| SANSKRITI |  |
 |
EDITORIAL
This is the new issue of ‘SANSKRITI’. We have to tell you that this time we found ourselves probably busier than ever – busy with our day to day activities. Understandably we found very little time for updating our website and ‘SANSKRITI’ our web magazine.
We feel upset and at the same time compelled to announce that we have decided to bring down the number of issue of ‘SANSKRITI’ to only 2 in a year.
In this issue you will find articles we published in the beginning of our Jana Sanskriti days in the print version of a magazine which was also called ‘SANSKRITI’.
Finally I end by making an earnest request to all our readers and friends – PLEASE CONTRIBUTE ARTICLES FOR ‘SANSKRITI’.
Thank you,
Editor
Two Madonnas
Never – never
Pluck the Rose
Sit on the Green carpet
Enjoy – how the loving sweet
Breeze – kisses her velvet soft
Crimson cheeks.
The wailing wind
Does not get her
But simply touches her
With a Lover’s pride,
Carries her fragrance
Before the world.
The mother – Rose plant
Looks at this love-play with
A sweet smile on her lip
Caressing the rose
Like Raphel’s Madona.
Soon comes in sight
A woman of Ebony
Under the shade of a mango tree.
Bare-body – Bare-breasts,
Two cups of black stone upturned
A baby in arms sucking the one
Passing her tiny hand on the other.
The green grass danced in glee
Placing them on its lap
A living Bronze sculpture,
Another Madonna,
Elixir of life.
Amulya Ganguly
The Flute Player
Singing lullaby
Bringing sleep to every eye
Serving soporific drug to
Every adult,
When sleep herself
Was in deep slumber,
- the loving gentle breeze
was caressing his flower-bride
Spreading her sweet perfume,
The Flute player –
Started playing on his melodious flute.
He made those sleeping sleep well,
Those tossing on the beds,
Forget their past sorrows,
Those desolate
The vain flute proclaimed –
“Look – how I heals your sorrows
make you lively
Bring rosy dreams to you.”
The flute player – smiled
Placed the flute or the dust
The music ended.
Soon the flute realized –
“It was the Flute player, who
Infused life in me
Without him I am dead
To be trampled by every foot”
Repentent tears –
Made the dust wet.
THE ROLE OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA’S FREEDOM STRUGGLE The tendency of some anti-colonial ‘Hindu’ historians to ignore or misinterpret the contribution of Muslims in the history of the freedom struggle has provoked Prof. Shantimay Ray to initiate efforts to ratify this serious oversight and establish the truth. His writings are sufficient to dismiss any misconception we may have about the passive or negative role of Muslims in modern Indian history. While on the one hand distorting history is a kind of perversion, popularizing the truth about our national inheritance on the other hand would be a much needed good turn to society. After the battle of Baxar in 1764, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa came under British rule. Victory in this battle opened the doors for colonial exploitation by the British in India. The degree of exploitation was as widespread as it was rare in the history of the modern world. History of that time tells us that many zaminders and innumerable peasant communities in Eastern India vowed to fight the British. Some of them were compelled to go into hiding in order to save themselves. The nineteenth century saw rapid expansion of British colonialism in India. Towards the end of the previous century. Cornwallis had declared Permanent Settlement for revenue in Bengal. This gave rise to a lot of discontent. The Muslim sect of Wahabis were the next to organize this discontent and open a new chapter in India’s freedom struggle. The Wahabi struggle is amongst the earliest, longest and most anti-British struggles. Some historians consider this struggle amongst the one most worth mentioning in the nineteenth century. Indian Wahabis were called ‘Mohammadiya Trika their founder was a fakir from Rai Bareli called Syed Ahmad Brelvi. When he was touring Eastern Bengal to explore the possibility of declaring a crusade against the British, the Ferazia movement was to organize the oppressed people of the area and punish the oppressive zaminders, exploitative moneylenders and indigo planters. At the same time, Mir Nisar Ali was providing leadership to a movement in Chandpur (Barasat). For easy classification of historical events, these movements have been considered a part of the Wahabi movement but they really need to be studied independently. Indigenous resistance to the British reached a climax in 1857. Thousands of men, in direct confrontation with the British forces, sacrificed their lives in this struggle for independence. There were many Muslims from Nawabs to peasants - amongst them. Traditional historians count Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope, Rani Lakshmibai amongst the bravest warriors of the 1857 revolt. Sharif Maulavi Ahmadullah of Faizabad is hardly ever mentioned by them although he played an equally significant role in the struggle. Men under his leadership had given the British such a scare that the British declared a cash reward for anyone who caught the Maulavi dead or alive. Begam Zerat Mahal of Ayodhya, under similar circumstances as Lakshmibai, also played a major role in the revolt of 1857. On behalf of her minor son, she took up the reigns of administration in her own hands and organized her people into a rebel army.
The chairperson of the 12th session of the Indian National Congress. (1898) Rahmatullah Siyani gave a stirring speech against the conservative and pro-British Muslims who were against the conservative and pro-British Muslims who were against joining the Congress. Numerous Muslims leaders participated with fervour in the movement opposing the Bengal partition in 1905. Hundreds of Muslims joined in the written appeal against the partition. Muslims also joined in large numbers during the Swadeshi movement in early twentieth century. Muslim leaders came out into the streets to speak to people and inspire them to throw in their lot with the Swadeshis. By 1907, the excitement created by the Swadeshis cooled down. By then there were signs of yet another approaching storm. This was a new chapter in the freedom struggle, a chapter of revolutionary nationalism. The concept of secret revolutionary societies was not new to India. A large number of them came up between 1900 and 1907. Powerful nationalist leadership was provided to these Muslim revolutionary societies by Shibi Numani, Rashid Ahmad Gangoi amongst others. They strove to bring the different organisations together in an armed united front against the British. The revolutionaries of Chittagong had a strong base amongst the Muslims there. This was the reason why the killing of the corrupt officer Amanullah and subse¬quent provocation by the British did not succeed in bringing about communal ri¬ots. When hoys from Hindu families were being arrested, it was the Muslim com¬munity that provided food and shelter for the revolutionaries on the run. After the 1908 April split (over the extremists' position), it was only in 1916 at Lucknow that the Congress had a united session again. The Home Rule movement had already infused a revolutionary con¬sciousness into the Congress. It was possible then to come to an understand¬ing with prominent Muslim leaders of the time like Maulana Azad, Ansari and Ajmal Khan. The Muslim League, after years of having a feudal orientation discarded the narrow-minded view point of the Aligarh School and gradually imbibed a national¬ist consciousness. 30th March, 1919 was declared as Sat-yagraha Divas by the Congress. This day witnessed some unprecedented scenes — Hindus and Muslims together joined large protest demonstrations. Dayanand Saraswati was approached to join and speak to the Muslims congregated at Jama Masjid. The non cooperation movement was launched on 1st August 1920. By September, various sections of Mus¬lims had expressed full support to the proposals of elections, boycott of gov¬ernment schools and colleges and renunciation of honours and titles awarded by the British. For twenty months Hindus and Muslims worked side by side for the cause of Swaraj. Renowned Gandhian and front-line leader in the non cooperation movement Narayan Menon has de¬clared that none of those involved in the Moplah Rebellion may be accused of har¬bouring communal feelings and attacking or looting the Hindus. When I first began to write on this subject there were many who tried to convince me that the main reason for this hatred and confrontationist atti¬tude of the majority community is, the betrayal in some cases and passivity in most, of the minority community during the freedom struggle. During the Indo-Pak War I had overheard a senior Congress leader of West Ben¬gal say that Muslims were enemies of India's struggle for freedom. At times, I have observed a shocking ignorance among school and college teachers about the role of Muslims in the inde¬pendence movement. Many genera¬tions of students have grown up stu¬dying distorted and misrepresented historical events. Falsifying history is an ancient art which is being used widely by many eminent persons even today. This false history is being used to jeopardise all efforts to put our na¬tion on a strong foundation. It is my sincere hope that this book will enable to develop a new and unbiased outlook about the role of Muslims in India's struggle for freedom.
Shantimay Ray
'What is the word for...', the speaker was searching for the word for 'soup'. Sitting in an expensive restaurant in Zagreb a few weeks ago, the question came from a distinguished Slovenian theatre director who was sitting opposite me at the table: the point being that the word for 'soup' has always been a Serbian one, 'juha', and now there is a wish to cleanse the language of all Serbian words he was unsure of the Croatian equivalent. For it is no longer 'politically correct' to speak Serbo-Croat, the language they have spoken all their lives, they must now speak 'pure' Croatian. His question was partly meant as a joke, he was Slovenian anyway - even so it seemed to indicate something of the state of layered confusion which I had been sensing over the last week.
My purpose for being in Zagreb was to give a ten-day workshop in Voice and Text work in the theatre there : part of the time was spent with professional actors and part of the time with acting students. The focus was on Shakespeare : always interesting in a foreign language for you have to listen in a different way, and with a different attention. It was a particularly moving experience for me as I had worked there in 1976 in a small experimental theatre, Teater ITD, and so on this visit I was able to pick up with many friends that I had made then with whom I had always kept in touch.
The idea of the workshop had come from one of the directors of Teater ZKM, a new and forward-looking theatre company who are trying to build an ensemble group, doing both classical and new writing, and this was part of their initial training programme : it was also open to other actors in the area and to the acting students from the Drama Academy. The visit was sponsored by the British Council. "What is the word for . . . ", the question lodged in my mind for it seemed to speak a little of some of the absurdity and unreality of their present situation - the fact that they had to reinvent their own language, and the implications of identity implicit in this, both on a personal level and in the business of theatre.
I checked in at my hotel. This too was busy, full of businessmen as you might expect anywhere, all in the standard uniform of the country, or so it seemed to me, very long macs with very wide shoulders and carrying the statutory brief¬case - uncomfortably male. On closer observation however, you began to notice not only the many refugees scurrying to and fro who were occupying a part of the hotel, but infinitely more disturbing, the constant filtering through of mercenaries from many different countries : what were they doing here and who would they be fighting? Later of course one was told that someone from one country, eg the U.K, on the Croatian side could be fighting his own countryman on the Serbian side. Also, and this is a chilling thought, that every Friday two buses leave the bus . station in Stuttgart, one heading for the Serbian lines and one for the Croatian, full with people going for a weekend shoot. I began to get a different picture.I then went to visit old friends, a couple not in the theatre but whom I had known and been close to for thirty years or more. When the war broke I made sure that I rang them often - several times I heard distant gunfire over the phone. A deeply intelligent and sensitive couple : the husband has worked in, the International Relations Department of Zagreb Radio for twenty-five years, and his wife is a very distinguished teacher of English. They live with their twenty-one year old daughter in a flat, 32 square metres: in it they have four thousand books double packed on the shelves -books of poetry, both English and Croatian, books on linguistics etc. Their bedroom turns into a pleasant sitting-room in the daytime. Where once they were reasonably well off, now their joint income amounts to about £160 per month. They share a battered old typewriter to do their work. He is Montenegran, but has lived most of his life in Croatia: he cannot go back to see his 82-year old mother in Montenegro because he has a Croatian passport and that would not be recognised. He also gets threatening phone calls in the middle of the night saying that if he does go back to Montenegro he needs only bother to get a one-way ticket - he recognises the voices. Intelligent, sensitive people who do not want to hate, but unless they do they will be ostracised.
This is just one small example of what is happening on a personal level. I spent evenings with friends asking questions and listening to their views: but so complex is the history, it seemed impossible to unravel any clear line that made sense to me. As someone who believes you must always come down on a side, there seemed to me to be no choice which was viable.
The result of all this is that either you become very militant or, as with the majority, a terrible negativity takes over and you are aware of this everywhere. No one wants to be seen to take a decision, to stand out in anyway, so they shrug their shoulders instead. This even goes so far as trying to get your room key at the hotel desk - it takes time for a decision to be made to give it to you. And when it came to negotiating the translation and publication of my books, which several publishers were keen to do, it became unbelievably complicated: the issue seemed to be settled one day, but the following day we were back to square one -- they seem fearful of appearing positive in case that is misconstrued. These were my impressions, the backdrop as I saw it, against which the workshop took place: it is of course a very personal view.
Yet, having said all this, the work itself was wonderful: the need to work, to keep going, gave each group a particular energy. We first worked very practically' on breathing and resonance and how to fill different spaces: each other focussed on 26 his/her connection between breath and word in order to find their own vocal freedom. And then we went on to Shakespeare, Hamlet, King Lear and The Dream, and worked on speeches and small scenes - this was very exciting. The movement of the language, even in translation, is so physical that when you begin to experience this you are taken into another world, a world of the imagination -and this is both exhilarating and releasing. Even so, one had to work hard to give them the courage to experiment, particularly when working with the students. Their professors were present and supportive the whole time: however it. seemed to me that they were more interested in correct pronunciation than in opening out a response to the language, often correcting them in mid-speech. The need to get it 'right' inhibited, and prevented them from connecting imaginatively with the imagery and music of the text. Obviously they needed to get the pronunciation correct, not knowing the language I could not argue with this, but I could hear when they were engaged by the text, when their imagination was connected - you can hear it in the sound of the voice - and that to me was the most important thing. Gradually they began to cope with both, and the improvement in sound and range was excellent.
One started at a different point with the experienced actors: they were interested in style, and how you can bring together a Stanislavsky approach with the speaking of classical text: that is, how you can make it sound relevant whilst honouring the rhythm and the imagery of the hightened language. This I think is ongoing debate in theatre in all countries.
One of the things that we addressed very specifically was what one of the group identified as the 'public' and the 'private' voice: when they spoke on stage the voice became hard and presented, and did not allow for any warmth or intimacy of tone: one felt one was being talked 'at' rather than talked 'to', and therefore the private world of the character could not reach us. We worked on this a good deal to find the necessary balance of voice.
Perhaps this public mode of voice was a way of covering up more personal responses to the text. The political climate of a country puts its mark on how people communicate with each other both personally and publicly. Here the complexity of the language itself is on many levels: the Croatians have always felt that the Serbian language was dominant so they want now to bring back into use all the old Croatian words, however, under the Ustashe regime only Croatian was allowed to be used - so that again has its own resonances.
I suspect the most valuable part of the workshop was simply that they came together and worked, and experimented, and exchanged views in a positive and creative atmosphere. For me it was a great experience.
I don't want to forget my long talks with Ivica Bobban, the dynamic and wonderful director, whose production of Mueller's 'Hamletmachine' was quite electrifying, and-who works tirelessly for the Croatian organisation - 'Mothers for Peace'. I don't want to forget the Egyptian commander of a detachment of UN troops, who I sat next to on the plane to Vienna, crying as he spoke of his time in Sarajevo, and of the children with their throats slit. I don't want to forget the awful shrugging of the shoulders which seemed to convey such resignation, or my friend Miso's haunted face, or the mercenaries in the hotel, whose faces had no expression, and who seemed not to belong anywhere. But above all I don't want to forget the enthusiasm and life of the students - and their humour.
Ciceley Berry
Progress and civilisation today have taken us far away from nature and its colours. Holi - the festival of colours - and many other festivals and rituals in India also have a direct link with the seasons and other natural occurrences. These festivals serve as a constant reminder, in this age of machines, of the warmth and richness of nature and the role it should play in our lives. It is important to keep up the spirit of these festivals so as not to lose with nature. But with each successive contact day, further advances in science and technology, increasing influence of a consumerist value system, we are going further and further away from nature. Our festivals are becoming dry, irrelevant and colourless. The gradual growth of an urban version of people's culture, by snuffing out the vibrant life of village culture has left no place for nature. The bigger the city is, the room further its inhabitants go away from the real spirit of our festivals. As a city grows, each individual becomes smaller, seeming to lose everything - the joy and colour in his life, his conscience. He is reduced to the status of an efficient machine. Each individual in the huge congregation becomes alone. Where there are no more 'people' in the collective sense of the word, how can there be people's festivals or people's culture of any kind? However, there are some pockets in cities where festivals retain some of the old forgotten spirit - the slum areas inhabited by migrants from rural areas. But even these areas are slowly changing in character. The big metropolitan cities, where every thing is a commodity, the natural colours of Holi too are being replaced by varnish and harmful chemical agents.
The condition of the big metropolitan cities of India seems to be beyond redress. But even the medium sized cities like Banaras, Allahabad, Kanpur, Patna, Ranchi, Jabalpur, Indore - even in these, the influence of rural traditions and rituals declining has been day by day. These cities have begun to aspire towards a big city status and in the process are actually rejecting the little influence that follk and rural culture exerted amongst the inhabitants. Therefore, the natural, warm, spontaneous gaiety evedent in the Holi of ten years back has been replaced by empty artificiality and ostentatiousness.
Man, as a member of human society, has a certain role to play in the collective life of the community - festivals are an expression of this social participation. In today's cities, in the context of modern values - it is considered very backward to pay any attention to this sense of social responsibility. Therefore, a festival like Holi -so enjoyable for its gaiety and spontaneity - has today become a festival of alarming anti¬social activities. Holi is on of the few Indian festivals in which women do not have a central role to play, nowadays in most cities the participation of women is almost non¬existent. The liberties traditionally allowed on Holi are taken undue advantage of and young men take this opportunity to harass women. Girls stop attending school and university four or five days before Holi. In towns like Banaras Allahabad, Patna for instance, Holi means vulgar songs, poems and parodies with women and the female anatomy as the central theme. So insulting are these to the sensibilities that very few women can gather enough courage to face them. Banaras - the centre of culture, education and spiritualism since ancient times, the holy place where Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas, the modern city which eminent writers like Ramachandra Shukla and Hazariprasad Dwivedi belong to - in that same Banaras - it has become and annual practice to organise public poetry sessions on Holi with audiences swelling to 25 -30,000, listening to poems and songs which are vulgar to the point of being obscene. -Taking advantage of the liberties traditionally allowed on Holi, these pets get drunk and indulge in obscene, expletive-ridden verses - which category of code of conduct for a festival does this come under ? On this occasion pictures, photographs, short stories and novels -pornographic in nature - are published and so|d, at very high prices, making Holi an extremely profitable festival for a section of people. This ugly culture is now being appropriated by Allahabad, Jaunpur, Mirzapur etc. spreading slowly to cover the entire eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, it is not surprising that one of the manifestations of the perversion coming In to the cultural life of our cities in this age of blind and aggressive consumerism is the rising rate of murders, rapes, molestation and other forms of inhuman torture.
If we go back to what Kabir had said " dyeing clothes in bright colours is not enough, it is your mind that should take on these colours" - it might sound extremely outdated but it is true that no amount of outward cheer and gaiety wiwll revive our culture unless our minds and hearts feel and express these emotions. If it is our wish to build a healthy human society - alive in its own colours and music - we have to explore the reasons why there is so much distortion and perversion and even inhumanity coming Into our society.
The vibrancy and dynamism in our festivals can still be channelised to expel the distortions our society and save our dying traditions, Bal Gangadhar Tilak had utilised the dynamism in the Ganesh Puja festival to rouse the nationalist feelings of the people of Maharashtra and come forward to fight colonial rule. Such is the power latent in our festivals. While it is true that an improved and clean Holi will not bring the whole country back on the right track, it will certainly remind us of the need to come out of our isolated shells and come together to live and enjoy life collectively. There is a lot that socially aware organisations can do in this context.
Today's politics - extremely exploitative and serving narrow selfish interests - has created a poisonous environment replete with communal tension -this can be countered and attacked through the medium of culture and various festivals of the attacked through the medium of culture and various festivals of the common man. This can be done by celebrating festivals like Holi, Idd, Baisakhi with their traditional warmth and clean enjoyment. This is not to overlook the fact that the problems accompanying modern technology and capitalist industrial development are much more serious, complicated and damaging. It is a known fact that the advance of capitalism and profit are based on exploitation of one class and the character of modern technology is to reduce man to a machine or to engage him in a losing battle with the machine. And this is destroyed. Because it is easy to defeat and handicap one man but it is difficult to make a dent in a society that has collective life woven into its very existence. In villages of India, even if they have caste and occupational divides, there is a basic fabric of social integration. So capital and modern technology resorts to urbanisation for capita! arid profit and modern technology. Our villages are thus losing their rural character, and at the same time, the tradition of people's culture, people's festivals is dying out.
Present day consumerist urban culture has made its presence felt in our villages to such an extent that even in rural areas we don't get to see Holi being celebrated the way it used to be celebrated 15-20 years ago. Today one has to look very hard before finding singers of Holi songs and drummers all seem to have disappeared. There are just a handful of people of the older generation - ailing and Infirm - who still remember the lively songs traditionally sung on Holi. Vicious electoral politics have created divisions amongst our villagers, they see their fellow human beings as enemies. It seems meaningless to look for Holi and its true colours amongst all this.
It is very unfortunate that our. education system is so indifferent to our cultural heritage that generation after generation of the students emerge from it -very well-read and educated in the sciences but totally ignorant of our culture. Educated rural youth, driven by the urge to achieve somethings in life, to become independent, look upon their rural surroundings as sterile ground for their ambitions and go away to the cities. There are millions of such people today who have left their birth place, their villages behind them but have not been able to fit into the urban milieu yet.Their lives seem to have been cursed With this kind of a neither-here nor-there existence. On the one hand they have not been able to become a part of the disco culture of the cities, on the other hand only snatches of tunes of traditional songs remain in their memories. What kind of progress is this - where crores of people are uprooted from their own soil and forced to live colourless lives in exile in the concrete jungles of the cities.
The colours of Holi are today in the hands of the ruling classes - they are manipulating the colours in such a way that serves their own interest while the common man's life is becoming increasingly devoid of any colour.
Arvind Chaturvedi
BOOK REVIEW
Folk tales from India ; A selection of Oral Tales from Twenty Two Languages Edited with a Introduction by A.K. Ramanujan. Oxford University Press 1992
One of the tales in this massive anthology is called 'Untold Stories', It is about a peasant who knew four stories but would lot tell them because he was too lazy. At night when he was asleep the stories came out of his belly and complained that this man "knows very well about us, but he will never tell anybody about us". They decided to kill him and go to live with someone else.
Such tales remind us that stones are meant to be told, and retold. A folk tale comes alive in its oral narration, and while each narration changes it subtly, it also charges it with new life. The editor, A.K.Ramanujan, who worked for many years to bring more than a hundred stones from different parts of India together, regarded himself as one more teller in a "long chain, and us as a group of listeners who would further transmit these stones by narrating them again to others.
A.K-Ramanujan known variously as a poet in English and Kannada, as a linguist, an anthropologist, a translator - was a professor of South Asian Languages and Civilization in the University of Chicago until his death in July 1983. But one of the most important, and also likely to be the most popular, of his books is this present collection. He insisted on calling it Folktales from India and not Folktales of India because "no selection can truly 'represent' the multiple and changing lines of Indian tales."
While Ramanujan highlights the variety and diversity of these tales from Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Santhali, Oriya, Rajasthani, Kannada, Tulu and many other Indian languages, we also see many similarities. The Bengali cycle of Gopal Bhar stories have elements in common with the Akbar and Birbal stories in Urdu as well as the stories about Tenali Rama the Jester, commonly told in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. In almost all the regions there are the male-centred tales arranged around a quest or an adventure that often end with a marriage, or the female- centred tales where the cleverness of a wife or a daughter-in-law saves a man or a family from destruction. The animal tales again and again show small animals outwitting the bigger and physically stronger ones. Many of the stories are told by Women in families to children at meal-time or bed-time and often begin with a ritual phrase that is meant to mark the beginning of a magical story-world, such as 'once upon a time1, (in Kannada Ondarondu Kaladalli) or 'In a certain town' (Ore Oru Urle in Tamil), 'Once there lived '(Ek je chhilo in Bengali). Similarly, there are ritual endings that mark the closing of the enchanted world. In Telugu they say "The story went to Kanchi, and we came home". In Bengali it is said "My story is over, and the notey leaf is plucked' (Aamar kathati phurolo, notey gaachti murrolo). The point to be noted is that just because a folk tale is orally recited it is not free of narrative rules. It is performed and received within a certain code. Some stories like brata-kathas are told as part of a ritual where the tellers and listeners receive certain merits.
Folk tales contain the richness of our grassroot traditions and contain sometimes the opposite of what the classical tradition upholds. We find in them affects of our lives not to be located in the written texts of high culture. Gods and demons come alive in them in very human forms and behave like ordinary people; the figures of power like kings and brahmans are tricked and subverted by common men, women and animals. Embedded in the stories of barbers, farmers, fishermen, fools and their wives are values that are local and indigenous but easily, understood across languages. It is admirable how Ramanujan translates these tales in a simple yet resonant English without losing; either their concreteness or their metaphoric quality.
Meenakshi Mukherjee
The word Baul is ancient. The inlaid concept of the Baul underwent the tradition of Smriti [memory) and Sruti (hearing) of Lokayata (materialist) philosophy of India. So, it has given supreme importance to body, and therefore to mankind, being evolved in the practice of life depending on cultivation.
Baul is a sect believing the body to be the seat of supreme truth. The Bauls live in the material and mortal world keeping themselves away from the metaphysical thoughts. They do not need to raise slogans for their doctrine. All their beliefs are expressed through the songs they sing. They spontaneously compose songs which are highly appreciated in rural Bengal.
Opinions vary in deriving the word Baul. In Arabian language, 'Ba' means 'self and 'ul' indicates 'search'. So, 'Baul' signifies search for the self. Practically 'self is the own body and an eternal search to know the whereabouts of body is a matter to the Bauls. In Bengali, some think that the word Baul is a dislodged form of the Sanskrit word 'Byakul' that indicates the overwhelming condition of mind. The Bauls are, in practice too, lost within themselves singing the songs which emerge from their belief.
To the Bauls, their body is the purest of all places where treasure of the universe remains. In Bengali they say, "Bhandei Brahmanda". 'Bhanda1 means the body and 'Brahmanda' means the universe, the self existence with all consciousness. Scholars have been thinking of the Bauls from different angles. From the very conception of cultivation the preference Of body came into existence. The process of agriculture mainly needs land and seed for the production which mankind lives on. In the same way, a man and a woman together can give birth to their next generation. Only Adam or only Eve could not create mankind. Adam represents the human-masculine strength and Eve stands for woman -fertility. Here the cultivation process brought the sequential inference of land and seed, "man and woman, to attain a successful production or creation. Bauls, mostly attached with agriculture, perceived logically that as land and seed in agriculture, so a pleasant union of man and woman in creation of mankind is necessary. The logic to imagine the Creation (universe) within the receptacle of the body gave birth to the thought of body supremacy, so metaphorical expression of the body-exudation, so progeniture, and so manifestation of the society living by agriculture. These may appear obscene to the modern mind; but the society where these conceptions emerged from can not be ignored.
One vital point of Bauls1 life should not be neglected. Though believing in eroticism in the context of cultivation, they are not lascivious. Abiding by the process of agriculture, as they observe the scheduled season of seeding the land, they maintain the time of physical union. In their language the Bauls wait for "the full moon time" or 'the time of "burning the lamp" etc. They never meet an unwilling woman. Women are the inseparable partners of the Bauls who practice austerity along with their women-companions. For an agreeable moment, they wait for one month or three months or .even six months. The control over the senses is required then. So, they learn from their teachers to work with the nervous-system, three main veins, the brain and breathing procedure through secret practices and accomplishing austere methods, which require a pretty good time. Therefore, the Bauls are devotees to their own teachers whom they call 'Guru1 fn Bengali. So, to be a real Baul is not so easy. The ancient Baul society maintained these disciplines. At present no such austere Baul is found here and there. Bauls of today only sing the Baul songs, they are not all austeres. Yet the Baul-songs are valuable for the society for their free thoughts of mankind and body. Fakir Kalacnand, the great Baul sang :
"Human body is a wishing land
Can grow precious crops.
But my hope can be attained
If cultivated in contact of content
Possessing the masculine-limb as the
plough
Use six inherent oxen and cultivate,
thou.
Seeding land just in time
One may produce harvest fine".
Here six-oxen mean six-vices of human
being, Lalan was conscious of the
capacity of acceptability and a befitting
attachment :
"If a child sucks the breasts
The sweetest milk he gets.
But to a leech's fate
Only a blood-outlet".
Baul songs express the hints of endeavors for leading the livelihood, realisation of the world around them, the social circumstances they live in and undertaking the enterprise to tame the problems faced by them.
There are practical reasons for going to the root of the Baul-theory at the background of the consistency between agricultural and vaginal life. The cultivating method remaining unchanged for a long time caused the agriculture -based people to adopt the old cultivation system as the main livelihood. Nothing unreasonable then if the idea of land-supremacy leads to woman -superiority, and man-strength to the seed-productivity.
But it is not all with the Bauls, who had to witness bitterly the pressure of Buddhist, Hindu and Islam religion during times of different empires. So, Baul-doctrine is an evidence of the mode of life in which the answers to the queries came out from the very heart of the people who had to move backward due to socially handicapped system imposed on them, the cultivating class. They were deprived of a developed system of cultivation. As the Bauls gave all supremacy to the body, as they imposed priority to women (even in a feudal society), as they kept away all religious and scriptural superstitions, as they did not care for the caste-community and creed, as they thought their body is the place of godliness, so they were disliked by the feudal lords and the dogmatic origins. And that is why the Bauls were not awarded the facilities of a developed society. Their queries about this restrained system came as the songs which contained protest. Protests search for a better society, for an innermost feeling and consciousness which must be material and humanistic, despite their effort to quote in their songs in the form of spiritual approach, of course under direct or indirect pressure. But the quoted songs were not in the sky of pure religion - the essence of the language of the Baul songs was unveiled. One song of Lalan may be quoted in this context :-
'When such a society would be designed
Where no one should be tried
As a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or
Christian
And by religion, community and clan ?
When a king and a beggar share food
each.
And no one can be exempted as he is
rich" ?
The Bauls had to remain inactive in the society. Their protects showered as songs of call for humanism as quoted above, or sometime through bitter satires. Again let us go through a song sang by Lalan :
"If a male Muslim is identified
Through circumcision
Then what will be ruling
For a Muslim – woman?
A Brahmims recognised
By the holy thread,
But how a female Brahmin
Can be identified" ?
It is not a complete song, only few lines are enough to speak for Lalan, a member of the Baul society.
Any kind of torture on women, the Bauls could not tolerate. They were in the opinion that urge for female-attachment should not be suppressed by stoicism which was practiced by the saints and religious introducers of that time, Lalan Fakir was too much respectful to Sri Chaitanya who preached for Vaishnavism. He had left his wife Vishnupriya and mother Sachi Devi for attaining his religious goal. Lalan, despite his all honour for Sri Chaitanya, could not spare him. He sang :
"Who had advocated you the edict
Such beloved you should quit ?
If you had this idea in your head.
Why have you been married ?
Now, how can Vishnupriya, your wife
Bear the afflicting separation in her life ?"
It is the attitude of the Bauls towards the womanhood. Love for body brings obviously love for humanism. Body has no religion, no caste and no community. The constitutional-system of a rich man's body and that of a poor man is not different. Baul songs are not indifferent to social circumstances. Atheist and materialist Bauls had to struggle a lot against the feudal lords, fundamentalists and the 'civilised1 society of rural Bengal. The houses of the Bauls were burnt and they were often driven away from the social touch. It is said, Lalan had to use a bamboo-stick to prevent the men of the landlord from burning the house of Kangal Harinath, his friend. Bauls were to live under pressure of the vested interests and the obstructed system of social development and manifestation. In the Baul-concept, -love for mankind, supremacy of the body and respect for women must dominate. Songs were composed accordingly. Allegorical amplification of body - smearings, symbolical expression of male-seed and female-fertility and vaginal activity, its similarities with land and cultivation - all these ideas were not unveiled straightly through their song. They took shelter of using metaphors and allegories in fear of being taken faulty of obscene.
Some portions of such a song will justify the truth. Also the song was sung by Lalan:
"Who lost himself
In the sweet ocean-passage
Attained the excellence
In response to that Sense.
The fire-flow beneath
Is limed with seed.
Then the flavoured soul
Dipped his heart in burst
And quenched his fullest thirst".
In this song, a pleasant union of sex is expressed through metaphors.
In the language of Borhanuddin Khan Jahangeer, "If we follow the caste-off inward collection, the broken part of thought and sympathetic vibration of vision of the Baul-songs, we can apprehend the roots of the Baul-doctrine".
What the Bauls perceived is pre-metaphysical, and so, most practical. Their songs are full of tender melodies that >stir up the mind. Lalan Fakir of undivided Bengal was the greatest of all Bauls. His supreme thought was bestowed on the body no doubt, but he visualised more precious attitude for mankind. Being questioned which religion or caste he belonged to, he only gave answers through his song that he did not know what is religion or what is caste, but he declared himself as a man only:
"Everyone asks.
What is the caste of Lalan ?
But Lalan says.
The shape of caste
I did not witness
Ever in this world "
Bauls live in material (Lokayata) world and believe in atheism. So, they do not care for re-birth, which most of the religious thoughts can not avoid. Lalan easily sang :
" I won't have this human life again.
So my mind, do what to be done
In this domain.
My preceptor infused the truth,
In my mind.
There can be nothing
Superior to mankind.
The gods even pray for a human-birth
Atleast once on this earth".
The Bauls' songs speak their own doctrine, of course through song. So, their composing capacity is out of question. Only some outlines are given here. Because, it is difficult to go to a' deeper approach within the short span. But there is scope to have research work on the Bauls, their songs, life-style and livelihood.
Rabindranath Tagore, the greatest poet himself was greatly moved to listen to the Baul song when he used to visit the places of rural Bengal {now in Bangladesh) within his Zamindary {land ownership). Tagore owed much to the Bauls, particularly to Lalan Fakir. Many of Tagore's famous enchanting songs had the direct influence and the reflection of Lalan's, not only in musical tone, but also in languages.
Lalan's songs for mankind is being adored now when vices of fundamenta-tism, communalism, casteism, torture on the poor and dominion over the occupied and aggressed by big powers are poisoning the world. The more he (Lalan) is known, the better for the human race. There is dispute regarding the date of birth of Lalan Fakir. But his date of death is documented. So, his death - centenary was observed on 19th October, 1990. A fair for three days in Lalan's name (Lalan Mela) on the occasion of his death-anniversary was arranged in a village of Nadia District in West Bengal. Bauls in good numbers joined that fair and sang Lalan songs. Baul songs are now considered" to be a great treasure for the Bengali culture. So, people of both Bangladesh and West Bengal are hopeful of the songs sung by the Bauls, for the sake of fraternity and humanity.
References :-
1) 'Religion of Man," Rabindranath Tagore.
2 ) 'Lokayata, -A Study of Ancient Indian Materialism,' Debiprasad Chattopadhyay.3) 'Lalan Sah, Abu I Hasan Chaudhury, Bangladesh.
4) 'Baul Can O Duddusah' (Songs of Baul And Duddu Sah Borhanuddin Khan Jahangeer, Bangladesh,
5) 'Banglar Baul.', (Bauls of Bengal), Kshitimohan Sen.
6) 'Lalan Fakir, Tar Gan O Mela', (Lalan Fakir, His songs And the Fair), Manik Sarkar.
Manju Sarkar
The following article is brief translation from a Bengali essay that concerns itself with the general experience that Jana Sanskrit’s faced in their theatre and interaction based activism in the area of primary education in the rural areas (various parts of the south 24 parganas district) of their focus. For the readers ease, I have in this work kept the content of the original intact but I have changed the structure of the essay in the following way:
There are two sections to this article:
a) Them and us – their reaction our response. And
b) Just by the way!
The “Them and Us” section deals with a series of reactions to our forum play “Sarvashiksha” (Mass Education) from the local politicians and teachers and it contains our responses to them and their remarks. On account of a surprising homogeneity of responses from these following two categories of people (the local teachers and politicians) we have selected, at random, only one particular performance to serve as example.
“Just by the way” contains incidents and facts that help us justify our actions – what we are doing is correct and needs to be done!
Section 1.
The Shyamnagar theatre group in the Kaeoratala Anchal (Badberia village) on performing the play “Sarvashiksha” was met with the following statements made by a teacher of the Kakdwip high school:
1) “everything said in this play is false”
2) “There is no logic in it since the mass education initiative of the government is what is responsible for having drawn so many children to school.”
3) “do not stop sending the children to school after the performance of this play”
Our response to this touched upon the following points:
1) Our intention is not to stop mass education – we not exactly fools.
2) The idea is to high light the draw backs in the education system and to understand where it stands.
3)To improve this very poor quality of education public movement for this is necessary and it has to be done in collaboration with the governmental cooperation.
Section 2.
Fact 1. The CDPO – who is supposedly one of the higher posted coordinating officials of the mass education initiative – reportedly stated that, there can exist no bargain about the quality of food served at the schools – if they are good they are good and if bad then bad!
Fact 2. Teachers of the ICDS program stated that there is no proper curriculum or format of teaching in the schools.
Fact 3. Teachers of ICDS schools are often not literate enough to evaluate examination papers. They pay 500 rupees to a person who can do the job and very sadly and strangely this idea was given to one of them by the CDPO. These “teachers” often become teachers on promotion.
Fact 4. Teachers report that they have no time to teach since they busy with “so many other things”
In conclusion, we would want to state once more to all those people who feel we are “liars” with “questionable motives” (Taranagar high school teacher), the below stated observations and ideas:
a) To stop mass education initiative is not our intention.
b) Education is as basic as food clothing and shelter and if any improvement is to be made in this sector the people’s point of view must be taken into account.
c) Since social good is the objective of the politicians, we would feel more than honored; we would feel deeply grateful if this goal can be accomplished together.
Boal on the All human societies are “spectacular*” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.
Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!
Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting - all is theatre.
One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.
Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.
Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.
When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.
Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!
We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.
Augusto Boal
(Original Portuguese)
* means also having the nature of a spectacle or show (note of the translator)