Asserting identity and culture through songs
Amateur singers touring villages, spreading ideas of equality and self-respect, abound in Maharashtra. In their songs and musical traditions are seeded elements of a unique and intangible cultural heritage
In the small textile town of Ichalkaranji on the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka, a group of 12 men and women have spent the last 50 years regaling village audiences one evening every week with a set of musical performances. The unusual band — older members pushing 70 while others are in their 20s, most of them Dalits — has a large red-bound notebook with songs in Marathi scribbled in pen, talking about the importance of equality and freedom from oppression and rationality. They call themselves the Samaj Gayan Party, hold day jobs (teachers, students, labourers, peons, farmers) and spend their spare time going from village to village, either on cycle or in a hired van, often without any fixed remuneration.
Such amateur singers touring villages, spreading ideas of equality and self-respect, abound in Maharashtra. In their songs and musical traditions are seeded elements of a unique and intangible cultural heritage, one that is both widely popular in villages yet curiously missing from so-called mainstream consciousness.
In my work documenting the lives of the singers and musical traditions of these groups, I have found that in every taluka — a cluster of 100-odd villages — it is common to find five to six such gayan parties (singing groups). Their songs are rooted in community imaginations and aspirations, and locked in the regional specificities of the land. Sample these lines: Chandyanchi chhaya, kaprachi kaya, maulichi maya hota, majha bhimraya (Cool of the night sky, body of camphor, love of a mother, my beloved Bhim)
For communities historically facing barriers to accessing written knowledge or forcibly kept away from documenting their histories, music provides an alternative route to assert identity and culture. They create an emancipatory reality, howsoever fleeting, in a world where many of these singers, and the communities they come from, face everyday instances of discrimination and bias. Take for example, Yashwant Kamble, who heads the Samaj Gayan Party. Kamble, 75, was a sculptor who would be called to villages to make small busts and statues of Dr BR Ambedkar, seen as a sign of assertion and self-respect against more dominant communities and their cultural motifs. But because many of the songs referenced Ambedkar, his life and his anti-caste philosophy, he faced slurs and abuse. Often, villagers would boycott Dalit people, pushing him to become a part-time barber and start cutting hair in the Dalitwada. The musical traditions of these groups are centuries old, and singers often refer to the poetry of Chokhamela, the 14th century poet and Tukaram, the 17th century writer, in addition to talking about reformers such as Jyotiba Phule and Ambedkar.
A common reference is Wamandada Kardak, a Marathi poet and playwright, whose roughly 2,500 verses have been instrumental in spreading rationality and anti-caste thoughts among the poor and less educated. In his addresses, Ambedkar would often say that his only one son by his “dearest shahir” was equal to 10 speeches by him.
When I was growing up in the far-flung village of Malewadi in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, my boyhood was animated by these musical evenings that opened a window to dream of a more equal world. It is only by documenting these unsung artistes and showcasing their abiding cultural legacies that we can form a more rounded view of what Indian art truly is.
Somnath Waghmare is a filmmaker and PhD scholar whose current project, along with artist Smita Rajmane, documents the anti-caste musical traditions of rural Maharashtra
The views expressed are personal