Virahi -Masculinity and the (Dis)Contents in Nation-Making: Devdas in Early Twentieth Century India

The article unravels the interplay of viraha, masculinity and early twentieth century nationhood in India through Saratchandra’s Devdas (1917) and Pramathesh Barua’s Hindi Devdas (1936). The representations of male desire, situated in the liminal space of personal and political, foster the close, historicised readings of the texts. This provides the scope to examine the multifarious impingements of nationhood, often India’s pro-Hindu nation-making, in the formation and stylisation of viraha and virahi. The Hindu familial space, the vaishanava and the Islamicate registers of viraha and the virahi’s alcoholism are key points of inquiry in this study on Devdas. The spectre(s) of death in both novel and film also entail critical inquiry. As such, a heterogeneous framework of cultural and social histories helps construe the impact of this long-loved, long-yearning hero on the critical idiom of viraha and nation-making, or, rather, virahi (man-in-yearning), in the project of early twentieth century Indian nationhood.