Where Have All the Bards Gone?

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.

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[1] https://spicyip.com/2017/09/ip-protection-for-stage-directions-throwing-some-light-on-the-stage-of-the-manganiyar-seduction.html

[2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/manganiyar-singer-thrashed-to-death-in-rajasthan-village-families-flee-homes/article19839108.ece