SOCIAL unrest, upheavals and even discontent has sought expression
through the various forms of music. Scores of songs emerged around freedom
fighters like Bhagat Singh during the struggle for independence — from Bhojpuri
to Garhwali and Punjabi. Contemporary times have witnessed unprecedented
popularity of Naxalite singers like Gaddar (Gummadi Vittal Rao).
In the classical music tradition, while male artistes were given
jagirs and were addressed as Pandit and Ustad, women musicians were relegated
to the status of baijis, the class of paid entertainers, not the artistes. The
same art that offered men a high pedestal earned social ostracism for women.
Their music was not recorded in the granthavalis, their names did not make to
the pantheon of great classicists.
Then
came technology and it seemed, it will change the rules of the game. It was the
women
 |
| Gauhar Jan is said to have recorded the first 78 rpm disc in 1902.She was never conferred with thetitle of Ustad or Pandit of music. |
But,
music traditions fostered and conserved by women failed to bring them the
recognition they deserved. Tremendous changes have come about in the social
status of women across globe- with socio- political developments in their
respective societies affecting their status. For some strange reason, in India,
a distinct feminist voice never emerged in the contemporary music. Their
creative energies have been used to meet the growing market demand of the
so-called love songs and devotional music. We do not have a single all-female
band worth mention (barring Viva that disbanded), nor an organically grown
music group that would have addressed women’s struggle against oppressive
patriarchal practices like dowry, female foeticide and sexual violence. It is
surprising, while the entire English publishing industry is dominated by women
and there are distinct feminist voices in the contemporary literature of the
Indian sub-continent, music industry has almost no presence of women as
producers.
Women sing only love songs
While
the world taps to the beats of changing identities of the Jats, Dalits, Naxals,
migrant Biharis or the Blacks, even in the highly dynamic music industry, one
rarely gets to hear songs of the women, by the women-- songs of their dilemmas,
aspirations and identity, which has undergone tremendous change over time. A
major reason behind the absence of women’s voice in the Indian music can be
attributed to dominence of film music, which largely caters to traditional
roles women are limited to, as objects of beauty and desire. Their almost
absence from the history of evolution of the Indian music is also attributed to
the lack of documentation and research facilities in cultural studies in our
country.
Surabhi
Sharma, a documentary film maker from FTII( Films and Television Institute of
India), Pune, has documented a few unusual journeys of the migrant people and
communities in “Jahaji Music,” a feature length documentary. Her work is
unique, such extensive research on contemporary music that addresses changes
taking place at several layers — political, social, gender and sexual, is
rarely attempted by a researcher in India.
Surabhi
came across an academic work by Dr Tejaswini Niranjana, a Bangaluru based
academic, on “Gender Identity and Music” in 2007. Niranjana’s work draws on the
nineteenth-century travel narratives — anthropological and historical studies
of Trinidad, Hindi film music, and the lyrics, performances, and reception of
chutney-soca (crossover music) and calypso songs (Afro-Carribean music) of the
migrated population of Trinidad. Under this study academics from the third
world countries, with minimal research funding, tried to collaborate, outside
the university frame to study gender, identity and music in Trinidad and
Jamaica. This dialogue was explorative, it was an effort to understand how and
why music of the migrants changed. The kind of socio-political influences it
absorbed and how the musical grammar respond to these changes.
Politics of rebellion
Remo
Fernandes, a well known Goa-based pop musician, whose music reflects multiple
influences — Goan, Portugese, Sega, Latin, and the music of the erstwhile
European communist states, the dancehalls from Jamaica and Soca from Trinidad,
became the narrator for “Jahaji Music.” As Remo moves around Jamaican dancehall
singers( dancehall is a popular genre of music with reggae, roots and raaga
music), recording interviews with the likes of Carlene Smith and Lady Saw, the
film opens a new dimension of popular music before the viewer-- that women here
articulate and assert their sexuality in the text of the songs and in their
body language through performance, not for the pleasure of men, as is the case
with most Bollywood songs, but to assert their power through their unbridled
sexuality in playful satire, they use to assert their identity.
A
woman’s body in public sphere is not for male gaze in the path-breaking songs
of Carlene Smith, the first dancehall queen. Lady Saw, who rebelled against the
desirability of white women, whom she calls “pussy cat” challenges the white
woman’s status as an object of sexual preference by the bold explicit moves of
the voluptuous body of a black woman. She broke the all-male politics of music
by becoming the first woman DJ, producer and singer. She said, as long as she sang
nice, womanly romantic songs, she was accepted by the music industry, her
raunchy music drew battle lines between genders and races. The control over
music and the cultural sphere had to be reengineered with the politically
volatile music of these artistes who refused to toe the line of nice women’s
soppy songs.
This
highly provocative music evolved as a by-product of rebellion against the
racial governments, the heightened awareness and assertion for racial rights
turned towards assertion of gender equality in music.
Music
of political angst by male groups like, Desperados, Wippa Demus, Jalani Niaah,
Sizzla Kalonji, Mighty Sparrow etc. gained popularity for their aggressive tone
opposing oppression of the blacks. Their music of rebellion was used by political
parties to their advantage, leading to assassination of a few musicians.
There was memory
Descendants
of indentured labourers brought from India to the Caribbean between 1845 and
1917, on boats, brought a few belongings and their music with them. The memory
of this music, retained through generations, launched the beginnings of a
remarkable cultural practice among migrant Indians in Trinidad. For over forty
percent of Trinidadians, who identify themselves as Indians, “Indianness” as
conceived of and performed has historically been, and will remain, intimately
related with what signifies nationalism, gender, culture, caste, race, and
religion—in India. The folk songs they carried in memory created a new industry
of chutney music in Trinidad, which offers an interesting insight into the
status of women. The migrant women were supposed to live up to the values and
rituals of the nineteenth century India, they had left behind, as opposed to
their male counterparts. As custodians of Indian traditions, women were
relegated to living in the past. It was through songs of a few rebellious
female singers who exhorted women to get rid of sarees and chunnis, symbols of
their slavery, the music and songs began to change. These songs rubbished
double standards of the Indian male by giving a playful twist to the text of
the songs. With this emerged Trinidad’s most dynamic site of cultural
negotiation, its popular music chutney soca, a fusion of the Indian folk and
Caribbean music, as also calypso music. Here again, the rebellion of the women
is a carry over from their angst against the exploitation they suffered from
the hands of the sugar planters they laboured for.
Songs of identity
In
another documentary by Surabhi titled “Bidesia in Bambai”(both films were
screened at Jodhpur RIFF-2013) – migration is the predominant theme, and the
phone becomes a recurring motif of migrant identity. Mobile phones are the only
way to stay connected with the mothers and wives back home in the village for
the migrant, and it is also used to circulate the music. From the songs of the
migrants in Bombay, now called Mumbai, Surabhi moves on to explore the
production and marketing of the migrant’s Bhojpuri music in Mumbai. If the
indentured labourers from India had taken their music in their memory to
Trinidad, the Bhojpuri migrant carries his music in his mobilephone. His
ringtone defines his Bhojpuri identity.
“Bidesia
in Bambai” follows two singers in Mumbai, who occupy extreme ends of the
migrant worker’s vibrant music scene — a taxi-driver chasing his first record
deal and Kalpana Patowary, the star of the Bhoupuri music industry. Most
migrants in the maximum city inhabit the precarious edges, they live on the
margins. Along with their meagre belongings, the impoverished migrants bring a
vibrant musical culture that lends distinct identity to them in a hostile
environment where the unmistakable political tone of Marathi hegemony often
becomes counterproductive.
“Bhojpuri
pop music has become a political tool of identity building in Mumbai,
performances are built up to give a public face to the nameless migrant,” says
Surabhi. Their music is produced, circulated and performed in the crumbling
sites. The migrant is both the subject of, and the audience for this music. The
musical landscape he inhabits mobilises notions of masculinity, gives a footing
to his identity, makes tangible his desire for a place in the city and evokes
his longing for home. The folk tradition reinvents itself to suit modern tools
of technology — the mobilephone, by modifying its tone and tenor to meet the
needs of migrant’s identity in a new location.
Carried in the memory, recorded for gramophone or, ringing in
mobilephone, music continues to create distinct identities in a global village.
And a village it remains. A migrant tells the interviewer, there is hardly any
power in the areas he inhabits in Mumbai, making it hard for him to recharge
his mobilephone.
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