Copyright by Benjamin Samuel Krakauer 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Benjamin Samuel Krakauer Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Negotiations of Modernity, Spirituality, and Bengali Identity in Contemporary Bāul-Fakir Music Committee: Stephen Slawek, Supervisor Charles Capwell Kaushik Ghosh Kathryn Hansen Robin Moore Sonia Seeman Negotiations of Modernity, Spirituality, and Bengali Identity in Contemporary Bāul-Fakir Music by Benjamin Samuel Krakauer, B.A.Music; M.A. 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 2014 Dedication This work is dedicated to all of the Bāul-Fakir musicians who were so kind, hospitable, and encouraging to me during my time in West Bengal. Without their friendship and generosity this work would not have been possible. জয় 巁쇁! Acknowledgements I am grateful to many friends, family members, and colleagues for their support, encouragement, and valuable input. Thanks to my parents, Henry and Sarah Krakauer for proofreading my chapter drafts, and for encouraging me to pursue my academic and artistic interests; to Laura Ogburn for her help and suggestions on innumerable proposals, abstracts, and drafts, and for cheering me up during difficult times; to Mark and Ilana Krakauer for being such supportive siblings; to Stephen Slawek for his valuable input and advice throughout my time at UT; to Kathryn Hansen for her helpful suggestions during the planning stages of my research; to Charles Capwell for agreeing to serve as a member of my dissertation committee and for laying the groundwork for my scholarship; to Robin Moore and Sonia Seeman for serving as members of my committee and for their stimulating graduate seminars at UT; to Kaushik Ghosh for agreeing to serve as a member of my committee even before we became properly acquainted; to Sally Grossman and Baul Archive for bringing me to India to take part in the “Rabindranath Tagore and the Bauls” conference at Visva-Bharati University in 2012; to Fulbright for awarding me a U.S. Student Fulbright Award in 2012-2013; to Debasish Mandal at Rabindra Bharati University for generously serving as my academic supervisor in India during the tenure of my Fulbright Fellowship; to the Society for Asian Music for awarding me a Small Grant in 2012; to UT for awarding me a Foreign Language and Area Studies Summer Fellowship in 2012; to Rukan Uddin for helping me in my initial v Bengali language studies; to Protima Dutt, Prasenjit Dey, and Subir Sarkar at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Kolkata for helping me in my continuing Bengali language studies; to Aditi Sirkar and Kārtik Dās Bāul for putting me in touch with so many Bāul-Fakir musicians; to H. L. Seneviratne for introducing me to the films of Satyajit Ray, and thus sparking my interest in Bengal; to Vishal Nayak and Tajdar Junaid for first introducing me to Bāul-Fakir music; to Parjanya Sen, Arko Mukherjee, Soumik Datta, Sudipto Chatterjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Santanu Datta and so many others for being such valuable resources in all things Bengali; to Diptanshu Roy and Karishma Siddique Roy for providing me with a home away from home in Kolkata; to Jeanne Openshaw for her input and encouragement during the early stages of my field research; to Carola Lorea for being such a generous resource on Bāul-Fakir studies; to all of my lovely friends in Santiniketan and Kolkata (and America); and especially to all of my Bāul-Fakir friends for their hospitality, humor, and patience with the odd bideśī in their midst: Choṭa Golam and Mallikā Fakir, Rīnā and Dibākar Dās Bāul, Rabi and Minati Dās Bāul, Lāl Chānd Fakir, Ābdul Hālim, Āl Āmin Fakir, Nūr Mohāmmad, Āmirul Fakir and family, Mansur Fakir and family, Bāsudeb Dās Bāul and family, Debdās Bāul and family, Lakṣmaṇ Dās Bāul and family, and too many others to mention. vi Negotiations of Modernity, Spirituality, and Bengali Identity in Contemporary Bāul-Fakir Music Benjamin Samuel Krakauer, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Stephen Slawek Bāul-Fakirs are a heterogeneous group of Bengali musicians and spiritual practitioners known for their humanist spirituality and their rejection of caste and religious discrimination. In recent decades, Bāul-Fakir music has undergone dramatic changes as it has gained in popularity among affluent audiences. I explore the ways in which modernity, spirituality, and Bengali identity are negotiated in the performance and reception of Bāul-Fakir music in West Bengal. To many affluent Bengalis, the music is a sonic representation of a homegrown tradition of liberalism, communal tolerance, and social critique that predates the secular reforms of the colonial and post-colonial eras; Bāul-Fakirs occupy an especially prominent place in the self-imagination of many Bengali intellectuals and artists who appropriate signifiers of Bāul-Fakir identity in constructing their own countercultural identities. To many working-class Bengalis, Bāul- Fakir music is but one of many local entertainment forms, and is best received when performed with the instrumentation and electronically mediated timbres of mainstream commercial music. For Bāul-Fakirs themselves, the music fills a variety of roles: it is a vii professional livelihood, an important aspect of spiritual life, and an enjoyable recreational activity. In addition to addressing the presentational Bāul-Fakir music acknowledged by other scholars, I also shed light on the Bāul-Fakir participatory music, unexplored in previous literature, that thrives in isolated, predominantly Muslim villages of West Bengal along the India-Bangladesh border. I observe a strong correlation between five socio-cultural factors and the presence of this participatory music, and I suggest that similar factors correlate with participatory music-making elsewhere in South Asia. I also explore the changes that have occurred in one village in this area where a preservationist NGO has recently been active. The musicians of this area have become embraced as “authentic” alternatives to professionalized “Hindu” Bāuls, but the community has experienced negative side effects with the influx of urban visitors. Finally, I address some previously unexamined features of Bāul-Fakir music. I discuss the use of polyrhythm, elasticity of phrasing, odd meters, unique melodic modes, and variable intonation. I also provide the first published transcriptions illustrating the range of instrumental configurations found in contemporary Bāul-Fakir music. viii Table of Contents List of Figures ...................................................................................................... xiii Chapter One: An Ethnomusicological Approach to Bāul-Fakir Music in Contemporary West Bengal ............................................................................1 Thesis ..............................................................................................................2 Broader Relevance ..........................................................................................5 Bāul-Fakir Music and (West-) Bengali National Identity...............................6 Historical Background on Bāul-Fakirs ...........................................................8 A Brief Overview of Bāul-Fakir Religion ....................................................12 On the Disclosure of Esoteric Practices ...............................................14 My Usage of the Designation Bāul-Fakir .....................................................15 My Usage of the Terms Folk and Tradition .................................................19 A Brief Review of Scholarly Literature on Bāul-Fakirs ...............................20 On a Music-Centered Approach to Bāul-Fakir Studies ................................21 Tradition of Performance as Alms Gathering ...............................................24 Fieldwork Methodology................................................................................25 Chapter Summary .........................................................................................31 Chapter Two: Bāul-Fakir Music in and around Birbhum District .........................39 Introduction ...................................................................................................39 Original Contributions in this Chapter ..........................................................39 Chapter Outline .............................................................................................41 Towards a Balance of Authenticity and Entertainment ................................42 Professional Music-Making in the Santiniketan Area ..................................45 Non-contracted Work...........................................................................46 Contracted Work ..................................................................................52 Performances at Guesthouses and Private Residences ...............52 Performances at Pūjas .................................................................53 Performances at Melās ................................................................55 Performances at Arts Centers ......................................................55 ix Performances Abroad..................................................................58 Collaborations with Urban Artists ..............................................58 Government-Commissioned Work
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