Neha Zooni Tickoo
4th December 2017
Recently,
on 28th November 2017, I attended the famed theatrical production ‘Manganiyar
Seduction’ directed by Roysten Abel at the IGNCA New Delhi open air lawns
almost after a decade it was first staged. Since 2012, I have only read about
this spectacular, mammoth production of Abel from various sources describing
especially the scenographic dexterity employed in the placement of musicians on
the stage. And well deservedly, it was spell-binding to see the acoustics
visualized as an orchestra, complete with a conductor facing the musicians,
playing the stimulating castanets throughout. However, it was while a year or
so ago, I was researching about the Langas and Manganiyars of Barmer- Rajasthan
for a senior musico-ethnographer, that I came across the profiles of some of
these ‘star performers’, mostly a muslim community and their traditional and
richly syncretic repertoire, their folklore and knowledge systems. It emerged
that some of these Langa/Manganiyar performers are quite sought after and get
to travel far and wide taking their music and songs to lovers of music across
ages and lands, all the while playing the traditional “folk” tune, ascribing
well to the confines of the Other. Meanwhile, even though their songs and
stories remain same to a large extent, the patrons have changed, from
traditional jajmans for whom they serve as bards and genealogists, to State and
private sponsors.
This piece
that I write here is not going to be a review of the performance and neither
does it serve to be an overarching picture of the Manganiyar music and culture.
What I intend here is to inform the students and scholars of culture of those
specific events that help me read this performance in the context of the time
we live in. Can one possibly read any piece of art bereft of it’s placement in
the socio-political context? Perhaps one can, because art defies singularity
and it’s multitudes wouldn’t fit one blog-post. Nonetheless, the case here is
different and i assure the reader that had it not been for the seemingly
unrelated events in recent past and the history surrounding the Manganiyars, I
wouldn’t have been inclined to write this piece.
The
post-independence modern Indian culture industry is not as innocent as we would
like to believe it is. It has had deeper than imagined ties with the state of
economy and depend immensely on the nod of ruling governments. With the set-up
of Sangeet Natak Akademy in 1950s, the Indian nation affirmed their identity by
relocating the artisans and artists 'languishing' in the peripheries of remote
India to the metro cities, where these styles were 'prosceniumized or
museumized'. It became very clear that the project of modernity in the Indian
milieu would remain unfulfilled without carrying forward the baton declaring an
unwavering affiliation to the “roots”. However as a result, the present-day
global indian cultural identity is a curious and confrontational mix of
tradition and modernity, often at loggerheads and yet seemingly completing each
other at other moments. Therefore, when one looks at the decorated star
performers I mentioned above, the picture tends to become, if I may say, more
rational, systemic and less sentimental.
Here, I want to warn, a fierce one-tracked critique of inter-culturalism
and modernity is no longer helpful too, but that is reserved for another blog
post, another day…
Roysten’s
Manganyar Seduction with it’s structural dependency on a very western
‘orchestra-conductor’ style, faltered very little during the performance (ironically
Roysten boasts of a recent lawsuit he won affirming his copyright on the particular
stage set design, even though the whole production rides on the shoulders of
“folk” music which fails the concept of copyright itself)[1].
Apart from this, it massively falters especially during it’s encore. It seems very
unlikely that Roysten Abel who has spent good part of last decade performing
with the Manganiyar artists, would not be aware of the recent killing of a
local Manganyar singer in Jaialmer by his Hindu patron, allegedly for not
playing well enough according to rituals. The story was covered widely but no
respite came to the family of the deceased, even more so to the community who
had to flee the village fearing backlash[2].
I understand that public amnesia is a thing well founded but i refuse to trust
that same is the case with an artist like Roysten Abel who obviously has had a
deeper connect with the community over the last decade. If anything, the least
of his responsibility was to condemn the murder and be proactive in preventing
the community to leave the village. Instead, during the curtain call
introducing each musician , he commanded that the encore be dedicated to the
sole Hindu Manganyar as the rest of Muslim ones play for him.
To save
himself this embarrassment, he could have also respectfully asked the encore be
dedicated the senior most artist of the troupe who happened to be the same
Hindu musician. I cannot say who else found this post performance gimmick
objectionable other than a few of us culture studies scholars who found this
unexpected quip by the director somewhat offensive to the community of
Manganyar musicians, upon whom he has driven his production. To add to the
facts, senior BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi inaugurated the event and i suspect
that this gimmick was intended to appease the false Hindu pride of culture
ministry at helm. I wonder how humiliating it was for the musicians to perform
this forced gesture, or is it that they comply out of dependence on an English
speaking urban theatre director, or there is some deep-seated hierarchy at
play? We often have debated if the subaltern can speak for themselves, but that
is a far cry since the subaltern is not even allowed to perform or sing for
themselves.
This
incident serves as the most recent example of well-known theatre artists,
performers pandering to the tune of the dictators at the top, and effectively
going un-noticed by the larger theatre and art loving community. Eventually,
nothing new has been repeated, history under fascism is replete with such
instances. But this needs to be reiterated with each occurrence of such
velvet-tongued negligence. However it also brings forth the fact that perhaps
the performance and the performative is happening at so many layers and levels,
to please the one who is pulling the strings. What we as scholars need to
create is a pandemonium before these strings become a noose and gag all the
sullen voices.
