The qawwali too must go on
By Vijaya Pushkarna
The
late Bharat Ratna M S Subalakshmi became
the first Indian to sing before the
delegates at the United Nations General
Assembly on UN Day in 1966.
The demure lady was a picture of her usual self in New York. With her
trademark sparkling diamond nakshtra ear rings, the 8-stoned “besari” flashing on her nose, deep
hued Kanjeevaram silk saree with a contrasting border modestly draped around
her shoulders, big vermillion bindi on her forehead, jasmine braid around the
bun her hair was styled into , humility on her face and divinity in her voice,
she began her concert with a Sanskrit prayer, that the Shankaracharya at
Kancheepuram had called an “anthem of universal friendship”.
Among
the songs she sang there was an English hymn composed by C Rajagopalachari.
Handel Manuel, was producer of Western Music at the All India Radio in Madras. The
idea had come from Gen K M Cariappa.
M
S also sang a ghazal she had learnt from Begum Akhtar. Written by Mirza Ghalib,
“Ishrat-e-qatra hai dariya mein fana ho
jaana, Dard ka had se guzarna hai dawa ho jana” describes a droplet’s
ecstasy as it is consumed by the oceans, and the turning of pain into remedy
when it becomes unbearable.
Cut to now.The pain forced on performers threatens to eat into the vitals of
India’s composite culture. Kathak exponent
Manjari Chaturvedi was performing at a dinner hosted by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker for a
conference of Commonwealth Parliament Association on Thursday, when the music suddenly
stopped. She thought it was a technical glitch, but was informed that they could
not permit a qawwali . Though the government has maintained that they were
aware her programme was a qawwali as the title was “Rung-e-Ishq”, but they were
running late and the programme had to be concluded before the arrival of Chief
Minister Yogi Adityanath.There were organizational compulsions, and it had
nothing to do with religion or language, the state government has maintained.The state government has also told the dancer that she will perform
later in the month.
The assault on cultural performances with political motives does not
begin with Manjari’s experience. In November 2018, a concert by Magsaysay
awardee T M Krishna, under the aegis of the Airports Authority of India and the
SPIC-MACAY, was cancelled at the eleventh hour. Because, the right wing people
trolled him saying he was singing “Christian songs”, and so he was
anti-national, urban Naxal etc. It is
no secret that Krishna has spoken out loudly against narrow communal interests
and makes no bones about dissenting on policy issues –be it the implementation
of swacha Bharat or other development efforts that are dislodging communities.
In the course of a recent
podcast, noted classical and contemporary dancer and choreographer Anita
Rathnam points out that when she was growing
up there were lots of non-Hindus who learned the Bharatanatyam because they
were in love with it. “And they did not get the kind of flak that young
non-Hindus are getting today for doing it,” said Rathnam, adding that she knew
certain Muslim practitioners of Bharatanatyam who have had to leave their
families that have “sort of disowned them”, and gone to their gurus for
refuge,siply because they loved the dance form. “I did not hear such things
when I was growing up” remarked the 65-year old.
A show like Manjari’s must go on. Sufi songs and ghazals , the Kathak
and the Qawwali, from the same stage as Carnatic and Hindustani classical
songs, Bharatanatyam and Odissi dance is the composite Indian cultural. The
protests across the country, to defend the Constitution, becomes the more
important to defend such a cultural bouquet.
So true....
ReplyDeleteArt is always a medium to unite the world not to divide , to heal not to harm and it should remain so.