20 Mahesh Rangarajan On the cause of concern sitting upon our strong democratic foundations 24 Mudras of a Nation Decoding India’s many dances as national sub-projects 34 Navtej Johar What we lost when dance cultures were sanitised for the new nation 36 Shubha Mudgal All the noise around folk music and what it will take to save it 40 Ira Bhaskar Early Indian cinema imagined a brave new India, then things changed 44 Narayani Gupta How India’s archaeological past was curated in the light of the new nation 50 Rta Kapur Chisti Ritu Kumar Threads of a nation, and the sari 54 Tapati Guha Thakurta A past painted for the future. Art as the formative nationbuilding frontier.