Of enticing overtures and ecstatic renditions: folk musicians communities in Thar, Rajasthan

Ustad Hakam Khan ji, Barmer 

The desert districts of Rajasthan have been well known for their vibrant folk music traditions. Musicians from here were among the first to give scintillating performances in ensembles of national and international cultural festivals organised by the Indian nation state especially after the seventies. Contemporary community traditions popular among folk musicians from the deserts of western Rajasthan  recount with pride names of Allah Jilai Bai, Dodhe Khan, Sadiq Khan, Bhungar Khan, to name a few pioneering artists, around whose performances a distinct identity of ‘Rajasthani folk music’ grew in India and abroad. In the initial heydays of construction of ‘national culture’ by the young Indian state, these musicians from remote rustic interiors of Thar were much sought after ‘culture makers’ of scintillating performances.

Over the last few decades this quaint and rustic representation of ‘Rajasthani folk music’ has transmuted into a veritable trope of brand ‘Rajasthan’ being represented in different forms and patterns by public and private actors. Although only a handful of musicians from these communities are now regulars on national and international festivals, tours and cultural exchange circuits of different genres of ‘world music’, this has contributed to the much hyped visibility of folk musicians. Without doubt singers and musicians like Anwar Khan, Fakira Khan, Mukhtiyar Ali, to name a few prominent ones have really contributed in continuing to make sufi music known world over. In our contemporary times of short lived stardom and a crowding of the sufi genre by performers who are urbanites, these folk sufi performers they have managed to carve out dignified niches of existence.  In public gaze this has fed a misconception about these communities having good fortune in this culture industry that continues to expand and diversify around brand Rajasthan.

The production of culture industry incessantly expands its influence becoming widespread with many Indian and foreign labels fervently producing ‘haunting’, ‘seductive’, ‘melodic’, ‘lilting’, ‘soul stirring’ folk music from the deserts of Thar, Rajasthan.  This is not to mention Bollywood film music that has with uncanny consistency transmogrified this pristine music into mass entertainment. Latest to join the on- going glitter of this culture industry are mega live music events amidst sand dunes, recreating the royal heritage, organised in collusion by media syndicates, local tourism lobby and regional elites. The folk musicians are paraded endlessly to adorn the gatherings of culture elite, fairs and festivals in Rajasthan. Folk music interludes are a quintessential feature in tour and travel packages for foreign and domestic tourists. The enticing overtures and soul stirring renditions of these musicians are ceaselessly marketed globally and locally by music industry- tourism complex.

Underneath this scintillating and loud sonic extravaganza of folk music lies a sordid story of languishing traditions, pathos and destitution that characterises lives of majority of these marginal practitioners of culture. Engulfed by these existential dilemmas regarding dignified continuation of their music traditions, these musician communities find themselves at cross roads. With the waning away of traditional societal contexts of hereditary transmission of these traditions, the twin spectre of crass commercialization leading to dissipation of their musical traditions and dwindling opportunities for sustained livelihood looms large over them.

In the contemporary context where issues of everyday existence, dignified arts practice of these musician communities continue to escape public discourse with unceasing monotony are their strategies and processes possible that contribute to well- being of these musician communities?

Of enticing overtures and ecstatic renditions seeks to draw attention to issues of pathos and destitution that paradoxically engulf the lives of musician communities whose music is the harbinger of peace, serenity and soulful ecstasy.

These musician communities have been subjects of ethnography, tour diaries and memoirs. Ethnomusicologists have engaged with these musicians whose music has been subject of much study, documentation, archiving and survey for the last three decades, if not more. This ‘western quest’ of ethnomusicology originating from universities in UK or USA has contributed a systematic body of ethno-musicological literature / archive. The rich collection / archive of folklore and ethno musicological inquiries have engaged with some of these communities and their selective repertoire over the last few decades. While not discounting the value of the repertoire collected or insights regarding music in society it could be safely said that it has mostly refrained from engaging with challenges of lived everyday context of these makers of the music.

It has been correctly observed that the tourists and visitor are not very different from ethnomusicologists. They both share the fascination for the unique and spectacular elements. This is much to the neglect of the material context of these musicians. The emphasis has been on the music, as it is consumed, not on the musicians. Another emergent trend is the individual ‘creativity unplugged’, ‘soul searching’ kind of creative arts practice that subordinates folk community creativities as subservient to its own exalted aesthetic feats. The climax of this celebration of ‘creativity outside the folk sphere’ is most glaringly seen in Bollywood, the industry processing folk music into mass entertainment.

The irony implicit in these promises of job creation is that these do little to alter basic existential realities of these musicians, that of being integrated largely as casual wage earners at the bottom of the culture industry. With the expansion of techno aesthetics of culture industry networks especially in the last decade, both in density and spread, employment generation based on folk music thrives on casual payment contracts, many times unspecified and assuaged by neo feudal hegemony. In such a context there is little hope to be pinned on culture industry,  in its current dispensation, in liberating these folk musicians from drudgeries of daily survival in an ‘economy of tragic choices’.

Instead of getting mystified by a cultural aesthetic that seeks to assuage the sentimental narrative of bemoaning the loss of traditions or becoming bewitched by glittering gismo of unbridled commercialization making community folk aesthetic completely subservient to the whims of ephemeral modern entertainment, or even the individual quest of soul searching creativity of urban professional artists, it is important to invest in human resources and cultural skills of these unique producers of veritable civilizational intangible heritage.

Mir Abdul Jabbar and Mir Vassu Khan, Bikaner

One possible way is to strengthen the resilience and inventiveness of cultural traditions by taking account of skilful and refined "interweaving, combining and conjoining" that is the continuing hallmarks of these robust ‘traditions under siege’ in the modern world. Traditional cultural traditions need to be recognised as veritable skills having the potential of translating into viable livelihood strategies. The versatile ability displayed by many of these musicians to straddle effortlessly across different repertoires and indeed different performative contexts exemplifies innovation that springs from frugal resources. It is important that this be not recognized as individual ‘talent’ alone, rather seen as embedded in collective core of these traditions. It is this that needs to be nurtured.