This chapter establishes the significance of arts patronage in early to mid-nineteenth-century pr... more This chapter establishes the significance of arts patronage in early to mid-nineteenth-century precolonial Punjab, especially focused on the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1799–1839). It provides evidence for the flourishing patronage of the performing arts under Ranjit Singh, with musicians and dancers being an affluent and influential class at the Lahore darbār. Second, it establishes the political centrality of specifically female dancers in the ritual infrastructure Ranjit Singh assembled, as part of political negotiations with the British particularly, and with European visitors more generally. A special focus is on Ranjit Singh’s corps of ‘Amazons’: female dancers dressed as men, performing martial feats, the cynosure of all eyes (especially male and European) and their significance in representing the martial glory of the Sikh state. The chapter reveals how musicians and female performers lay at the interstices of the Indo-European encounter in general, and Anglo-Sikh int...
Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Hary... more Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Haryana (Shimla and Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study and Primus Books, 2018); 453 pp. ₹1,295. ISBN: 978-93-86552-98-3.
This essay offers an introduction to a special section on ecology and performance in South Asia. ... more This essay offers an introduction to a special section on ecology and performance in South Asia. Aiming at 'green' studies of music and performance, this collection explores intersections between ethnography, history, eco-and ethnomusicology, and film and performance studies by paying particular attention to the ecological turn more broadly visible in South Asian studies. The papers address varied ecological settings of South Asian music and performance, from riverscapes to coastal communities, and from the locations of instrument-makers to negotiations of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The novelty of the section lies not just in mapping the dialogism between ecology and music through reflections on liminality, gender, resistance and identity, but also in bringing forth new archival strategies (digitisation and digital cultures) in conversation with ethnographic findings.
Music is often invoked as the “glue” that unites people like little else, perennial symbol of a c... more Music is often invoked as the “glue” that unites people like little else, perennial symbol of a composite culture disrupted by the rupture of Partition. Such a simplistic perspective, however, rides roughshod over the complex trajectories musicians’ lives took post-1947. While we know of the broader shifts in the twentieth-century musical landscape of South Asia, we lack a comprehensive account of the repercussions of this cataclysm on the quotidian lives of the subcontinent’s musicians. We have to rely instead on superficial celebrations of music as a means of building unity and on assumptions about what came before Partition. However, if we closely examine the life stories and views of a handful of musicians, we find that examples of ‘Punjabiyat’ accompany instances of prejudice. The relationship of musicians to Partition and to religious difference is complex and at times contradictory, eluding simple characterisations. In this paper, I wish to examine, in preliminary terms, the impact of India’s Partition on practitioners of Hindustani classical music belonging to the region of Punjab. How did Punjabi musicians view the 1947 borders through time, and how have they worked to negotiate these boundaries? I explore the views of a handful of musicians like Pt. Ramakant Sharma (Jalandhar), and the late Md. Hafeez Khan Talwandiwale (Lahore), based on ethnographies conducted in Pakistani and Indian Punjab (Basra 1996, Kapuria 2012). While casteist views (with a longer genealogy going back to the nineteenth century) on the mirasis (Punjab’s hereditary caste of musician-genealogist bards), ironically serve to unite musicians across the border, other, communally hostile inflections reveal Partition’s divisive impact. Second, how have musicians relentlessly traversed one of the most militarised borders in the world? Through a case study of some prominent Punjabi musicians, e.g. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Iqbal Bano, among others, I demonstrate how processes of musical tutelage and pedagogy, as well as the more mundane reasons of kinship, have worked to consistently subvert, since at least the 1950s, the ‘hard’ borders engendered by Partition. I argue for a curious ‘double nostalgia’ in the case of Punjab’s musicians, and resituate them as historical agents, functioning in diverse contexts. I thus critique their easy romanticisation as carriers of a ‘syncretic’ phenomenon that defies analysis.
Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Hary... more Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Haryana. Delhi: Primus Books, 2018, 453 pp., ₹1,295. ISBN: 978-93-86552-98-3.
This article discusses the post-Independence trajectory of North India’s oldest extant classical ... more This article discusses the post-Independence trajectory of North India’s oldest extant classical music festival. Processes of modernisation and nationalisation transformed the Harballabh festival into a professionally organised concert, with little resemblance to the fair or ‘Rāg Melā’ it used to be. I demonstrate the tension between the ‘modernisation’ begun by Ashwini Kumar post-1948 and a subtle though unmistakable ‘Hinduisation’ championed by other middle-class organisers. Kumar’s attempts during the 1950s and 1960s to shape a new, disciplined audience, schooled in practices of rapt listening, were also in direct contrast to conceptions about ‘restive’ and rustic Punjabi audiences. The article raises larger questions about the cultural politics of music performance in postcolonial India by focusing on the shifting character of middle-class cultural patronage, the tussle between traditional and modern formats of music festival organisation and the complicated division of public s...
This article focuses on performing artists at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1801–39), th... more This article focuses on performing artists at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1801–39), the last fully sovereign ruler of the Punjab and leader of what is termed the Sikh empire. After Ranjit's death, his successors ruled for a mere decade before British annexation in 1849. Ranjit Singh's kingdom has been studied for the extraordinary authority it exercised over warring Sikh factions and for the strong challenge it posed to political rivals like the British. Scholarly exploration of cultural efflorescence at the Lahore court has ignored the role of performing artistes, despite a preponderance of references to them in both Persian chronicles of the Lahore court and in European travelogues of the time. I demonstrate how Ranjit Singh was partial to musicians and dancers as a class, even marrying two Muslim courtesans in the face of stiff Sikh orthodoxy. A particular focus is on Ranjit's corps of ‘Amazons’—female dancers performing martial feats dressed as men—the cyn...
Music is often invoked as the 'glue' that unites people, acting as a perennial symbol of ... more Music is often invoked as the 'glue' that unites people, acting as a perennial symbol of a historically composite culture disrupted by the rupture of Partition. This view posits a kind of pluralistic and decentered South Asian 'musical citizenship' that counters the narrow, antagonistic and populist definition of citizenship tied exclusively to either India or Pakistan. We cannot easily transpose such views of cultural citizenship back into time as it leads to a gravely presentist reading of our musical pasts, and rides roughshod over the complex trajectories musicians' lives took post-1947. Google Books Link: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hdFBDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Susmita Roye (Ed), Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib (Edmonton: U... more Susmita Roye (Ed), Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2017), xxvi + 224 pp.
This chapter establishes the significance of arts patronage in early to mid-nineteenth-century pr... more This chapter establishes the significance of arts patronage in early to mid-nineteenth-century precolonial Punjab, especially focused on the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1799–1839). It provides evidence for the flourishing patronage of the performing arts under Ranjit Singh, with musicians and dancers being an affluent and influential class at the Lahore darbār. Second, it establishes the political centrality of specifically female dancers in the ritual infrastructure Ranjit Singh assembled, as part of political negotiations with the British particularly, and with European visitors more generally. A special focus is on Ranjit Singh’s corps of ‘Amazons’: female dancers dressed as men, performing martial feats, the cynosure of all eyes (especially male and European) and their significance in representing the martial glory of the Sikh state. The chapter reveals how musicians and female performers lay at the interstices of the Indo-European encounter in general, and Anglo-Sikh int...
Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Hary... more Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Haryana (Shimla and Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study and Primus Books, 2018); 453 pp. ₹1,295. ISBN: 978-93-86552-98-3.
This essay offers an introduction to a special section on ecology and performance in South Asia. ... more This essay offers an introduction to a special section on ecology and performance in South Asia. Aiming at 'green' studies of music and performance, this collection explores intersections between ethnography, history, eco-and ethnomusicology, and film and performance studies by paying particular attention to the ecological turn more broadly visible in South Asian studies. The papers address varied ecological settings of South Asian music and performance, from riverscapes to coastal communities, and from the locations of instrument-makers to negotiations of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The novelty of the section lies not just in mapping the dialogism between ecology and music through reflections on liminality, gender, resistance and identity, but also in bringing forth new archival strategies (digitisation and digital cultures) in conversation with ethnographic findings.
Music is often invoked as the “glue” that unites people like little else, perennial symbol of a c... more Music is often invoked as the “glue” that unites people like little else, perennial symbol of a composite culture disrupted by the rupture of Partition. Such a simplistic perspective, however, rides roughshod over the complex trajectories musicians’ lives took post-1947. While we know of the broader shifts in the twentieth-century musical landscape of South Asia, we lack a comprehensive account of the repercussions of this cataclysm on the quotidian lives of the subcontinent’s musicians. We have to rely instead on superficial celebrations of music as a means of building unity and on assumptions about what came before Partition. However, if we closely examine the life stories and views of a handful of musicians, we find that examples of ‘Punjabiyat’ accompany instances of prejudice. The relationship of musicians to Partition and to religious difference is complex and at times contradictory, eluding simple characterisations. In this paper, I wish to examine, in preliminary terms, the impact of India’s Partition on practitioners of Hindustani classical music belonging to the region of Punjab. How did Punjabi musicians view the 1947 borders through time, and how have they worked to negotiate these boundaries? I explore the views of a handful of musicians like Pt. Ramakant Sharma (Jalandhar), and the late Md. Hafeez Khan Talwandiwale (Lahore), based on ethnographies conducted in Pakistani and Indian Punjab (Basra 1996, Kapuria 2012). While casteist views (with a longer genealogy going back to the nineteenth century) on the mirasis (Punjab’s hereditary caste of musician-genealogist bards), ironically serve to unite musicians across the border, other, communally hostile inflections reveal Partition’s divisive impact. Second, how have musicians relentlessly traversed one of the most militarised borders in the world? Through a case study of some prominent Punjabi musicians, e.g. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Iqbal Bano, among others, I demonstrate how processes of musical tutelage and pedagogy, as well as the more mundane reasons of kinship, have worked to consistently subvert, since at least the 1950s, the ‘hard’ borders engendered by Partition. I argue for a curious ‘double nostalgia’ in the case of Punjab’s musicians, and resituate them as historical agents, functioning in diverse contexts. I thus critique their easy romanticisation as carriers of a ‘syncretic’ phenomenon that defies analysis.
Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Hary... more Yogesh Snehi and Lallan S. Baghel (Eds.), Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Haryana. Delhi: Primus Books, 2018, 453 pp., ₹1,295. ISBN: 978-93-86552-98-3.
This article discusses the post-Independence trajectory of North India’s oldest extant classical ... more This article discusses the post-Independence trajectory of North India’s oldest extant classical music festival. Processes of modernisation and nationalisation transformed the Harballabh festival into a professionally organised concert, with little resemblance to the fair or ‘Rāg Melā’ it used to be. I demonstrate the tension between the ‘modernisation’ begun by Ashwini Kumar post-1948 and a subtle though unmistakable ‘Hinduisation’ championed by other middle-class organisers. Kumar’s attempts during the 1950s and 1960s to shape a new, disciplined audience, schooled in practices of rapt listening, were also in direct contrast to conceptions about ‘restive’ and rustic Punjabi audiences. The article raises larger questions about the cultural politics of music performance in postcolonial India by focusing on the shifting character of middle-class cultural patronage, the tussle between traditional and modern formats of music festival organisation and the complicated division of public s...
This article focuses on performing artists at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1801–39), th... more This article focuses on performing artists at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1801–39), the last fully sovereign ruler of the Punjab and leader of what is termed the Sikh empire. After Ranjit's death, his successors ruled for a mere decade before British annexation in 1849. Ranjit Singh's kingdom has been studied for the extraordinary authority it exercised over warring Sikh factions and for the strong challenge it posed to political rivals like the British. Scholarly exploration of cultural efflorescence at the Lahore court has ignored the role of performing artistes, despite a preponderance of references to them in both Persian chronicles of the Lahore court and in European travelogues of the time. I demonstrate how Ranjit Singh was partial to musicians and dancers as a class, even marrying two Muslim courtesans in the face of stiff Sikh orthodoxy. A particular focus is on Ranjit's corps of ‘Amazons’—female dancers performing martial feats dressed as men—the cyn...
Music is often invoked as the 'glue' that unites people, acting as a perennial symbol of ... more Music is often invoked as the 'glue' that unites people, acting as a perennial symbol of a historically composite culture disrupted by the rupture of Partition. This view posits a kind of pluralistic and decentered South Asian 'musical citizenship' that counters the narrow, antagonistic and populist definition of citizenship tied exclusively to either India or Pakistan. We cannot easily transpose such views of cultural citizenship back into time as it leads to a gravely presentist reading of our musical pasts, and rides roughshod over the complex trajectories musicians' lives took post-1947. Google Books Link: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hdFBDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Susmita Roye (Ed), Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib (Edmonton: U... more Susmita Roye (Ed), Flora Annie Steel: A Critical Study of an Unconventional Memsahib (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2017), xxvi + 224 pp.
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