Paper Title
Representing Bharat Mata In Popular Hindi Films: A Socio-Historical Study Of Nationalist Politics Of Death

Abstract
Death, which always poses threat to social order with all its uncertainty, can be rationalised teleologically. Historically, Religion has been assigned the role of mitigating the chaotic impact of death by rationalizing it. And if one death is an instance of �bad� death, role of religion has become more essential. With modernity disappears this role of religions and newly emerged scintifico-legal intuitions like state have endeavoured to satiate the rational vacuum created by scientism. In India, during the colonial period the emergence of the image of Mother India or Bharat Mata was a secular attempt to justify the sacrifices of lives of freedom fighters. This article will attempt to analysis the claimed secular nature of Bharat Mata through its illustration from colonial India�s popular culture to its modern day representation in Hindi films. Also, the majoritarian politics of this representation of Bharat Mata as the justifying agent of death would also be analysed to comprehend the constitutional claim of India being a secular nation.