No doubt every society requires a cultural mechanism through which social and political conflicts are analyzed, and it is in this sense that the popular drama assumed a political dimension in India during the oppressive colonial rule. With a special focus on Hindi playwright Bhartendu Harishchandra's plays, the present paper attempts to trace the role Hindi theatre played in the emergence of a national consciousness, as well as the influence that an emerging national consciousness had on the evolution of national theatre. It was with the motive of awakening the public consciousness that Bhartendu brilliantly exposed the pathetic condition of the country in Kafka's well known quote: “Every book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us”, provides the theoretical stimulus to my paper. How the sensitive soul of a literary artist responded to the vibrations in the political and social horizon? How Bhartendu attempted to break 'the mind-forged manacles' with the theatre of the masses? How he succeeded in making the stage a pulpit to educate the masses? What made this acknowledged social reformer to mobilize the masses with allegorical plays? These are the underlying questions which propel the present paper. My humble endeavor is to address these issues in the light of Bhartendu's well-known plays, 'Bharat Durdasha' and 'Andhernagari Chaupat Raja'