Unearthing Gender Unearthing Gender c Folksongs of North India Smita Tewari Jassal duke university press Durham & London 2012 ∫ 2012 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Hear the bells ring the notes of a chime when our words may not the worlds will rhyme. from ‘‘temple bells,’’ raminder singh jassal To the memory of my father jagdish narain tewari (1925–1990) and for raminder (1952–2011) who made life a song. contents Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation xvii Introduction 1 the unsung sing Chapter One 33 the daily grind Chapter Two 71 singing bargains Chapter Three 115 biyah/biraha Emotions in a Rite of Passage Chapter Four 155 sita’s trials Chapter Five 189 when marriage is war Chapter Six 219 taking liberties Conclusion 251 community harmonies Notes 261 Glossary 271 Bibliography 277 Index 289 acknowledgments hen, during my research in Uttar Pradesh, I in- Wtroduced myself to an informant, B. K. Dubey, in preparation for a structured interview, I first had to quell his curiosity about my interest in the songs of the region. The explanation I o√ered—that the inquiry was prompted both by my desire to pay homage to the mem- ory of my deceased father and by the opportunity this provided for ‘‘reclaiming’’ the language of my ancestors— so satisfied him that he warmed to me instantly. He found it entirely appropriate for a daughter, especially one married outside the community, to repay her debts in this manner. I encountered such responses repeatedly during fieldwork. Ironically, however, in discharging this particular debt, I invariably incurred others over the many years I spent in di√erent academic environments. It is therefore a great pleasure to finally thank all those with- out whom this book would not have been possible. The knowledge and vision of several individuals have impacted this project in countless ways. I could never have imagined writing such a book had Arun Kumar, in the late 1990s, not infected me with his enthusiasm for documenting songs that are fast disappearing, his lyrical Bhojpuri providing the impetus for my first tentative translations. Our shared project and research for a docu- xii b acknowledgments mentary film, ‘‘Land of Memories’’ revealed the scope and potential of my inquiry. In Israel, my conversations with David Shulman, and in New York, with Lila Abu-Lughod, encouraged me to explore the scholarly potential of my growing archive of songs, especially its implications for gender. I am also grateful to David for o√ering me the chance of a lifetime, in the spring of 2004, to sit in at the Sanskrit kavya symposia of world-renowned Sanskrit scholars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. That unique experience had a major influence on the contours of this book. Since the beginning of my writing process in 2005, Narayana Rao, Kirin Narayan, and Eyal Ben-Ari have been wonderful sources of inspira- tion and ideas. Many individuals have generously read and commented on di√erent stages of this manuscript. I warmly thank Eyal Ben-Ari, Carla Borden, Dipankar Gupta, Saul Sosnowski, Lila Abu-Lughod, Philip Lutgendorf, Sarah Lamb, Ann Grodzins Gold, Melanie Braverman, Patricia Uberoi, Nandini Sundar, Aftab Jassal, and the anonymous readers at Duke Uni- versity Press for their insightful comments. I am indebted to Bharati Ray, Adam Jones, and Namita Gokhale for publishing earlier versions and sections of these chapters in volumes they edited. I thank the Journal of Peasant Studies and Contributions to Indian Sociology for permission to republish large sections of chapters 1 and 6. I completed this book during my tenure as the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Professor in the department of Anthropology at Brandeis Uni- versity in 2008–09. I am grateful to Wendy Tarlow Kaplan and Shula Reinharz for this remarkable opportunity and to Sarah Lamb, Harleen Singh, my colleagues at Brandeis, and Naseem Hines for their friendship and support during that wonderful year. For their support in early 2005 in Washington, D.C., where I conceived and wrote most of the book, I thank Sunil Khilnani at sais, Johns Hopkins University, and Dean Good- man and Shalini Venturelli of American University, along with Sonalde Desai and Aseema Sinha. The perspectives of Israel’s Nirit Singers, Bar- bara Johnson and Skaria Zacharia, experts on songs of Israel’s Cochin Jews, helped strengthen my own arguments. Ruth Freed, Manjula Kumar, Dakshita Das, and M. J. Akbar deserve warm thanks for directing me to sources of songs, and Ali Kucukler, for supplying Devnagari fonts. I sorely miss the energy and support of the anthropologist Ruth Cernea, who as my walking companion in Bethesda shared the highs and the lows acknowledgments c xiii of the writing process but, alas, is no longer with us to celebrate the final product. I am grateful to Jaunpur’s Ajay Kumar Singh and his friends for engag- ing me in fascinating conversations about music and for introducing me to folk musicians in Chachakpur village and musical experts in Jaunpur city. Through Daulat Ram of Bharatiya Jan Sewa Ashram, Badlapur, and Munnilal of Barsara, I was able to contact a number of village commu- nities, including those of Sauraiyan and Barsara, whose songs are cap- tured in these pages. I thank Brahm Deo Upadhyaya for his assistance during the many field trips I made in Jaunpur district. In Misraulia, Chhapra, Ajay Mishra and his family generously shared their musical treasures. Thanks to him, the sessions I attended at the village temple at Misraulia will remain forever etched in my memory. Avinash Chaudhury and Radhey Shyam Nishad introduced me to singers in Sadiapur, Al- lahabad, and Rakesh Pandey, to singing communities in and around Benaras. Nirmal and Ajay Pandey, Rajeev Singh, and Momita Mukho- padhyay were particularly helpful in directing me to Sita songs circulat- ing in Ballia, Ghazipur, and Chandauli. I thank Muniza Khan for intro- ducing me to the Dalit and Muslim communities of Katesar village near Ramnagar, Benaras. I thank Shubhra Nagalia for introducing me to the singers of Kala Commune and to other folk music enthusiasts in Benaras, including Vidya Niwas Mishra. I relied on Shyam Lal Nishad for all manner of information in Benaras, and through Arun Mishra, I was able to contact folk singers in Robertsganj, and Dankinganj, Mirzapur. Ashok Choudhary, Hazari Singh Pankaj, Roma, Bharati, and many others of the U.P. Abhiy¯an Samit¯ı deserve my warm thanks for facilitating my earliest recordings at the various workshops across Uttar Pradesh. I made many of the recordings while working on research projects at New Delhi’s Centre For Women’s Development Studies. I thank my colleagues and the librarians and sta√ at the Centre, especially Priyanka, who ably translated my early recordings. The singers whose songs are immortalized in these pages are too nu- merous to mention by name. However, I do wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to Auntie Shanti Tewari and her friends and neighbors in Jaun- pur’s Atara district. Munraji and Subhavati of Barsara, along with their friends, held musical sessions and wakes especially for my benefit. The repertoire of Khatun of Jaunpur city, and the songs of Bhagirathi Devi xiv b acknowledgments and Urmila Maurya of Chachakpur invariably surpassed all of my musi- cal expectations. The villagers of Sauraiyan, especially Usha, Sushila, Kamala, and Ishraji Devi, adopted me and treated me to their songs and stories on numerous occasions. In Sadiapur, Allahabad, my thanks go to Sitara Devi and her companions not only for their songs but also for their wonderful spirit. In Misraulia, I thank Meena Devi for generously shar- ing her extensive repertoire with me. The team of extraordinary Dalit singers in Misraulia showed me just how much is conveyed through music. In Benaras, I was privileged to learn about musical traditions from the biraha maestros Hira Lal Yadav and Laxmi Narayan Yadav. I am in- debted to them as well as to singers near Ramnagar, particularly Badru- nissa, Shama, Aarti, and Savita Devi. I thank them all for generously sharing their heritage with me and for enabling me to claim it, too. Several sections of this book were first presented at conferences and seminars, and the feedback I received at these events has proved invalu- able. The arguments I make in chapter 2 were first presented at the Special Anthropology Talk series on 18 September 2008 at Brandeis Uni- versity. I presented sections of the introduction on 6–7 April 2008 at a series of symposia held in Washington, D.C. on ‘‘The Women Who Kept the Songs: From India to Israel—The Musical Heritage of Cochin,’’ at the University of Maryland, the Library of Congress, and in the Goldman Theater at the D.C. Jewish Community Center (dcjcc). I thank Stephen Stern and Gail Shirazi for their insights and interest in these programs. I first presented the ideas developed in chapters 3 and 4 at the ‘‘Gender and Development: Perspectives From India’’ conference held at the Center for South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison, on 18 October 2007. Selected themes from the book were also presented at the ‘‘Indian Art in the Contemporary Art World: Women Artists of India Transforming Culture’’ symposium, held at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Re- search Center on 3 October 2007. I presented songs from the book at the workshop ‘‘New Directions in the Social and Cultural Study of Sleep’’ at the University of Vienna, Austria, on 8 June 2007 and at the Richard H.