noting the difference between the ballads’ language and the local dialect; and (3) those focusing on the content—especially the secular tone and romantic plots, which seemed modern.^[32]

In response, Zbavitel suggests that it is not unusual for oral traditions to disappear over time, especially as older performers pass away. Moreover, these ballads required skilled performers and were not everyday village songs. Eyewitnesses such as Azhual Islam and Krishna Goswami confirmed the ballads' existence from personal memory.^[33]

Although the printed versions use a different dialect, this was likely due to editing and limited knowledge of local spelling rules. The collector, Chandrakumar De, and his team worked under constraints, but they aimed to preserve as much of the oral tradition as possible.^[33]

Further complicating the debate is the nature of oral transmission itself. Folk ballads, by their very nature, evolve with each performance. They are not fixed texts but living traditions that adapt to the storyteller's memory, the audience's expectations, and the sociopolitical context. Critics who expect textual consistency may be applying literary standards that do not fit oral genres. Moreover, Zbavitel emphasizes that certain stylistic features—such as repetitive phrasing and thematic patterns—are consistent with other recognized folk traditions, lending additional credibility to the Gitika's authenticity.^[34]

In addition, the very process of collecting, editing, and publishing oral texts inherently involves interpretation. The role of collectors like Chandrakumar De should be seen not simply as archivists but as mediators who shaped the material in ways that suited early 20th-century cultural narratives. While some alteration is likely, this does not discredit the folk origins of the content. Rather, it invites a more nuanced understanding of how oral literature survives and transforms in the face of modernity.^[35]

Overall, the Gitika should be appreciated both for its literary value and as a record of oral storytelling practices, even if some adaptations were made in the publication process.

See also

• Sylhet Gitika
• Bangladeshi folk literature
• Bengali literature
• Kajalrekha (Bengali folk ballad)