Songs of resistance and identity: The role of Telangana folk songs in political mobilization and cultural memory

This study explores how the Telangana folk songs were used as a launch pad in political agitation, cultural memory, and statehood shaping of identities in the period (1998–2014). It uses ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with performers, and study of lyrics as it tracks the growth of oral tradition that started in rural communities into the interface of digital worlds from mobile media to YouTube. The results reveal how these songs gave expression to marginal voices, how they rallied the grassroots into activism, and how they bridged the continuity of cultural tradition with the latest technology into a voice of rhythm-based resistance. Unlike supplying a background information to the protests, folk songs were used as a part of the active construction of the discourse, symbolism, and consciousness of the movement. Drawing on analytical work at the juncture of folklore, performance, and digital humanities, this scholarship shows the ways regional Indian oral traditions adapt to new media ecologies as part of maintaining political agency. It introduces a paradigm of intersection between storytelling, technology, and grassroots activism, in postcolonial contexts.