The Last Vettiyan. A Musical Tradition and a Degraded Low Caste Profession (original) (raw)

Musical unfreedom and the drummers' dilemma: Cultural labour and the value of music in Indian Caste society

Creative Economies of Culture in South Asia, 2024

This essay examines the various ways music or performance produces performers' social identity in South Asia. In the ritualized service economy in a caste society, what could have been a creative expression of freedom in performance turns into an expression of unfreedom, and creates a negative body and identity for a performer. I term the cultural context "musical unfreedom" and the resultant performative contradiction as "the drummer's dilemma." Musical unfreedom complicates the problem of freedom and unfreedom in the performative contexts of South Asia. I analyse the problem through the conceptual framework of cultural labour in which

Changing Status in India's Marginal Music Communities

Religion Compass, 2009

The renegotiation of the performance of an instrument or genre associated with pollution or a degraded social status has been a significant theme in recent ethnomusicological literature on marginalized Indian music communities. These communities include Dalits (outcastes), lower castes, devadasis (hereditary temple dancers), women, and rural poor. Through a review of this literature and film production, I describe four positions taken by these communities and the impact on performance that these changes have brought: (i) discontinuance and rejection, (ii) replacement, (iii) maintenance of performance, yet rejection of caste or community duties, and (iv) reclamation of the music and identity as creditable.

Ritual Village Music and Marginalised Musicians of Western Orissa/Odisha, India

2013

This work presents the summarised results of an anthropological and ethno-musicological documentation of hitherto unknown traditions of sacred music performed by marginalised musicians and priest-musicians of the Adivasi (indigenous) Bora Sambar region of western Orissa/Odisha, India. The work is based on more than 30 months of ethnographic research in rural regions of western Orissa/Odisha.

Sounds From A Silenced Divinity: The Interaction of Caste with Music in the Theyyam Rituals of Kerala

SOAS Postgraduate Journal, 2021

The ritual art form popularly known as 'Theyyam' occurs annually in the northern regions of the South Indian state of Kerala. The ritual is orchestrated and demonstrated by Dalit communities, who were formerly treated as untouchables throughout the history of the subcontinent. The impact of caste dynamics on this form of religious expression is explored in this work through ethnomusicological analyses, wherein the musical elements of Theyyam are compared to forms of music practiced by upper-caste communities in the same region. This work aims to highlight how knowledge, in essence, is a product of social hierarchy and forms of expressions birthed from knowledge are subtle representations of social discrepancy.

Musicians of People: a study into family dynamics and music of Ved Manganiyars

This article is about a musical and genealogical caste known as Ved Manganiyars, part of the Manganiyar community of western Rajasthan and Sindh region of Pakistan, based in Jane Ki Beri village of Barmer district situated in Thar desert of western Rajasthan. These Ved Manganiyars are hereditary musicians and when we generally talk about hereditary bardic and musical castes of western Rajasthan, we tend to look towards Charans and Langhas leaving these people behind and not giving them their deserved place in historical narratives. This paper is an attempt to include these people in the mainstream narrative of musical and bardic castes. This community is known for its music and performance skills. Through observation and interviews with community members, this paper explores the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of their lives, including their livelihood strategies, gender roles, religious beliefs, and cultural practices. It also examines the challenges faced by the community in the context of increasing sedentarization and changing economic conditions. The paper also sheds light on the relationship these Manganiyars have with their patrons where the history of this relationship, the works these people do for their patrons, and the benefits they get in exchange are discussed. Further, this paper also tries to set their version of their identity formation with the general historical narratives and also tries to find out the differences and similarities this community has with the Charans and Langhas who have historically been engaging with the professions of bards, poets, and genealogist for the ruling classes of Rajasthan.

Transported by Song: Music and Cultural Labour in Dharwad

Sangeet Natak, 2009

This essay is an exercise in thinking through the issues involved in putting together a new project. It will aim to set out some of the problems I am encountering as I try to formulate my research questions-the dilemmas over directions to take or avoid; the anxiety about how to interpret diverse sorts of materials; about what methods to adopt; about how to constitute my archive. My last project took me deep into the analysis of Caribbean popular music in terms of the social grids that sustain it. The book, Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration between India and Trinidad (2006), was followed by a documentary film called Jahaji Music (dir. Surabhi Sharma, 2007). The film engaged with the musical culture of the Caribbean through the journey and collaborations of an Indian musician, Remo Fernandes. The Remo project-which tried to pursue the possibility of connection in another sphere, that of actual musical practice-seemed to be a logical if somewhat unexpected outcome of the earlier scholarly endeavour. Perhaps the most predictable direction I could have taken next would have been to pursue the story of the Indian diaspora and its musical negotiations in the United Kingdom for example, where once again the Indian and the African come together to form different sorts of cultural equations. However, the insights I gained from thinking about music, nationalism and race in Trinidad took me in another direction altogether. The point of the comparative frame I proposed in my book was not simply to look at two different contexts, but to see how the questions I was asking could be brought back 'home' to India. What did I gain from thinking about popular music in Trinidad? That consolidation and displacement occur together and form part of a continuing process. [Here the consolidation and displacement had to do with notions of racial identity and citizenship.] That this complicated process is often manifested most visibly as cultural practice, and as music production in particular. That in our modernity-fashioned as it is through and in the wake of colonialism-thinking about the music might help us see one of the important ways by which ideas of who we are/who we want to be are put together, circulated, and gain purchase. That music is related to the structure of social aspiration and issues of social mobility. That female sexuality is central to processes of nation-making and the production of modern subjects, and that music is one such process. Thinking about these issues has brought me to my own cultural context, which is that of southern India.

Oppari: A Tamil Musical Elegy Laced with Caste Prejudices and Identities

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 2022

Though popular culture is celebrated among people across the country, the admiration for folklore and performing arts is very limited. In the domain of folklore, performing art forms are categorized and stratified based on ‘who is performing it’ or ‘who is eligible to perform’ with a benchmark of the social status of purity and pollution. This article discusses and reflects the dilution of casteism and fabricated caste identities and prejudices in oppari, ancient folklore and a musical dirge song performed in Tamil Nadu, which is considered as a polluted, discriminated cultural outcome and custom to be performed and etched with people belonging to oppressed classes in society. It also keeps a close lens and discussion on change in oppari, the role of casteism and its revamp in the contemporary scenario and sociocultural aspects of oppari within the realm of caste and performance.

Sumahan Bandyopadhyay Living like Chameleons A Bedia Folk Performing Troupe from West Bengal

Asian Ethnology, 2019

The Bedia, a Scheduled Tribe (ST) community found mainly in eastern India, contains a group of performers within it who live by performing bahurūpī— referring to one who can take many forms—which has been termed as the “chameleon art” in some government documents. Bahurūpī performance is referenced in many of India’s historical texts, some of which date back to the pre-Christian era. The present study was conducted among an entire troupe of bahurūpī Bedias living together in a single village. The Bedias constitute a mosaic of groups living according to different economic persuasions, and they can arguably be said to have multiple origins. They present an interesting case on the tribe/caste continuum on the one hand; on the other, they bring before us a unique case of cultural adjustment through occupational specialization. They have gradually transitioned from a nomadic style of life to a semi-nomadic or sedentary lifestyle. In the present article, the performing tradition of bahurūpī has been socio-historically contextualized along with the description of the nature of their performance, performers, training of performers, audience, patronization, and recent changes. The example of the bahurūpī provides us with valuable data concerning the nature of survival among small communities in the Indian context, since they display multiple layers of identities at the economic, social, and political or administrative levels.

TUNING THE WAR DRUM: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF 'PARAI' TOWARDS 'DALIT' EMPOWERMENT IN TAMILNADU, INDIA

P arai practice (drumming) in Tamilnadu, which has been a symbol of shame and servile duty of the Dalits (the erstwhile untouchables of India) for ages, has in the past three decades undergone radical changes. These changes that have involved social communication processes are assumed to have facilitated a reconstruction of Parai. This descriptive qualitative study looked into how Parai has been reconstructed, structured, and understood in the present forms of its practice in Tamilnadu. Addressing the question following an interpretive and critical cultural study approach, this study revealed the processes and outcomes of Parai reconstruction, structuring, and comprehension. The complexity of the reconstruction process involves multiple readings of the related events and situations with dominant codes, negotiated or oppositional codes by a plurality of stakeholders: various producers, promoters, performers, hosts, the Dalit and the Caste Hindu audiences, etc.