UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Find the True Country: Devotional Music and the Self in India's National Culture Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/67s3p240 Author Virani, Vivek Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles FIND THE TRUE COUNTRY: DEVOTIONAL MUSIC AND THE SELF IN INDIA’S NATIONAL CULTURE A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology by VIVEK VIRANI 2016 © Copyright by Vivek Virani 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Find the True Country: Devotional Music and the Self in India’s National Culture by Vivek Virani Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnomusicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Daniel M. Neuman, Chair For centuries, the songs of devotional poet-saints have been an integral part of Indian religious life. Countless regional traditions of bhajans (devotional songs) have been able to maintain their existence by adapting to serve the contemporary social needs of their participants. This dissertation draws on fieldwork conducted over 2014-2015 with contemporary bhajan performers from many different genres and styles throughout India. It highlights a specific tradition in the Central Indian region of Malwa based on poetry by Kabir and other Sants (anti- establishment poet-saints) performed by lower-caste singers. This tradition was largely unheard- of half a century ago, but is now a major part of Malwa’s cultural life that has facilitated the creation of lower-caste spiritual networks and created a space for those networks to engage in discourse about social issues. Malwa’s bhajan singers have also become part of India’s popular ii religious and musical life as certain performers have attained celebrity status and been recognized at the national level as living bearers of the Sant tradition. This dissertation follows performers and songs from Malwa into new contexts and explores the processes by which performers and audiences in diverse styles and contexts use Sant bhajans to construct understandings of the self. It further addresses the role of Sant bhajans in the formation of new communities comprising members from previously disparate social groups. It interrogates why Sant bhajans might be relevant and appealing to Indians from so many backgrounds and how these bhajans and their performers are relevant to major cultural, religious, and social discourses in India today. It describes and analyzes the various processes by which Sant bhajans are creating new arenas for artistic, spiritual, and social dialogue, and allowing previously marginalized voices to contribute to the formation of Indian culture. iii The dissertation of Vivek Virani is approved. Aamir R. Mufti Timothy D. Taylor Ali J. Racy Daniel M. Neuman, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv To Swami, who brought me into the world of devotional music v TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents vi Note about Orthography vii Table of Figures viii Table of Images ix Acknowledgements xi Vita xv Chapter 1 “Come to My Country” Introduction 1 PART I: THE REGION Chapter 2 “Bhajans Have Purified My Body”: Nirgun Bhajans in Malwa Society 30 Chapter 3 “Pierced by the Arrow of Song”: Musical Structure of Malvi Nirgun Bhajans 77 Chapter 4 “This World is a Bustling Marketplace”: Changing Contexts, Identities, and Performance Practices 111 PART II: THE NATION Chapter 5 “A Voice with No Singer”: Regional Devotional Performers on the National Stage 152 Chapter 6 “One Water in Many Vessels”: Kabir in Popular Music 203 Conclusion 232 Glossary of Foreign Terms 241 References 245 vi NOTE ABOUT ORTHOGRAPHY When rendering terms from Hindi and other languages in Roman characters, I use a modified form of IAST transliteration to account for ambiguities in the regional pronunciations of certain words, and for the fact that pure IAST is difficult to read for most Indians. My deviations from IAST include the following: 1. The vowel ‘ṛ’ (ऋ) is rendered as ‘ṛi’. 2. The consonants ‘c’ and ‘ch’ (च and छ) are rendered respectively as ‘ch’ and ‘chh’. 3. The consonants ‘ṣ’ and ‘ś’ (श and ष) are rendered respectively as ‘śh’ and ‘ṣh’, although the distinction between sibilants is highly ambiguous in practice, particularly in regional dialectic pronunciations. 4. The nasalization of vowels typically represented by a chandrabindu (◌ँ) in Hindi is represented by ‘ṅ’, not to be confused with the cerebral nasal consonant ‘ṇ’ (ण). 5. ‘N’ is used to represent the dental nasal (न) as well as the nasals typically represented in IAST as ‘ñ’ and ‘ṅ’ (ङ and ञ). The latter nasals only occur in conjunctions preceding homorganic consonants, and the distinction between them is nonexistent in spoken Hindi and most other North Indian languages. 6. IAST does not provide a standardized means of differentiating between the dotted and undotted forms of the voiced dental stops ‘ḍ’ (ड and ड़) and ‘ḍh’ (ढ and ढ़). Therefore, there is a small degree of ambiguity in words containing these letters. 7. Frequently used terms, including bhajan, maṇḍalī, nirgun, sagun, and tambura, are rendered in non-italicized text without diacritics after their first use. vii TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 3-1: Common tambura and kartāl patterns 88 Figure 3-2: Standard nirguṇ bhajan form 92 Figure 3-3: Example sākhī melodies 95 Figure 3-4: "Zara halke gādi hāṅko," chorus and first verse, 97 Figure 3-5: Chorus of “Thāri kāyā nagarī meṅ” 98 Figure 3-6: "Saudagir, ab kyon bhulyo jāye?" Chorus and Part of First Verse 100 Figure 3-7: Chorus of “Muniyā pinjare vālī nā” 103 Figure 3-8: Chorus of “Kar le mail gaṅvārā” 103 Figure 3-9: Chorus of "Kin kāran āyo?” 106 Figure 3-10: First line of first verse of “Guru sharan meṅ rehnā” 106 Figure 3-11: First line of first verse of “Kartā karam se nyārā” 107 Figure 4-1: Typical four-beat rhythm played by percussion section of a nirgun mandali. 139 Figure 4-2: Intro to “Avadhu vo koi des batāvo” 143 Figure 6-1: Guitar and vocal parts from “Piya kī suratiyā” 214 viii TABLE OF IMAGES Image 2-1: Brahmin boys stand protectively at the temple steps 33 Image 2-2: The road between Lunyakhedi and Kabir Nagar 33 Image 2-3: Shrine to Ajay Bal Chakravarty Bhagavan 39 Image 2-4: A home in Malwa displaying images of Kabir alongside Baba Gurinder Singh 42 Image 2-5: Republican Party of India banner in Pune 56 Image 2-6: Pritam Malviya and Madanlal Malviya Singing at a Mrtyu Bhojan function 59 Image 2-7: A disciple touches the feet of a Kabir Panth mahanth 60 Image 3-1: A winter night satsang in Lunyakhedi village 78 Image 3-2: Kabir Kalā Manch, a bhajan mandali 82 Image 3-3: Two types of tambura plectra worn on the index finger 85 Image 3-4: Prahlad Tipanya inserts bridges into a number of new tamburas 86 Image 3-5: Prahlad Tipanya with his son, Vijay, performing in Indore 109 Image 4-1: A section of the crowd at one of Tipanya's performances 115 Image 4-2: Mathuralal Bilodiya with his son, Amritlal, and mandali 122 Image 4-3: Grounds and stage where annual Lunyakhedi Kabir Utsav is held 125 Image 4-4: A Malvi dance troupe performs for Doordarshan Indore 127 Image 4-5 a) Malvi Kabir bhajan VCD album covers 133 Image 4-6: Pavan Parihar and Manglesh Malviya playing ḍholak and ṭimki 138 Image 4-7: Devnarayan Saroliya and Dharmendra Tipanya playing violin and harmonium 141 Image 4-8: Mandalis gathered at the bhajan competition 151 Image 5-1: Prahlad Tipanya’s troupe prepares for a concert 153 ix Image 5-2: Malvi musicians representing Madhya Pradesh 155 Image 5-3: Private Concert by Prahlad Tipanya’s troupe 157 Image 5-4: Poster for the first Mumbai Kabir Festival, held in 2011. 167 Image 5-5: Mooralala Marwada's group practicing with Nirali Kartik 169 Image 5-6: 2015 Lunyakhedi Kabir Worshop 170 Image 5-7: Performers and travelers from all over at the 2015 Malwa Kabir Yatra 172 Image 5-8: Deepa Kamath sings a Kabir bhajan in her home 180 Image 5-9: Table selling traditional instruments at the 2014 Mumbai Kabir Festival 188 Image 5-10: Parvathy Baul performs at the Malwa Kabir Yatra 200 Image 6-1: Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy and Vedanth Bharadwaj perform 216 Image 6-2: The audience cheers for Kabir Cafe 218 Image 6-3: Kabir Cafe conducting sound check 221 x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my overwhelming gratitude to the many people without whom this project would have been unimaginable. I thank the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology for its continued support through research fellowships, conference travel awards, and the fieldwork fellowship that allowed me to conduct research for this dissertation. I also thank UCLA’s Graduate Division for funding in the form of Summer Research Fellowships, a Graduate Research Mentorship during my fourth year, and the Dissertation Year Fellowship that allowed me to complete this project. Many thanks to my committee members, Aamir Mufti, A. J. Racy, and Timothy Taylor for sharing their insight and for challenging me to expand my perspectives. Thanks especially to my advisor and committee chair, Daniel Neuman, whose continued guidance and confidence in me have been invaluable to my growth as a scholar. I am also grateful to the many professors at UCLA who have offered intellectual, professional, and personal guidance over the years, including Münir Beken, Tara Browner, Amy Catlin- Jairazbhoy, Stephanie Jamison, Roger Kendall, Cheryl Keyes, Vinay Lal, Steven Loza, Saloni Mathur, James Newton, Timothy Rice, and Anthony Seeger.