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Copyright by Wai Chung LI 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Wai Chung LI Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Sikh Gurmat Sangīt Revival in Post-Partition India Committee: Stephen Slawek, Supervisor Andrew Dell’Antonio Gordon Mathews Kamran Ali Robin Moore Veit Erlmann The Sikh Gurmat Sangīt Revival in Post-Partition India by Wai Chung LI, MPhil. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following individual and parties for making this project possible. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and respect to Professor Stephen Slawek, who always enlightens me with intellectual thoughts and personal advice. I would also like to thank other members of my doctoral committee, including Professor Andrew Professor Dell’Antonio, Professor Gordon Mathews, Professor Kamran Ali, Professor Robin Moore, and Professor Veit Erlmann for their insightful comments and support towards this project. I am grateful to the staff of the following Sikh temples and academic institutions where research was conducted: The Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology; The American Institute of Indian Studies, Haryana; Gurdwara Sahib Austin, Texas; Jawaddi Taksal, Ludhiana; Gurdwara Sahib Silat Road, Singapore; Khalsa Diwan (Hong Kong) Sikh Temple, Hong Kong; Punjabi University Patiala, Patiala; The Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar; and The Sikh Center, Central Sikh Gurdwara Board, Singapore. I owe a debt of gratitute to people affiliated with the Jawaddi Taksal, Ludhiana, as they made my time in India (especially Punjab) enjoyable and memorable. They include Sant Giani Amir Singh and Baba Sohan Singh from the Jawaddi Taksal, Ludhiana; Principal Sukhwant Singh, the well-respected teacher at the Gurmat Sangeet Academy; Dr. Jasbir Kaur from the Punjabi University Partiala; Principal Satnam Singh from the Gurmat Sangeet Academy in Singapore; and many other musicians, students, and teachers. For the sustaining friendship over the years, I would like to especially thank Mr. Sharanjit Singh and his family, both in Amritsar and Hong Kong. It was these wonderful and sweet family members who aroused my interest in Sikh devotional music, and made my first research trip possible. Finally, I would like to thank my amazing family for their love, encouragement, and continuous support. I could not have done the research in India iv and pursued a doctoral degree abroad without them. They are the love of my life, and it is to them that I dedicate this dissertation. v The Sikh Gurmat Sangīt Revival in Post-Partition India Wai Chung LI, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Stephen Slawek Gurmat sangīt, literally sacred music of the Sikhs, is a religious marker of Sikhism. Sikh religious practice is oriented toward musical performance to worship God and evoke spiritual elevation. As a common religious practice at the Sikh temples, gurmat sangīt generally involves recitation of religious texts and devotional singing with instrumental accompaniment by professional musicians and/or the congregation. It also illustrates musical ways of uniting with God as found in Sikh scriptures. The major sacred text, the Guru Granth Sahib, contains a large number of verses in an arrangement organized by rāgas (musical modes). Gurmat sangīt has developed rapidly since the 1980s. The number of recordings, publications, and performances featuring Sikh religious music and/or musicians increased. Academic programs and organizations of gurmat sangīt were launched to train both professional and amateur musicians in India and abroad. At that time, a trend has developed to revive the authentic practice of Sikh devotional music with correct rendition of rāga performance and the re-introduction of stringed instruments such as the tāūs (a bowed-string instrument in peacock body sound box) and rabāb (a plucked-lute instrument). While exhibiting a tendency to standardize musical details and generate a historiography of Sikh music, contemporary practitioners also emphasize authenticity and tradition in re-imagining the devotional music performance at the time of the Sikh Gurūs. vi The revival is identified with not only professional Sikh musicians in Punjab but also overseas Sikh musicians and musicians of other religious and/or socio-cultural backgrounds. In this study, I adopt the case study approach to examine the phenomenon of the gurmat sangīt revival in 20th- and 21st-century Punjab. My research focuses on the annual performances of Sikh devotional music, and a Sikh religious institution in the city of Ludhiana, from where the trend of the music revival has been developed. For the revival’s aim to promote the “authentic” Sikh devotional music tradition, I argue that it involves a self-interpretation of combined authentic, invented, and westernized concepts in association with musical practice at the Sikh Gurūs’ times and Indian classical music, and being shown in the standardization, classicization, and hybridization of Sikh devotional music performance. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ....................................................................................................... xiv List of Illustrations .................................................................................................xv PART ONE: OVERVIEW OF SIKH MUSIC .....................................................1 Chapter 1 Introduction: Theoretical Framework, Literature Review, and Research .......................................................................................................1 Theoretical Framework ...................................................................................4 Revival and Revitalization .....................................................................5 Classicization .........................................................................................7 Nations, Identity, and Subalternity ........................................................8 Literature Review..........................................................................................12 Devotional Music of India ...................................................................12 Sikh Devotional Music ........................................................................16 Music of an Indian Minority Population ..............................................23 Research ........................................................................................................26 Methodology ........................................................................................26 Fieldwork .............................................................................................28 Main Research Site and Informants .....................................................31 Special Feature of the Research: Sikh Names .....................................36 Chapter 2 Music of Sikhism ........................................................................39 Concept of Music and Sound in Sikhism ......................................................39 Music and the Sikh Scriptures: the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth ..............................................................................................................43 Terminology of Sikh Music and Musicians ..................................................47 Sikh Devotional Music a ad īrtan, ur ā i īrtan, and urmat angīt .....................................................................................................48 ikh Musicians Ra ā ī, īrtankār, Rāgī, and Đhāđī ..........................51 Context of Sikh Music and Performing Styles .............................................59 Professional Sikh Music Practice.........................................................59 viii Amateur Sikh Music Practice ..............................................................61 Performing Styles.................................................................................62 ikh Music from the Time of urū Nanak to the Present ............................63 ikh urus’ Times Compilation of a ad Compositions and Consolidation of Sikh Devotional Music Performance ..............64 Post- urus’ Times and the Partition Period Various Attempts to Develop the Sikh Deovtional Music Practice ............................................65 The s the urmat angīt Revival and the Recent cene .............70 PART TWO: THE GURMAT SANGĪT REVIVAL ...........................................73 Chapter 3 Adutti Gurmat Sangeet Samellan/AGSS ....................................73 Socio-political History of Sikhism in Punjab in the 1990s ...........................74 Adutti Gurmat Sangeet Samellan/AGSS ......................................................75 Initiator: Sant Baba Sucha Singh (1948‒2002) and the Jawaddi Taksal ......84 Rāg Nirnayak Committee .............................................................................86 The 1991 Adutti Gurmat Sangeet Samellan .................................................93 Chapter 4 Revival of the Sikh Devotional Music Tradition ........................96 Singing in Prescribed Rāgas .........................................................................97 Controversies of Rāgas as the Requirment of īrtan inging .............98 Functions and Designations of Rāgas in ikh criptures ..................101 ection of