The Baars folk ballads of Mian Dido and GuggaNath A Retelling of Dogra History in Folk

Abstract

Folk literature has always been at the fringes of the main stream academic discourse. However, in the recent years there has been an increased understanding of the importance of folk studies, particularly in a country like India that has an eclectic composition.
The ever expanding study of myth, orality and folklore encodes deeper understanding of the world order, including people’s relationships within the social set up, with nature, with metaphysical entities and of the cosmic order. Folklore and community literature suggest the way in which human mind apprehends various relationship with in and outside the social function. Apart from these, the study of orality and community literature sheds light on the creation and evolution in life and also present an alternative to main stream discourse.
Thus in my paper, I attempt to present folk as an alternative discourse to history with particular reference to the legend of Mian Dido and GuggaNath who are celebrated as a hero in the dogri folklore but described as a rebel in the history of Jammu and Kashmir.