As the deep sonorous saxophone like voice of Piran Khan resonates aj kal bhural maand vasa (oh brown cloud bless our region with rain and life) the noble qalam of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, the great desert Sufi mystic floats the star studded serene moonscape amidst the desert wilderness of Dodha an interior settlement in IGNP Stage II, Bikaner. Others enthusiastically join him in a chorus. These self effacing invocations to the rain gods have been of no avail this time. The bearers of lilting rajasthani folk music traditions, whose performances always promise ecstatic feelings of joy, mystical heights, are soothing, gratifying to the heart and soul alike, face the threat of a creeping drought. This drought is the third worst in twenty eight years, out of which twenty six were drought years anyway.
The IGNP is among the biggest irrigation schemes in the world, having fed on loans from the World Bank, the Japanese and the government of India. It was conceived as a project with multiple objectives of ‘greening’ and ‘settling’ the desert. Hailed as the ‘kingpin’ of state planning for developing the desert, it started in 1960s and till now around Rs 7,139-crore have already been spent on it. The 445 km long-lined main canal running parallel to the Indo-Pak border, with nine branches, seven lift schemes and 21 direct distributaries, apart from 8,187 km of minor canal network, have inscribed a new hydraulic spectacle traversing the sandy plains and sand dunes. According to official reports, more than 9.5 lack hectares of area have been opened for irrigation. The IGNP is meant to provide drinking water to 3,461 villages and 29 towns in nine districts of western Rajasthan. So far so good.
Compare these impressive statistics to the grim and peculiar water woes of the canal command area in IGNP Stage II. Till the first week of August the farmers got sufficient water and went ahead with sowing. The crisis started around the 10th august when the water levels in the Masitawali head dipped to only 3700 cusecs as against the promised water of 5300 cusecs. On 24th August the water estimates at Masitawali Head were not even one third of what was to be expected in a normal year. The Bhakra reservoir and the Pong reservoir that feed the IGNP system were filled to not even half of what they would have been. The water deficient standing crops have aggravated the anxiety of the farmers especially in the IGNP Stage II after 682 RD. Finally as August was ending the Chief Engineer of IGNP canal makes a press release that there is no water for irrigation. The agriculture experts eruditely advice on using the stunted crop as green fodder only. That water, let out only once in a fortnight, is to be only used for drinking is enforceable by law and monitored by police. Declaration of drought in the IGNP canal areas has questioned the pompous assumption, originating in the colonial times, about the role of the perennial irrigation schemes in liberating regions and communities from 'drought'. Still to keep the lure of water intensive agriculture alive, the canal authorities are thinking of constructing only cemented ponds and covering water channels as one of the hot favorites in the menu of drought relief, be it from NREGA or otherwise.
Finally, let us come to the crux of the matter, the string that holds together all the pieces that is, politics and control over water. Everything that happens on the region stretching from river valleys of Punjab to the snowlines of Himalayas to the rain-shadow area and the extreme arid western zone of Rajasthan is related to a specific spread and distribution of water. It is more with regard to this resource rather than land that makes the difference between the nature of real capitalist intervention and those undertaken only in the previous historical epochs.
Punjab, Himachal Pardesh , Rajasthan and Haryana in their eagerness to become development model states each guard their shares of waters and keep making contesting claims over their rightful shares or compensations. The chaos that reigns over this political economy of water is indeed an opportunity for the rich and powerful kulaks, the trans- regional companies to flourish.
As capitalism further takes over managing the scarcities in terms of commodity values, what is referred to as ‘Conquest of Water’ (J Goubert) will remain a recurring them nightmare shaking human societies to their roots.
Clouds played truant practically the whole summers making the weather hot and the typical humidity of Ahmedabad had been quite strenuous to body and soul alike. In the last week of July, the rain gods decided to be benign, to let the soul recover from the exhausting heat and gratify itself in the last showers of the waning monsoons. The dramatic overcast sky, and the fragrance of wet earth announced the coming of Mirs from Pugal, musicians of ecstasy coming from remote settlement in the interiors of Thar desert.
While we were coming from the Subhas Crossing bus stand to NID the sagacious Nazre Khan was telling how good they feel when people living in such big places want to listen to them. It is very green here compared to our place where everywhere you see it is only sand, he exclaimed with joy seeing the thick tree cover on both sides of the Ashram road. As Pratap bhai’s auto rickshaw glided past a spread of green patch near the Sabarmati river, he was wondering whether Allah lived here amidst bounty or in his harsh and barren desert.
Practicalities of checking in the hotel took over this scholastic brooding about the existence of God. And soon we were sitting in a room, ready to talk. Nazre Khan, Waris Ali, Naju Khan, Abdul Jabbar and Shah Nawaj all were thrilled and eager to perform. The bus ride of fourteen hours didn’t seem to have dampened their spirit to the least. Their rehearsals of aaj kal bhural maand vasa (oh brown cloud, bless us with rain and life to the region), were punctuated by anxious phone calls for inquiring about rains, as the specter of drought loomed large in the backdrop. They were passionate musicians, living embodiments of the qalam by Khwaja Ghulam Farid, the great desert Sufi mystic, which vividly describe different tribulations and sufferings of the harsh and blazing hot desert.
Waris ali and Abdul Jabbar sang “aye mast diyade sawan de, sawn de manbhavan de”…in perfect coordination. Their voices, the high and low pitches, seamlessly merged into each to produce a sonic aura that was really motivating for all. In this qalam Khwaja Ghulam farid describes the innate beauty of the transformation of the otherwise barren desert into an oasis. Shah Nawaz did well to accompany them on the tabla.
The performance was in the cozy setting of the Old Canteen. Nazre Khan with his regal been started off. He was accompanied by Naju Khan on the majestic dhol.
The Mirs enthralled the audience for around one and a half hours with their soul stirring renditions. Apart from the compositions of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, they sang soul stirring renditions from the qalam of Amir Khusro, Waris Shah, Bulleh Shah.
The programme ended amidst the sound of dhol and been and collective dancing where some of the enthusiatic audience participated. The harbingers of ecstasy left for their rustic sandy desert the next evening.
A cavernous layer of looming drought reveals itself when we left the Bikaner city on 29 August towards the interior most areas of the IGNP canal Stage II in Bikaner district. The sublime yet brittle formations of clouds, fast tricking news about erratic rains sets the stage for prognostications about times to come. After crossing the main canal at 682 RD near Pugal, you enter what would perhaps qualify as one of the worst patches of human settlement, deficient in water and endowed with very poor sandy soils. The canal network dried up, clogged with sand, buried underneath it as if it had never existed before, speak of the triumph of the pre canal geography of vast chain of imposing sand dunes. Human intervention with all its grand pretentious design of remodelling and greening the desert seems so trivial and grossly misplaced.
The signs of erratic rains could be seen vividly inscribed on the face of the desert. Different hues of sand, the dramatic play of the bright sun illuminating the moist grainy patches on the otherwise dry surfaces of the dunes strike the eye. Saplings struggling to survive, stunted growth of crops, abandoned fields, dried up ponds are telling signs of a period of prolonged scarcity and a winter of misery that is in the offing.
Every year during these months in the Thar the unfolding of daily events becomes dramatic in the otherwise monotonous routines of the desert. Cloud gazing becomes the obsessive and impulsive engagement of all, men, women and children alike. Everyone watches with keen interest white tufts of clouds, floating in the vast blue sky whose imposing horizons merge with the sea of sand. In no time the sun gets stronger and the sand is blazing hot. Slowly the tufts congregate, and the formations assume a faint hue of brown that darkens over time. Evening sets in, and the harsh sunlight mellows down into cool soothing light.
At Naju khan’s dhani in Bijeri in Kolayat tehsil of the Bikaner district as we sat in the moon lit night watching keenly the dramatic play of clouds, dark brown with life giving water, approach us with the regal light and sound show of lightning with sharp streaks of silver surrounded by an orange glow, wind took the clouds to a different side. Dinu Khan with his head up in the sky exclaimed with despair, it would not rain here somewhere else, may be in Bikaner’. Rains have slipped us again…
When clouds play truant, they are telling signs of another story…of anguish, collective despair. The marusthali dotted with sandy deserts and marshes, has been a stalking ground of droughts and famines. Naju Khan sang the couplet about the omnipresent expanse and presence of drought in the Thar:
Stomach in Bikaner, a frequent visitor to Jodhpur,
permanently resides in Jaisalmer.
In the new folklore invented by the pseudo-agrarian context of the IGNP canal command area the specter of drought had metamorphosed into a demon with expanded evil powers, of corruption and profit maximization and the rapacious greed of monster devours everything. Laxman Singh Soda from Bandhali tells how the brick kilns and the gypsum mines guzzle up hundreds of quintal of fodder that is the lifeline of cattle. Prices have doubled from 1500 rupees for a thousand bricks now you have to pay 3000 rupees for the same number. Gemi bai from 2BM said in her characteristic robust voice, ‘there is no firewood left, first the canal area took all the trees, and now all the phog and other bushes have also disappeared’. More and more people want brick houses. Bricks are in great demand everywhere, even in the state sponsored schemes like NREGA, where the Sarpanchs in the area have taken a special fascination for brick laden tracks and roads.
Why are you fighting among each other?, so a stock phrase would catch a typical morning scene in a canal area settlement in Stage II. Come closer they all tell you that they are bothered about job cards and how would they be included in the muster rolls, that are soon to be opened by the govt. Jodh Singh and Binjarsingh, two elders who can barely see are also in the fray for job cards. Finding means to fight hunger and destitution is everybody’s preoccupation.
These speculative gestures slowly engulf the daily routines in a context when the bazaar of manipulations heat up, nefarious deals that transact survival get struck. Let us make the job cards, some people are still left there must be a reason why you guys got left out, declared Guman Singh Soda in his sobering and rational voice. Talking about Bandhali and the adjoining villages of Bhaluri, Dandkalan, Bijeri, he stresses on the need for checking the whole process of issuing job cards. Many people have not got it…and on the other hand there are others who have as many as three to four job cards.
To ensure that every needy person is included in the list whether of job cards or muster rolls certainly is a daunting task as the structures of nepotism, corruption and profit maximization are deeply rooted in the very substratum of Thar. We could only wish good luck to the cyber accuracy of the UIN (Unique Identification Number) championed by the Infosys computer wizard N. Nilekanti.
There is little doubt that failure of monsoons has its role to play in precipitating 'drought', but changes in the government policies and availability of livelihood opportunities for rural communities play an important role in exacerbating its impact. Gorakh Singh of 3 GM explains how a majority of those who have worked in NREGA have not got their payments for over three months. The job card is a time pass, it makes us creditworthy, the village bania gives us credit easily, says Adu ram of Bhaluri, where many have not got paid for more than four months. In the name of providing people with employment what the state is finally giving them is an option of state sponsored indebtedness.
The IGNP canal command area has its own peculiar water woes. Till the first week of August the farmers got sufficient water and went ahead with sowing. The crisis started around the 10th august when the water levels in the Masitawali head dipped to only 3700 cusecs as against the promised water of 5300 cusecs. On 24th August the water estimates at Masitawali Head were not even one third of what was to be expected in a normal year. The Bhakra reservoir and the Pong reservoir that feed the IGNP system were filled to not even half of what they would have been. The water deficient standing crops have aggravated the anxiety of the farmers especially in the IGNP Stage II after 682 RD. Finally as August was ending the Chief Engineer of IGNP canal makes a press release that there is no water for irrigation. The agriculture experts eruditely advice on using the stunted crop as green fodder only. That water, let out only once in a fortnight, is to be only used for drinking is enforceable by law and monitored by police. Declaration of drought in the IGNP canal areas has questioned the pompous assumption, originating in the colonial times, about the role of the perennial irrigation schemes in liberating regions and communities from 'drought'. Still to keep the lure of water intensive agriculture alive, the canal authorities are thinking of constructing only cemented ponds and covering water channels as one of the hot favorites in the menu of drought relief, be it from NREGA or otherwise.
For most of the villagers, the spectacle of foretelling drought finally culminates in the state asking for assistance from the Central Calamity relief Fund a fat sum of money, a whooping figure of around 12691 crore rupees . It invokes emotional statistical display to justify its demand- third worst scarcity in twenty eight years, out of which twenty six were drought years anyway, hundred percent drought in almost all the villages. On 3rd September the team from the GoI visited the Bikaner district and assesses the damage drought has wreaked. The press release by the Divisional Commissioner stated that in Bikaner and Churu districts, almost all villages face scarcity. The state declared that it would have no option but to open drought relief works from October to March next year. This completes the chain of events that is repeated every year with its own share of farces and tragedies. The final salvo to inaugurate the infamous and manipulative politics of drought relief has been fired.
These events of state response are part of a ritual that rehearses itself everywhere with remarkable duplicity bringing in occasions for ‘profit maximization’ (associated with corruption, hoarding, wage exploitation etc.) by the well- entrenched nexus of rural elites-contractors-bureaucrats and politicians. Surely an exorbitant price for averting starvation deaths by piecemeal employment generation works and distribution of sub standard, rotting food grains in the land of parched earth and dried water sources.
Drought, especially the widespread and lasting destitution it causes, has to do with long term processes triggered by changing development policies; nature of the State and the forces of the market especially after the economic liberalization influenced by globalization. May be it is this drought of the mind, of perspectives, that is a permanent, solidified veil, a lethal and heady mix of anti poor policies that sanction a rapacious plunder of fragile ecology and human dignity, that needs to prefigured instead of simply getting befuddled by cloud gazing and hoodwinked by the piecemeal responses of the state.
For seeing a version of this article in HARDNEWS, October 2009, click
The signs of deficient and erratic rains could be seen vividly inscribed on the face of the desert. Different hues of sand, the dramatic play of the bright sun illuminating the moist grainy patches on the otherwise dry surfaces of the dunes strike the eye. Saplings struggling to survive, stunted growth of crops, abandoned fields, dried up ponds are telling signs of a period of prolonged scarcity and a winter of misery that is in the offing.
For most of the villagers, the process of assessment of drought finally culminates in the state asking for assistance from the Central Calamity relief Fund a fat sum of money, a whooping figure of around 12691 crore rupees for responding to drought in 26 of the 32 districts of the state. The narrative about destitution and misery is cemented with impressive display of statistical evidence garnered during the visits of different teams of experts during drought assessment. What is developing is being already termed as the third worst scarcity in twenty eight years, out of which twenty six were drought years anyway. In districts of Barmer, Jasialmer, Bikaner, Churu there is almost hundred percent drought in most villages. On 3rd September the team from the GoI visited the Bikaner district and assesses the damage drought has wreaked. The press release by the Divisional Commissioner stated that in Bikaner and Churu districts, almost all villages face scarcity. The Commissioner further informed that more than six thousand families have already been earmarked as those needing assistance in Churu district. The state declared that it would have no option but to open drought relief works from October to March next year. This completes the chain of events that is repeated every year with its own share of farces and tragedies. The final salvo to inaugurate the infamous and manipulative politics of drought relief has been fired.
Apart from the criteria used by the state to assess and declare ‘drought’, there are many other indicators that are useful for measuring the impact of long -term processes as well as the short- term precipitating factors leading to a ‘drought’. Even after five decades of development planning, that has seen many area- specific (like the DPAP & DDP) as well target group specific (like the IRDP) development schemes the assessment process still takes into account ‘drought’ as a natural disaster. The drought assessment process mainly relies on the measuring the extent of ‘rainfall failures’ & ‘crop losses’.
There is a need to broaden the assessment processes for ascertaining ‘drought’ in western Rajasthan. We propose the need to develop a ‘vulnerability’ index for assessing the long- term processes at work in the different regions in the Thar. Apart from factoring macro variables of well being, the vulnerability index has to be firmly rooted in regional contexts, as impact of droughts is highly variable in different micro regions. Then there has to a segregation of local data along different communities factoring their historical role in facing droughts in Thar.
In the making of the vulnerability index the following two processes are very critical:
• Inclusion of new criteria to cover many communities left out by the current assessment process like the pastoralists, migrating workers, cultural workers like craftspeople, musicians, etc.
• Take into account the long-term processes that enhance vulnerability to ‘drought’ not only of a region but also of different communities.
Photo: Village Bandhali, Kolayat tehsil, 1994, Bikaner
Combating Drought for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
Barmer region is richly endowed with exquisite cultural traditions be it textiles, woodwork, or folk music. These are famous both nationally and globally. Folk musicians from Barmer and Jaisalmer have proudly represented Government India in many august cultural performances in India as well as abroad. And textile traditions of Barmer are some of the finest folk culture traditions of India.
It is quite paradoxical that musicians known nationally and globally for their ecstatic renditions, enticing overtures and robust dissemination of secular culture are languishing away in destitution.
There are around 35000 families of artisans, ten thousand weavers and around as many folk musician families in Barmer and Jaisalmer districts. A majority of them continue to dwell in rudimentary habitations and have poor access to basic needs of habitat, education, health and social security for the old and destitute among them. Most of these communities occupy the lower rungs of the society and have long survived as fringe groups, stigmatized, subordinated and discriminated against in access to natural resources.
There are hardly any govt. policies or schemes that deal with developing collective initiative around the promoting entrepreneurial growth among these marginal practitioners of culture. The pervasive economic recession has badly hit the trade in handicrafts and opportunities of folk singers for performances outside.
As the specter of an extended period of heightened scarcity haunts the region they would have no option but to try and access drought relief work that involves digging earth, uprooting bushes, etc that does not build upon their existing skills. This has been the stock emergency drought relief response of the state year after year.
NREGA is an opportunity for creating sustainable rural livelihoods through rejuvenation of productive capabilities of rural people. And many of these capabilities lie in the robust folk cultural traditions of people. These communities need opportunities to graduate from mere wage employment to sustainable rural livelihoods and hence realizing right to dignified work and reduction of vulnerabilities.
We humbly request the GoI to consider the following options for these bearers of the intangible cultural heritage of the Thar:
·Provision of at 200 days of work in a year for weavers and other craftspeople in sustainable livelihood generation interventions that support the primary producers in developing backward and forward linkages.
·Provision of recreation and awareness programmes by folk musicians on drought relief work sites and public places.
·Recognition of folk music skills as viable for developing sustainable livelihoods and provide trainings to young artists in singing, making and playing instruments, etc.
·Opportunities to folk musicians for live performances in cities and metros of India.
Text of the Memorandum Submitted by Society to Uplift Rural economy (SURE) & Marudhar Lok Kala Kendra (MLKK) to Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India on 29th August 2009 during his visit to Barmer to inaugurate Cairn India’s Mangala oil fields in Rajasthan,
For more on work with folk musicians of Barmer, please click
The audio cassette Jogi Jadugar, is part of an ongoing initiative to reinvigorate the tradition of Sufi music of the Mirs of Pugal region in the north western interiors of the Bikaner district, located close to the international border between India and Pakistan.
These compositions belong to Baba Bulleh Shah (1680-1758) and Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1841-1901), two prominent Sufi mystics of north- west India. The theme is divine love – Ishqi Haqiqui. However the path to divine love lies through human love –Ishqi Mijazi - in all its phases and manifestations – the joy of falling in love, the defiance to fierce often murderous social and religious taboos, the yearning for the absent beloved, the pain of separation and waiting , the longing for union, the ecstasy of sighting the beloved, praise of the beauty of the beloved, complaints against an indifferent beloved and of course the absolute fidelity of the lover. This love finds expression predominantly through two symbols of earthly love- of Heer and Ranjha and of the Mureed (disciple) for the Murshid (guru). In Bulleh Shah the force of orthodoxy in its rejection of the authority of the Mullah’s (the priest’s) prescriptions and Aalam Fazal’s (scholar’s) interpretations of the holy word is matched by a complete surrender at the altar of love, whether human or divine. Here love is supreme and nothing else matters, neither learning , nor wisdom, nor the observance of prescribed forms of worship – namaaz, shariat, or going to Mecca for Haj. Everything can be given up because ultimately God alone matters. The basis of all this is the Sufi’s direct mystical
experience of God.
Jogi Jadugar was recorded in May 2005 at Nangal Studio in Bikaner. The six compositions presented here embody this dualism in which the human and the divine appear sometimes distinctand some times inseparable. Mukhtiyar Ali, has sung these compositions. His distinctive voice, its regional accent and delivery lends freshness and lyrical intensity to these kafis without diluting their universal appeal. His nephew, Abdul Jabbar from Pugal has assisted him in vocals. Ecstatic tabla by Ustad Ghulam Hussain from Bikaner city gave new life to these age old compositions.
Acknowledgments: Direction, Sound Recording: Vibodh Parthsarthi,, Rahul Ghai & Sachin Singh
Financial Contribution: Various individuals & AMAN Trust, New Delhi
Special Thanks to Jamal Kidwai, AMAN Trust Notes on Sufi Mystics: Prof. T.C. Ghai
The articulation of a liberatory praxis around ‘culture’ warrants sensitivity and empathy to perspectives of the marginal communities, for whom culture is neither a luxury nor only a value but relates to the totality of all practices and experience embedded in the material reality of their everyday existence. In fact we prefer to use the term cultural practices rather than ‘culture’ alone as it allows us to move beyond the restricted sense in which ‘culture’ is usually deployed as ‘high culture’, ‘heritage’, ‘individual excellence / creativity in art/ craft’- and bring into focus rustic and earthy notions of cultural practices as ‘concrete and real philosophies of life’ of not just individuals but better understood as belonging to communities as a whole. In fact it is this notion of community traditions that is sought to be invoked in many articulations of sustaining ‘living heritage’ of folk / tribal communities. But since most of these articulations predicate on an understanding of culture as heritage, and not as practice rooted in the material reality, they tend to ignore the holism and dynamism of these cultural creativities and end up freezing them in museum boxes or representing them as essentiallized genres.
‘Culture’ as embedded in this context of ‘practices’ is the site of local knowledge based on and nurtured by everyday practices of communities. It is this epistemic inventory that is the source of resilience for survival- expressed differently as to inherit; to adapt / adopt invent- demonstrated by the local communities to negotiate new challenges of life. Such a perspective conceives of the relation between humans and nature as a complex web of inter-relationships, a ‘community of beings’ worldview- the fuller meaning of which is intelligible not only through rational cognitive abilities alone but through experience (having deep veneration and a ring of spirituality) as well, ecological practices in this worldview become bio-cultural regenerative practices in the genuine sense
Although this cultural capital is conceived as part of capability, one of the key concepts on which sustainable livelihoods approaches are based, in practice, it has been often observed that “…the implications of the role of culture on capability have not been fully appreciated”. Sustainable livelihoods frameworks do not explicitly integrate the exploration of cultural variables, such as worldviews, beliefs, traditions and the historical experiences that shape people’s livelihoods.
Cultural practices are not easy raw material to be tailored to market needs. At the same time there is a critical need to engage with the realm of the ‘intangible assets of our living cultural heritage’ and its ‘incredibly diverse service providers’ in a manner as culture doyen Rajjev Sethi argues ‘to benefit the more than 250 million craftspeople in India in a meaningful and transformative manner’. In order that this passionate call for an engagement with the living cultural traditions does not degenerate into an elitist rhetoric, it requires transcending not only the dissipative bureaucratic dispensations but listening to and including the voices of the communities of rural creators as central to our planning processes.
A radical demystification of the framework for culture necessitates asking questions like what constitutes and reinvigorates creativity as a community practice, how is it related not only to enhancing incomes and opening market opportunities but equally to notions of well being, dignity and happiness; what are the processes that need to be followed for integrating the voices of the rural creators in constituting decentralized and self sustaining cultural / creative industries that situate their existence not as subservient to the logics of elite perspectives and market but to perspectives of realization of self rooted in local tradition and community; what is the potential and legitimacy of the meanings inherent in the cultural practices of the rural creators in not only generating knowledge from below but embodying it to constitute and represent empowering processes and institutions; advocating for the inclusion of oral testimony and voices of the marginal in understanding and constituting development practices and policies; how can the reality of multiple options of the livelihoods cycle of the marginal communities in the rural areas be understood in a holistic manner to facilitate planning of interventions that have an integrative rather than a dissipative logic, trying to move away from simplistic ways of seeing reality of the marginal as divided into on farm and non-farm categories; how can the concepts of resilience, interdependence and diversity inherent in the holism of sustainable livelihoods approach be integrated into our development practice with reference to the marginal communities.
Read more on cultural perspectives on rural livelihoods, position paper Photo Credits:
Shaitan bhat displaying his skills,Nagore, Rajasthan, By Swasti Singh
India’s ‘nationalist’ intelligentsia in effecting the transition from a British colony to a nation-in-making imbibed the Keynesian postulate on the ‘seminal necessity and effectiveness of public intervention in managing the economic system’. These ideas laid as Sukhamoy Chakravarty points out, “… the foundations of a ‘strongly interventionist and reformist nation state’, whose primary aim …was acquisition of economic strength and …grow much faster to bridge the initial gap of per capita income… to avoid neo-colonial domination”.In underdevelopment’ as the cognitive foundation of signing a ‘tryst with destiny’, the Indian bourgeoisie had to invent traditions, forge symbols and construct creation myths for the new nation.
The chosen few, especially those who as Kapila Vatsayan points out, “…went through the long, arduous and devious journey of being steeped in Western civilization only to travel back to their cultural roots, richer and deeper…”were entrusted with this task of crafting what could be presented and patronized as a legitimate version of Indian culture. This concern for creation of a package of national culture / past to ground Indian national identity selectively drew from a repository of cultural continuity stretching back to five thousand years ago, was at ease in placating the feudal cultural paraphernalia of different princely states, duly acknowledged the debt of the colonial masters in their efforts at ‘discovery of India’, was cautious enough in creating meta-narratives of Indian history with syncretism and pluralism as key values, was astute enough in integrating Khadi as a nationalistic symbol and the living traditions of folk / tribal art / craft were appropriated as ethnographic curiosities or handicraft exotica in the national wonder cabinet that had foreign exchange value. Culture as heritage was to play an important role in foreign diplomacy, in representing the ethos of the uniqueness of Indian civilization in creating and maintaining relations with other countries.
A perusal of five- year plans suggests that ‘culture’ continued to be planned for as ‘cultural heritage’, which ‘had to be promoted by drawing up plans for the preservation of monuments and sites of historic and national ’. This was to be complemented by the ‘setting up of cultural institutions in the field of Archaeology, Anthropology, Ethnography, Archives, Libraries, Museums, Art Akademies etc’. The foundations of cultural diplomacy were firmly laid by setting up of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in the seventies. Since 1970’s, culture as heritage was linked to education and attention was “…given to increasing the cultural awareness among the students by strengthening the cultural content of the curriculum at various stages of education…” to help in building up the cultural and social identity of the nation.
It needs to be pointed out that the meta- discourse around culture as heritage does concern itself with development as welfare of the ‘economically underprivileged’ and ‘illiterate’ communities, at best only in a tangential manner. Development has been a by- product of what has been called ‘commerce of culture’ to refer to the exports of handicrafts that go hand in hand with the ideals of cultural diplomacy and market interests of the rich. To the Handicrafts were added other ‘cultural products’ created with the raw material of the cultural practices of the marginal communities notably the performing arts.
The articulation of culture as heritage survives as a dominant refrain in development planning to this day. Most of the assumptions from the nation-in-the-making era have continued, although the defining context of much of the contemporary discussion is increasingly being dominated by market culture. The Ministry of Culture (GoI), defining cultural heritage ‘as a resource for growth and identity rooted in the past’floated the National Culture Fund in 1996 as an innovation in the patterns of funding for cultural issues primarily for protection of historical monuments in India. The approach paper of the eleventh five year plan mentions ‘culture’ as “…a very important integrating force’ and stresses that ‘conservation and promotional activities of cultural heritage call for ensuring dissemination of our composite culture, promote all regional languages, to sustain the folk and traditional art, and to maintain, document, research and propagate dissemination of the intangible cultural heritage.
While communities are mostly seen as subjects of development welfare and political manipulation, they are seldom seen as human beings with creative potentials inherited orally through traditions that were generations old. What is unfortunate is that most attempts at documenting and constitution of knowledge on these performing communities continues to be impelled by folkloristic concerns or ethnographic desires having colonial and pre-colonial roots or sentimental nostalgic narratives about changing times from the idyllic and rustic rural landscape to urban metros, of tales of ‘vanishing traditions’ inscribed in tropes of inevitability of modernization.
Photos: Paradise Lost: The Palamu Fort, Jharkhand
Anada ram, a puppeteer from Nagore, Rajasthan (By Swasti Singh)
The bewitching and grotesque displays, laden with desires and fantasies, simulating mechanized copies with a pace matched only by the rapacious appetite for devouring commodities transmogrified into visual symbols characterizes much of the cultural hubris of the high culture of the rich. These dominant representations of culture claim exclusivity over the zone of aesthetics jealously proclaiming creativity as their own coveted domain annihilating, denigrating and co-opting the creative expressions of the marginal. This cultural logic is quite compatible with the cultural lexicon of the state which, having marshaled considerable sophistry since its inception in the heydays of Indian development planning, thrives on articulations of culture as heritage or creative expressions residing in art academies and galleries that are sanctified by the mandarins of culture well entrenched in the echelons of state power. In today’s post industrial age, to complete the gismo of celebrating the rites of culture as an elitist inventory of luxury, of cultivated tastes and pristine heritage, these high priests are joined in by professionals and representatives of corporate industry and media syndicates.
In sharp contrast to this, the age old exquisite collective cultural traditions of performing arts and crafts of the marginal communities have either withered away into oblivion or exist boxed as permanent collections in museums or patronized as individual excellence awards to folk artists and the ‘…majority of them are doomed to survive amidst misery and debt’. Thriving on the rhetoric of ‘heritage’ and ‘welfare’ many of these cultural traditions have been transmuted into casual wage earning and bare subsistence strategies as becomes evident in the manner in which these traditions are represented as commodities in the fairs and festivals that have proliferated in the urban spaces of metros, cities and even towns. Rather than basing themselves on ethical values of fair trade, on dignified relations of equality among the customer and creator, most of these show-windows draw on a weird mix of neo-feudal and modern paternalistic attitudes that perpetuate unequal relations where the rural creators are promised a speck of security from an ‘economy of tragic choices’. The ‘perennial potential’ for development of Indian crafts ‘remains only very partially tapped’. The millions of craftspeople who produce these goods “…truly get the ‘short end of the stick’ and most still struggle for the very basics of existence”. The penchant for exhibitionism by high culture devours the living heritage of exquisite techniques of handmade objects, rustic and passionate renderings of folk songs and ballads while the issues of dignity of these marginal groups are often reduced to symbolic snippets and interludes from tales of drudgery faced by the rural artisans or performing artists. The aesthetics of ecstatic tonalities and dexterous handwork of these bearers of living cultural traditions gets drowned in the shrill clamor of everyday survival as atomized beings, mere adjuncts to the derogatively titled unorganized or informal sector.
Photos:
Junagardh Fort, Bikaner by Guman Singh Soda
Poster at Sadiq Khan Mirasi Lok Kala Kendra, Jafli Kalan, Barmer by Rahul Ghai
