The Importance of Being GURU LALIT OJA
Guru Lalit Oja of Sipajhar, Asom is last of the Mohicans of the state of Assam. He is the last and the 8th generation of Oja in the Sukonnani Ojapali tradition in the Darrang district as the last Oja, whom he trained died. He used to stay at the Hatogaon of Sipajhar Block of above mentioned district, almost 70 KM from Guwahati, capital of Assam. His house is just a 5mts walk from Guahati-Mongoldoi Road.
It is a fact that he indeed is carrying the mantle of the great Nath Yogi tradition of India. He told me that he hailed from Bengal 8 generations back. His forefathers used to sing the song of Ojapali, written by Sukobi Narayan. The name of the script is PadmaPuran and act as Oja. The word Oja came from Sanskrit word Odhyapak or teacher. It he ho told me that though he forgot indigenous healing knowledge, he and his forefathers used to carry the knowledge of healing business. Some of the medieval travelers wrote that they saw the Nath Yogis used to live more than 250 Years by drinking the potion of Gondhak(Soara) & Parod(). They are mostly the medieval alchemists described in the TantroShastros. They used to be the carrier of scientific tradition of India.
He has been awarded the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy award for his expertise in Sukananni Ojapali and for contribution in popularizing this traditional folk art form. He is the last generation of performer after him there is a null and void.
He has performed Ojapali & Deodhani in various places in and outside India. For the first time in the LokPrakritiUtsav07 Guru Oja will going to perform his dance form in Kolkata.
বুধবার, ১৫ সেপ্টেম্বর, ২০১০
শুক্রবার, ২৭ নভেম্বর, ২০০৯
Nritya Parva - 2009
Kalaboti Mudra chairperson Dr. Lalita Ghosh was invited at the Nritya Parva – 2009, an exposition of Sattriya Dance at Guwahati from 15th to 18th November. A brief report is being presented here to make host this event at the web. This is the first initiative to popularize this event worldwide. We are cordially thankful to the team Dulal Roy to invite us at this prestigious event. Kalaboti Mudra presented some of its publication to Sri Dulal Roy. This is one of the best hosted events ever happened. We are also thankful to all the Satradhikars, Gurus and other dignitaries here.
A Sattriya Dance Festival has been organised by Sangeet Natak Academy at Guwahati the birth place of this dance style from 15 to 18 November. 550 years back great reformer and religious guru Srimanta Shankardeva introduced this style and this is the only practicing living dance tradition apart from Manipuri dance style.
Dancers, danseurs, connoisseurs, researchers, thinkers, art historian from different parts of India participated in this gala ceremony. Art historian Sunil Kothari, the only Bengali Sattriya researcher-dancer Dr. Lalita Ghosh, Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya, Professor of Dance, Rabondra Bharati University, Art promoter Arshiya Sethi, Orisi singer & Sangeet Natak Academy award winner artist Shayam Hari Das, Assistant Editor of Nartan and proffessor of Hyderabad University Madhabi, Scholar Pona Mohanta, President of Manipuri Sahitya Parishad. Th. Thombi Singh and various other glitterati grace the occasion. Dr. Lalita Ghosh acted as a presenter of Mudras to the deliberation of Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya.
Great theatre maestro Ratan Theam inaugurated the festival at Rabindra Bhaban, Guwahati on the 15th November in the presence of various honoured Sattradhikars, gurus numerous guests.
Series of workshops has been also arranged at State Museum Auditorium with the presence of great gurus, connoisseurs and scholars. Various lecture demonstration has been arranged and all the deliberations are centre to the point, informative, path breaking. Most of the people presents there animatedly participated at the open session in the workshops. Sri Guru Aanda Mohon Bhagabati, Dr. Sunil Kothari, Dr. Jagannath Mohanta, Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya, Dr. Pradip Jyoti Mohanta, Sri Bhaskar Jyoti Ojha presented their scholarly views with a live audience. In most of the deliberations the pain of transition of Sattriya came to the fore front. The discourse of metamorphosis of this greatly revered dance style Sattra to the modern proscenium secular stage took the centre stage as the Sattriya was declared as a newest classical dance forms. The pain and bleedings can be visible in the mind of the bhumiputras of Assam. The discussions of itemization of the traditional Bhakti revered dance also coming into the forefront in almost all the days. The live discourse participated with various historian, scholars should have a greater reverence in this connection.
At every evening various artists and bhaktas of Sattras and individual presenters presents their offerings. Gayan Badan items from various sattras are the opening soiree. In all the four days various revered and pranamya gurus and young artists presented their best performances there. Guru Ramkrishna Talukder, Rumi Bhuiyan, Pravakar Goswami, Seujpriya Barthakur, Bhabananda Barbayen, Prabhat Kakati, Dimple Saikiya, Anita Sharma amongst other presented their items. Various Sattras like Namkatani, Morangachiya, Borpeta, Auniati, Mayamora presented their bhaba and bhabana with their gayan-badan.
This is the festival of the festivals of Sattriya dance. All the connoisseurs and friend of Sattriya should thankful to team Dulal, who professionally and diligently host the event.
A Sattriya Dance Festival has been organised by Sangeet Natak Academy at Guwahati the birth place of this dance style from 15 to 18 November. 550 years back great reformer and religious guru Srimanta Shankardeva introduced this style and this is the only practicing living dance tradition apart from Manipuri dance style.
Dancers, danseurs, connoisseurs, researchers, thinkers, art historian from different parts of India participated in this gala ceremony. Art historian Sunil Kothari, the only Bengali Sattriya researcher-dancer Dr. Lalita Ghosh, Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya, Professor of Dance, Rabondra Bharati University, Art promoter Arshiya Sethi, Orisi singer & Sangeet Natak Academy award winner artist Shayam Hari Das, Assistant Editor of Nartan and proffessor of Hyderabad University Madhabi, Scholar Pona Mohanta, President of Manipuri Sahitya Parishad. Th. Thombi Singh and various other glitterati grace the occasion. Dr. Lalita Ghosh acted as a presenter of Mudras to the deliberation of Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya.
Great theatre maestro Ratan Theam inaugurated the festival at Rabindra Bhaban, Guwahati on the 15th November in the presence of various honoured Sattradhikars, gurus numerous guests.
Series of workshops has been also arranged at State Museum Auditorium with the presence of great gurus, connoisseurs and scholars. Various lecture demonstration has been arranged and all the deliberations are centre to the point, informative, path breaking. Most of the people presents there animatedly participated at the open session in the workshops. Sri Guru Aanda Mohon Bhagabati, Dr. Sunil Kothari, Dr. Jagannath Mohanta, Dr. Shruti Bandopadhaya, Dr. Pradip Jyoti Mohanta, Sri Bhaskar Jyoti Ojha presented their scholarly views with a live audience. In most of the deliberations the pain of transition of Sattriya came to the fore front. The discourse of metamorphosis of this greatly revered dance style Sattra to the modern proscenium secular stage took the centre stage as the Sattriya was declared as a newest classical dance forms. The pain and bleedings can be visible in the mind of the bhumiputras of Assam. The discussions of itemization of the traditional Bhakti revered dance also coming into the forefront in almost all the days. The live discourse participated with various historian, scholars should have a greater reverence in this connection.
At every evening various artists and bhaktas of Sattras and individual presenters presents their offerings. Gayan Badan items from various sattras are the opening soiree. In all the four days various revered and pranamya gurus and young artists presented their best performances there. Guru Ramkrishna Talukder, Rumi Bhuiyan, Pravakar Goswami, Seujpriya Barthakur, Bhabananda Barbayen, Prabhat Kakati, Dimple Saikiya, Anita Sharma amongst other presented their items. Various Sattras like Namkatani, Morangachiya, Borpeta, Auniati, Mayamora presented their bhaba and bhabana with their gayan-badan.
This is the festival of the festivals of Sattriya dance. All the connoisseurs and friend of Sattriya should thankful to team Dulal, who professionally and diligently host the event.
মঙ্গলবার, ২৪ নভেম্বর, ২০০৯
The elements of the Natyashastra as evidenced in the classical dances of Assam. by Dr Sruti Bandopadhay
Dr Sruti Bandopadhay is one of the foremost Manipuri Dance artists of India, having awarded the ‘Top’ Grade by National Television. Trained under such famous personalities like Guru Bipin Singh, Kalavati Devi, Darshana Jhaveri, Ojha Babu Singh, Ojha Gourakisor Sharma, she has performed in various national and international festivals for last 30 years. She is a recognized artist of Sangeet Natak Acadmey, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Eastern Zonal Cultural Center and other cultural institutions in India. She received the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) of University Grants Commission of India to research for her doctoral thesis titled ‘The influence of Madhurarasa on the development of Indian Classical Dances’. Sruti is now an established dance scholar with a PhD in dance. She is engaged as a Reader in Dance, at Rabindra Bharati University and served the Department as the Chair.
Apart from teaching at the post graduate level and supervising research and doctoral works, she regularly performs, conducts workshops and lectures on dance. Her choreographies like Bajao re mohana banshi, Offerings, Alo, Bharat- tirtha and Bhakirasasudhasara has gained acclaim.
She has a number of books and articles to her credit and supervised eight students for their PhD degree. Sruti is associated with different Universities in India and abroad. She was awarded the Visiting Lecturer Fulbright Fellowship to teach Manipuri and lecture on Indian Dances in the Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California, USA. She also lectured in the University of California, San Diego, Berkeley and the State University of California, Longbeach. As an extension to her Fulbright program she is now engaged as the Director of the Center for Studies and Research on Modern Dance under the Rabindra Bharati University.
Her paper on Manipuri Dance gained appreciation in the World Dance Global Summit, 2008 at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She represented India and performed Manipuri at the International Festival of Dance, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, Durban, South Africa in July 2009. She is awarded the 2009 Lalitakala Ratna award by Sri Lalita Kala Academy, Mysore.
This is a write up prepared to read at a workshop at "Nritya Parva" a Sattriya Dance festival organised at Guwahati by Sangeet Natak Academy. The Chairperson of Kalaboti Mudra, Dr. Lalita Ghosh, dancer and researcher assisted Dr. Bandopadhaya to demonstrated various hand gestures. We are thankful to Dr. Bandopadhaya who honoured us by giving us prmission to post it in our web.
The North East state of India, Assam has encountered diverse anthropological amalgamation and its history evidences varied cultural blends thus generating a unique heritage for the region. This legacy reflects the ingress of different religions like pre-Aryan beliefs, the Shaiva, the Shakta, the Vaishnava, and Buddhism with their influences registered as distinctive marks on their culture. The rulers of this region embraced these religions from time to time. During the reign of Samudragupta in the 4th century the Aryan way of life proliferated in this region. According to the historians during the rule of the Barman kings the relation of Assam with the mainstream India got established both politically and culturally. The copper plate inscriptions of the Barman rulers to the Pala rulers suggest the Shaiva cult being practiced here. The Shakta cult is a very distinctive feature of the religious history of this region. A clash of these two religions was seen in the socio-religious scenario of the region. But both the religions finally survived and the Kamakshya temple occupies a very distinct place in the Shakta temple map of India.
The Shaiva cult was a major religion and the temples added in the nati-s, who served in the temples as devotees of Lord Shiva. We observe the dancing of the natis as early as the 7th century. Interestingly most of the rulers encouraged the natis and thus the dance form gained prominence. In the accounts of Hiuen Tsang there is a mention of dance performance for entertainment in Pragjyotish. It is believed that the natis followed the rituals of the Natyashastra for the process of worship. They would bathe, take flowers for offerings and engage into presentation of pure dance movements. During the British rule the Devadasi tradition, here the nati tradition got extinct and so the actual presentation technique and process became very difficult to trace. Yet many scholars have researched into the form and put forward many important features of nati. The Shaivite temples at the Darrang, Barpeta and Jorhat districts had the tradition of the natis. Even the Vaishnava temple Hayagriva-Madhava had a nati tradition. Prof. Neog suggests that this could be in accordance with the maharis in the Jagannatha temple in Puri.
Scholar Ram Goswami insists that the natis exhibited marga nritya or classical dance. They used special distinctive hand gestures and feet movements to describe Shiva. They used many angika and they wore special costumes. They wore one to two hundred ghungroos and their steps followed intricate time measures and rhythms. The natis used the khol or the mrdanga as also the small cymbals the khutitala. It is more of a lasya or feminine dance and in Hajo temple nati songs the erotic sentiments are perceived. The dance incorporates swift and vigorous movements and even somersaults are introduced. It is treated as the predecessor of the classical presentations Ojapali and Satriya. The distinguished dance artist Suresh Chandra Goswami suggests that the Chali and the Jhumra of the present Satriya Dance has their roots in the nati dance presentation. Two distinguished natis- Kaushalya and Raiyabala handed down some valuable information on nati dance from which we get an idea of the dance. We observe some very exclusive elements of the nati dance resembling the essentials of the Natyashastra. The hastas or the hand gestures like pataka, tripataka, kapota, svastika was being used here. Even the padabheda or the feet-positions like the samapada, agratalasanchara, ancita was being used for the dance.
The Natyashastra, the text on dramaturgy, bearing the mores of the mainstream Indian culture, traveled to Assam with the process of Aryanization. The pravritti or the local usages described in the Natyashastra, mentions the region Pragjyotish, which is the Assam kingdom. The local performances gradually received the influence of this tradition thus registering distinct changes in performances that would comply with the elements in the Natyashastra. The lokadharmi form as described in the Natyashastra deals much directly with the common people of the region. In Assam we come across a traditional presentation called the Ojapali where the leader Oja and his associates the pali sing and display popular local stories like the panchali story Manasa Mangal illustrated in writings of poets Mankar, Durgabar and Narayandev. The presentation is made up of dances where different gestures are exhibited, different acting is incorporated, and different songs are sung. This reflects the indigenous aesthetic ability of the people in this region.
With the mainstream Indian culture engulfing the region we find this tradition Ojapali gaining the shastriya or the classical status. The stories from the epics and puranas were included and the abhinaya-s of the text molded the form into a superior presentation that included exhibition of the hand gestures and classical songs. This is a unique feature of Sanskritization as put forward by historians Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee and Prof. M. N. Srinivas. We observe history; Ramayana, Mahabharata and the puranas play an important part in the process of Sanskritization. These have helped Sanskritic Hinduism or the ancient Hinduism to smoothly enter into an alien society and culture. These epics have not only spread the tales of the Hindu gods and goddesses and related their greatness, they have also revealed the main viewpoints of Indian philosophy but their main contribution is that they have been the medium of forming a common for the entire country. V. Raghavan commenting on this aspect has said: "In religious dogma and cult puranas, agamas and tantras show how the great tradition absorbed different local cults and made a pattern and system out of the heterogeneous practices functioning at different levels. A common phenomenon is the sudden emergence in relatively full fledged form of a deity and its worship, for example, Ganesh, Durga and Radha and of cults and schools of thought like the Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects, the adoration of Kartavitya Dattatreya etc. Though philosophers and Sanskrit religious authors ignored that they were winning status among the people and the time came when they first entered popular books, the puranas, which provided a liaison between the learned classes and the masses." M.N.Srinivas has said: “The fact that the institution of the harikatha or public reading of the epics and puranas by trained masters of the art was a popular pastime and made it possible for Sanskritic Hinduism to reach even the illiterate masses."
In Assam we find the reciting of the epics in Assamese language by trained masters, here the Oja, through the Ojapali performances gained popularity among the masses. Naturally this enabled the unification of the region with the Indian culture. With such merger, finally we find two streams of Ojapali- the Suknani or Sukavi Narayana i.e. the old tradition with regional panchali the Manasa Mangal and the new trend Vyasa Ojapali particularly highlighting the epics and puranas. As Prof. Neog says “The performance seems to be connected with the Vaisnava Tantric form of worship of Vasudeva, who is described as all white in color and possessing eight arms. The performance of the chorus begins with the arati on the occasion of the worship of Vasudeva; but performances are also held in connection with the festivals of Durga, Laxmi and Shiva.
As observed, Ojapali is basically a communicating medium. This medium of presentation got enriched with the mainstream performance techniques which are laid down in the Natyashastra. For the hand gestures the experts of Ojapali follow the Tauratrtrikasara, the text which is unfortunately not available now. But Subhankara’s Hastamuktavali has a distinct place here. An Assamese version of this text has been found in Auniati Satra. The Vyasa Ojapali utilizes several hand gestures and the Kamrupa Ojapali use the word mudura which is the local abbreviation for the Sanskrit word mudra used in the Natyashastra. We observe usage of several mudras in Ojapali in bisahari songs, mare songs padmapurana songs where the gestures are used following meaning of the songs. For mare songs the words hatera chalana are used instead of hasta. These mudras have come down traditionally through the guru-shishya parampara education. These are not found in any text, but they only suggest a strong tradition of dance in Assam from a very early period and that too encasing the mainstream Indian culture.
The feet technique or bulan followed for display of the dances takes in the movements of different animals like the swan, peacock, sparrow, pigeon, lion, elephant etc. The show of these movements called the gatis occupies a separate chapter in the Natyshastra. The animal gatis are again detailed in texts like the Abhinaya Darpana and these are observed in Ojapali too.
The gatis form a very extensive portion of Ojapali technique. Other terms those identify the technique ghuran, the local term for bhramari in Natyashastra, nachan or nritta, paak or nritya etc. Also the terms dirgha nachan dance presented lengthwise, pathaali nachan or dancing breadth wise, dui pakiya or tin pakiya nachan i.e. dancing while taking two or three rounds sakai berani nachan or exhibiting movements resembling the crossing on a bamboo bridge over a river etc all put forward the importance of choreography in this presentation.
As many as 27 ragas including vasanta, pahari, malava etc are followed in the singing of Ojapali. The presentation of a raga is also accompanied by the verses of the origin of them. The high pitch singing gives the identity of Assam in Ojapali songs.
The bhava or the emotion presented in Ojapali display the inner emotion of the story that is enacted. Apart from the hand gestures and the feet movements the chakhu i.e. the usage of the eyes are very important. The neck positions along with the eye look called the chaon makes the expression complete. The popular ones are the madana chakhu (look of the Cupid), gheta-chakhu (look of discontent), neula chaon (mongoose look), bagula chaon (stork). These are local eye movements these do not have much similarity with the Natyshastra dristibhedas or even Abhinaya Darpana.
The Oja or the primary performer should be a skillful singer, dancer, and actor and should adore traditional costume. The verses describing the qualities of an Oja are found like
Mukhe geeta, hate mudra, paye dhare tala
Garurha sadrisha bhrame teye oja bhala
(A good oja sings, displays mudras, follows the time measure on his feet and moves like the garurha)
Mukhe geeta, hate mudra, paye dhare tala
Mayura sadrisha nache sei oja bhala
(A good oja sings, displays mudras, follows the time measure on his feet and dances like the peacock)
Nachan kachan mochan aaru vachana
Ei chari bastu ojaar prayojana.
(An Oja requires to dance, wear costumes, show mudras and render voice. )
The Oja is the conductor of the performance. A versatile man himself the Oja displays all the four abhinayas described in the Natyashastra. The angika, vacika, aharya and satvika are equally important in Ojapali.
So this discussion puts forward that with the Natyashastra the development of the dance gestures and movements gave a new turn to the movement repertory of Assam, the display of the geeta took in the classical modules and blended with the regional style, and also the rhythm and tala system emerged enriched. xxx
Towards the end of the 15th century Assam experienced a socio-religious uprising with the great saint Shankaradeva devising a novel expression medium for the propagation of the neo-Vashnava faith. He introduced dance-dramas based on Krishna and Rama. This period is marked all over India for the emergence of this unique medium i.e. the dance-drama in the medieval era. Previously the natya of the Natyashastra tradition was prevailing all over India and this was the Sanskrit era. The natya was written and performed in the classical language of Sanskrit. But in the medieval era regional performances gained prominence and they included the vernacular language. Naturally they became greatly accepted among the masses. Most of such presentations took the shape of dance-dramas. Thus dance came to the front and a stylized vocabulary of movement for expression developed. But this had the roots in the Natyashastra. So though this dance drama-s flowered as regional presentations, many features resembled the elements in the Natyashastra. We find the emergence of Kathakali, the Bhagavat Mela Natak, the Yakshagana, and the Kuchipudi. Behind all these was the Vaishnavite movement in many forms. So a new medium of presentation was devised basing it on the already existent tradition and used for propaganda of the religion.
In Assam tradition of satra were areas of studies of the Vaishnava faith and the dance-dramas, popularly called the Ankiya Nat, served as medium of propaganda for the religion. Shankaradev wrote six plays Patiprasada, Kalidamana, Rukminiharana, Parijataharana and Rama Vijaya. The structure of these dramas indicates the extensive use of dance and music intersected by short dialogues and commentaries as and when required. His dramas do not follow any earlier form but is unique on its own. There is a sutradhari who appears on stage as soon as the prelude music called the dhemali for the presentation is over. The preliminaries bear distinct marks of Purvaranga of the Natyashastra and the character of sutradhara also resembles that of the Sanskrit drama. The language is the Assamese Brajavali intercepted at certain points by Sanskrit canto.
The different phases in the Purvaranga of the Natyashastra bear similarities at many points. Like seeking blessing or the nandi, short dialogues with the sutradhara or trigata and prarochana, the introductory songs or the pravesa gita etc. At the end the writings desire wellbeing for one and all in accordance with the bharata-bakya of Sanskrit drama. We notice that the resemblances are with the vahiryavanika.
His disciple Madhavadeva generated the performances of these dramas integrating the abhinaya-s that reflect the Natyashastra tradition strongly.
The Satriya Dance, which takes its foundation from the Ankiya Nat performances, is now recognized as one of the classical dances of India. The dances, along with their different facets were given special importance and developed from aesthetic sense of the local people.
Apart from teaching at the post graduate level and supervising research and doctoral works, she regularly performs, conducts workshops and lectures on dance. Her choreographies like Bajao re mohana banshi, Offerings, Alo, Bharat- tirtha and Bhakirasasudhasara has gained acclaim.
She has a number of books and articles to her credit and supervised eight students for their PhD degree. Sruti is associated with different Universities in India and abroad. She was awarded the Visiting Lecturer Fulbright Fellowship to teach Manipuri and lecture on Indian Dances in the Department of World Arts and Culture, University of California, USA. She also lectured in the University of California, San Diego, Berkeley and the State University of California, Longbeach. As an extension to her Fulbright program she is now engaged as the Director of the Center for Studies and Research on Modern Dance under the Rabindra Bharati University.
Her paper on Manipuri Dance gained appreciation in the World Dance Global Summit, 2008 at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She represented India and performed Manipuri at the International Festival of Dance, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, Durban, South Africa in July 2009. She is awarded the 2009 Lalitakala Ratna award by Sri Lalita Kala Academy, Mysore.
This is a write up prepared to read at a workshop at "Nritya Parva" a Sattriya Dance festival organised at Guwahati by Sangeet Natak Academy. The Chairperson of Kalaboti Mudra, Dr. Lalita Ghosh, dancer and researcher assisted Dr. Bandopadhaya to demonstrated various hand gestures. We are thankful to Dr. Bandopadhaya who honoured us by giving us prmission to post it in our web.
The North East state of India, Assam has encountered diverse anthropological amalgamation and its history evidences varied cultural blends thus generating a unique heritage for the region. This legacy reflects the ingress of different religions like pre-Aryan beliefs, the Shaiva, the Shakta, the Vaishnava, and Buddhism with their influences registered as distinctive marks on their culture. The rulers of this region embraced these religions from time to time. During the reign of Samudragupta in the 4th century the Aryan way of life proliferated in this region. According to the historians during the rule of the Barman kings the relation of Assam with the mainstream India got established both politically and culturally. The copper plate inscriptions of the Barman rulers to the Pala rulers suggest the Shaiva cult being practiced here. The Shakta cult is a very distinctive feature of the religious history of this region. A clash of these two religions was seen in the socio-religious scenario of the region. But both the religions finally survived and the Kamakshya temple occupies a very distinct place in the Shakta temple map of India.
The Shaiva cult was a major religion and the temples added in the nati-s, who served in the temples as devotees of Lord Shiva. We observe the dancing of the natis as early as the 7th century. Interestingly most of the rulers encouraged the natis and thus the dance form gained prominence. In the accounts of Hiuen Tsang there is a mention of dance performance for entertainment in Pragjyotish. It is believed that the natis followed the rituals of the Natyashastra for the process of worship. They would bathe, take flowers for offerings and engage into presentation of pure dance movements. During the British rule the Devadasi tradition, here the nati tradition got extinct and so the actual presentation technique and process became very difficult to trace. Yet many scholars have researched into the form and put forward many important features of nati. The Shaivite temples at the Darrang, Barpeta and Jorhat districts had the tradition of the natis. Even the Vaishnava temple Hayagriva-Madhava had a nati tradition. Prof. Neog suggests that this could be in accordance with the maharis in the Jagannatha temple in Puri.
Scholar Ram Goswami insists that the natis exhibited marga nritya or classical dance. They used special distinctive hand gestures and feet movements to describe Shiva. They used many angika and they wore special costumes. They wore one to two hundred ghungroos and their steps followed intricate time measures and rhythms. The natis used the khol or the mrdanga as also the small cymbals the khutitala. It is more of a lasya or feminine dance and in Hajo temple nati songs the erotic sentiments are perceived. The dance incorporates swift and vigorous movements and even somersaults are introduced. It is treated as the predecessor of the classical presentations Ojapali and Satriya. The distinguished dance artist Suresh Chandra Goswami suggests that the Chali and the Jhumra of the present Satriya Dance has their roots in the nati dance presentation. Two distinguished natis- Kaushalya and Raiyabala handed down some valuable information on nati dance from which we get an idea of the dance. We observe some very exclusive elements of the nati dance resembling the essentials of the Natyashastra. The hastas or the hand gestures like pataka, tripataka, kapota, svastika was being used here. Even the padabheda or the feet-positions like the samapada, agratalasanchara, ancita was being used for the dance.
The Natyashastra, the text on dramaturgy, bearing the mores of the mainstream Indian culture, traveled to Assam with the process of Aryanization. The pravritti or the local usages described in the Natyashastra, mentions the region Pragjyotish, which is the Assam kingdom. The local performances gradually received the influence of this tradition thus registering distinct changes in performances that would comply with the elements in the Natyashastra. The lokadharmi form as described in the Natyashastra deals much directly with the common people of the region. In Assam we come across a traditional presentation called the Ojapali where the leader Oja and his associates the pali sing and display popular local stories like the panchali story Manasa Mangal illustrated in writings of poets Mankar, Durgabar and Narayandev. The presentation is made up of dances where different gestures are exhibited, different acting is incorporated, and different songs are sung. This reflects the indigenous aesthetic ability of the people in this region.
With the mainstream Indian culture engulfing the region we find this tradition Ojapali gaining the shastriya or the classical status. The stories from the epics and puranas were included and the abhinaya-s of the text molded the form into a superior presentation that included exhibition of the hand gestures and classical songs. This is a unique feature of Sanskritization as put forward by historians Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee and Prof. M. N. Srinivas. We observe history; Ramayana, Mahabharata and the puranas play an important part in the process of Sanskritization. These have helped Sanskritic Hinduism or the ancient Hinduism to smoothly enter into an alien society and culture. These epics have not only spread the tales of the Hindu gods and goddesses and related their greatness, they have also revealed the main viewpoints of Indian philosophy but their main contribution is that they have been the medium of forming a common for the entire country. V. Raghavan commenting on this aspect has said: "In religious dogma and cult puranas, agamas and tantras show how the great tradition absorbed different local cults and made a pattern and system out of the heterogeneous practices functioning at different levels. A common phenomenon is the sudden emergence in relatively full fledged form of a deity and its worship, for example, Ganesh, Durga and Radha and of cults and schools of thought like the Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects, the adoration of Kartavitya Dattatreya etc. Though philosophers and Sanskrit religious authors ignored that they were winning status among the people and the time came when they first entered popular books, the puranas, which provided a liaison between the learned classes and the masses." M.N.Srinivas has said: “The fact that the institution of the harikatha or public reading of the epics and puranas by trained masters of the art was a popular pastime and made it possible for Sanskritic Hinduism to reach even the illiterate masses."
In Assam we find the reciting of the epics in Assamese language by trained masters, here the Oja, through the Ojapali performances gained popularity among the masses. Naturally this enabled the unification of the region with the Indian culture. With such merger, finally we find two streams of Ojapali- the Suknani or Sukavi Narayana i.e. the old tradition with regional panchali the Manasa Mangal and the new trend Vyasa Ojapali particularly highlighting the epics and puranas. As Prof. Neog says “The performance seems to be connected with the Vaisnava Tantric form of worship of Vasudeva, who is described as all white in color and possessing eight arms. The performance of the chorus begins with the arati on the occasion of the worship of Vasudeva; but performances are also held in connection with the festivals of Durga, Laxmi and Shiva.
As observed, Ojapali is basically a communicating medium. This medium of presentation got enriched with the mainstream performance techniques which are laid down in the Natyashastra. For the hand gestures the experts of Ojapali follow the Tauratrtrikasara, the text which is unfortunately not available now. But Subhankara’s Hastamuktavali has a distinct place here. An Assamese version of this text has been found in Auniati Satra. The Vyasa Ojapali utilizes several hand gestures and the Kamrupa Ojapali use the word mudura which is the local abbreviation for the Sanskrit word mudra used in the Natyashastra. We observe usage of several mudras in Ojapali in bisahari songs, mare songs padmapurana songs where the gestures are used following meaning of the songs. For mare songs the words hatera chalana are used instead of hasta. These mudras have come down traditionally through the guru-shishya parampara education. These are not found in any text, but they only suggest a strong tradition of dance in Assam from a very early period and that too encasing the mainstream Indian culture.
The feet technique or bulan followed for display of the dances takes in the movements of different animals like the swan, peacock, sparrow, pigeon, lion, elephant etc. The show of these movements called the gatis occupies a separate chapter in the Natyshastra. The animal gatis are again detailed in texts like the Abhinaya Darpana and these are observed in Ojapali too.
The gatis form a very extensive portion of Ojapali technique. Other terms those identify the technique ghuran, the local term for bhramari in Natyashastra, nachan or nritta, paak or nritya etc. Also the terms dirgha nachan dance presented lengthwise, pathaali nachan or dancing breadth wise, dui pakiya or tin pakiya nachan i.e. dancing while taking two or three rounds sakai berani nachan or exhibiting movements resembling the crossing on a bamboo bridge over a river etc all put forward the importance of choreography in this presentation.
As many as 27 ragas including vasanta, pahari, malava etc are followed in the singing of Ojapali. The presentation of a raga is also accompanied by the verses of the origin of them. The high pitch singing gives the identity of Assam in Ojapali songs.
The bhava or the emotion presented in Ojapali display the inner emotion of the story that is enacted. Apart from the hand gestures and the feet movements the chakhu i.e. the usage of the eyes are very important. The neck positions along with the eye look called the chaon makes the expression complete. The popular ones are the madana chakhu (look of the Cupid), gheta-chakhu (look of discontent), neula chaon (mongoose look), bagula chaon (stork). These are local eye movements these do not have much similarity with the Natyshastra dristibhedas or even Abhinaya Darpana.
The Oja or the primary performer should be a skillful singer, dancer, and actor and should adore traditional costume. The verses describing the qualities of an Oja are found like
Mukhe geeta, hate mudra, paye dhare tala
Garurha sadrisha bhrame teye oja bhala
(A good oja sings, displays mudras, follows the time measure on his feet and moves like the garurha)
Mukhe geeta, hate mudra, paye dhare tala
Mayura sadrisha nache sei oja bhala
(A good oja sings, displays mudras, follows the time measure on his feet and dances like the peacock)
Nachan kachan mochan aaru vachana
Ei chari bastu ojaar prayojana.
(An Oja requires to dance, wear costumes, show mudras and render voice. )
The Oja is the conductor of the performance. A versatile man himself the Oja displays all the four abhinayas described in the Natyashastra. The angika, vacika, aharya and satvika are equally important in Ojapali.
So this discussion puts forward that with the Natyashastra the development of the dance gestures and movements gave a new turn to the movement repertory of Assam, the display of the geeta took in the classical modules and blended with the regional style, and also the rhythm and tala system emerged enriched. xxx
Towards the end of the 15th century Assam experienced a socio-religious uprising with the great saint Shankaradeva devising a novel expression medium for the propagation of the neo-Vashnava faith. He introduced dance-dramas based on Krishna and Rama. This period is marked all over India for the emergence of this unique medium i.e. the dance-drama in the medieval era. Previously the natya of the Natyashastra tradition was prevailing all over India and this was the Sanskrit era. The natya was written and performed in the classical language of Sanskrit. But in the medieval era regional performances gained prominence and they included the vernacular language. Naturally they became greatly accepted among the masses. Most of such presentations took the shape of dance-dramas. Thus dance came to the front and a stylized vocabulary of movement for expression developed. But this had the roots in the Natyashastra. So though this dance drama-s flowered as regional presentations, many features resembled the elements in the Natyashastra. We find the emergence of Kathakali, the Bhagavat Mela Natak, the Yakshagana, and the Kuchipudi. Behind all these was the Vaishnavite movement in many forms. So a new medium of presentation was devised basing it on the already existent tradition and used for propaganda of the religion.
In Assam tradition of satra were areas of studies of the Vaishnava faith and the dance-dramas, popularly called the Ankiya Nat, served as medium of propaganda for the religion. Shankaradev wrote six plays Patiprasada, Kalidamana, Rukminiharana, Parijataharana and Rama Vijaya. The structure of these dramas indicates the extensive use of dance and music intersected by short dialogues and commentaries as and when required. His dramas do not follow any earlier form but is unique on its own. There is a sutradhari who appears on stage as soon as the prelude music called the dhemali for the presentation is over. The preliminaries bear distinct marks of Purvaranga of the Natyashastra and the character of sutradhara also resembles that of the Sanskrit drama. The language is the Assamese Brajavali intercepted at certain points by Sanskrit canto.
The different phases in the Purvaranga of the Natyashastra bear similarities at many points. Like seeking blessing or the nandi, short dialogues with the sutradhara or trigata and prarochana, the introductory songs or the pravesa gita etc. At the end the writings desire wellbeing for one and all in accordance with the bharata-bakya of Sanskrit drama. We notice that the resemblances are with the vahiryavanika.
His disciple Madhavadeva generated the performances of these dramas integrating the abhinaya-s that reflect the Natyashastra tradition strongly.
The Satriya Dance, which takes its foundation from the Ankiya Nat performances, is now recognized as one of the classical dances of India. The dances, along with their different facets were given special importance and developed from aesthetic sense of the local people.
রবিবার, ১০ মে, ২০০৯
ProposalForCulturalNetworkingAtNorthBengal
The Issue of Identity
North Bengal is a veritable cauldron of sub-nationalist passion and linguistic sentiment for some decade. From the hills of Darjeeling to the plains of the Dooars and the Terai, communities have been structured along ethnic and community lines. Over the years, the region has been witness to social and political implosions that have resulted in calls for political autonomy, Statehood, and boycott of the elections. In the most extreme cases, these exhortations have led to demands for sovereignty. Other left extremists are trying to put their foothold and trying to address these issues on their own way.
The increasing importance of “identity issue” in Indian marginal society in recent times is discernable in the proliferation of movements based on identity and animative campaigns at the grassroots level- the demand by the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Tea tribals in Assam for recognition as Scheduled Tribes, or Gorkhs for Gorkhaland campaigns for recognition by excluded tribal groups, dalit women, dalit Christians and Muslims, several religious and linguistic minorities, and minorities within minority groups across the country. It is also reflected in the organized electoral politics in the form of identity-based mobilization. In some areas the some of the members of the wretched communities attracted towards the extreme political ideology to address the crisis.
The national movement and the exposure to the western culture mediated by the colonial rule made Indians very self-conscious of their cultural identity. The anxieties about the impact of globalization and marketization of economy, media and information systems, the leisure and style of life etc., which have direct impact upon the symbolic contents and the foundations of the tradition, have today generated anxious debate among the scholars, the people and the political parties on the policy responses of the state. Such policy has long been in the making, but today the process of globalization and its impact on culture, both local and national, give it a new urgency.
The demands made by such movements and campaigns engaging in identity question range from recognition, self- respect, preservation of their cultural identity from some kind of perceived threat to positive discrimination and share in power and resources.
The discontent of the indigenous people of the region had further increased leading to manifestations of militancy in some places. Sometimes brute repressive measures taken by the govt. without trying to understand the problems and resolve them. The region called North Bengal suffers from the required development. But development there is not directed towards the indigenous people of the region to uplift the community economically nor culturally. Their ethnic identity crisis related to their language and particular cultural life has to be understood in the light of this deprivation. The dialogue would open up these issues for threadbare discussion.
The Govt.’s obduracy to go on denying the fact of the region’s comparative economic backwardness, let alone the relevance of the cultural and linguistic movement that had been plaguing the region for a decade. All these are for the Govt. retrogressive and separatist and must be suppressed. The so-called civil society could not break out of this ideology to take proper stock of the situation. No stock taking of the situation by the government, neither the ruling and elite middleclass community opened a dialogue to understand the coming crisis of the communities. The need of such dialogue needed more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones.
The people living in the rural areas and in the remote tea gardens and especially the Schedule Caste (SC) & Schedule Tribe (ST), OBCs go on being deprived of these benefits still now. It can be said that the mainstream politics and the civil society per se are yet to be rid of the colonial concept of development. The urban babus are the recipients of all the benefits of the fruits of development. The common people in the villages or the tea gardens are kept at the bay. It is a bare fact that these tea garden workers and other marginal sections of the North Bengal, who are mainly Dalit and Adivasis, are not a priority group for anyone - not even for unions and the ruling political elites, whose focus has been on bringing irregularities of the capitalists in book and giving voices of the people who are merginalised and silenced. Largely invisible, the large section of the communities emerges from the undergrowth and silence, only when they become part of the statistics of development politics only.
This situation is further aggravated when it comes to another divide in North Bengal, that of the indigenous people and the migrants. At the sudden demographic change the indigenous people could not cope with the migrants to seize whatever opportunities were coming along. This led to their recession in every sphere and the consequent discontent over the years. Various works of Prof. Jeta Sankrityayana also refers to the plight of the people living in the plantation areas where the state had no role in the development. It is only recently that the Panchayet is introduced there.
Ironically, when we are talking about strengthening the communities we do not know that, there are more than 100 medical sciences among the indigenous people of India, known as Lokvidya. We have never tried to use them. The base of the so called modern allopathic healing system was based on the Indian traditional healing knowledgebase. The middleclass have thrown them aside along the people in our stride towards modernity.
It can be equally said about our folk culture. The middleclass forget that what we call folk and tribal cultures are really the cultures of the country. What goes in the name of culture as against folk or tribal culture is really the culture of the few, but the few being dominant do thereby suppress it. What happens here in North Bengal, is understandable in this light. There are many in the country, academics, activists, intellectuals, who are fighting this situation and what is needed is to relationship with them. It is a common concern of all.
Some of the leading activist-scholars like Claude Alvares’ & Dharmapal work thus assume great relevance. They relentlessly expose the claims of the West of its superiority and bring out the fact that till the advent of the British in India, it was a far richer and scientifically superior a country than the West. Their works are an eye opener and a must for all interested in understanding the machinations of the British in condemning our great achievements of the past. The justification for this gross exploitation and denigration of colonial victims was known as the civilizing mission. The colonial powers argued that in exchange for the wealth they plundered, both material and intellectual, they were providing the colonized people an opportunity to ‘modernize'. Rajini Kothari, the famed sociologist, pays a profound tribute to the importance of the work done by the scholar-activists when he says, “these are an ambitious undertaking though not modestly carried out. A Political battle that is intellectually waged.”
But today a lot of new facts are coming out which show how the West plagiarized Indian traditional science and called it its own and the urban upper class rich middleclass helped then in this plunder. Even the botanical taxonomy was essentially based on Ezhwa, Bangla, Tribal & other Indian traditional knowledge, but no Western scientist ever refers to the contributions of Itty Achuden to the now famous Hortus Malabaricus. And the ruling upper class middleclass minority did not try to unearth the massive portion of traditional wealth exists in the country. And still today the urban middleclass babudom blindly following the grand colonial development design to protect their clutch over the communities.
At the same coin the wretched plight of the Tea Garden people, their culture, education, health and sustenance being absolutely at stake, when few hundred years back they are the masters of their own fate. The colonial policy of development uprooted these tribal community en-mass to the North-eastern parts of India, especially in Bengal and Assam.
Now they are at the mercy and vagary of the Tea Garden owners and babus who proved to be irresponsible for centuries. The introduction of the Panchayet has taken place only the other day. The region is inhabited by a number of ethnic groups who are equally wretched and neglected. But no unity among them has either formed or was forged for a united struggle against a common enemy.
All these issues have proved to be problems because we are still guided by the old European concepts of single identity, single language and single development. These three 19th and 20th century concepts were all along active among our middleclass babus and leaders and us. experience has been one of sheer futility of all these.
It is a fact that no one in the government as well as in the civil society arena pays heed of the degraded crisis of cultural identity of these marginalized SCs, STs and OBCs and other marginal communities of the North Bengal. Hardly any documentation and dissemination work has been undertaken by any of the govt. and non-government agencies in the tea garden and largely at the North Bengal per se. The dominance of the minority middleclass elitist culture marginalizes the folk and tribal culture of these majority communities day by day.
The crisis of identity compelled with the socio-economic-cultural backwardness creating dangerous trends - that of a loss of faith in the mainstream political activities. Most of the tribals are non literate and thus grassroot governance at the tea gardens are at the hand of some unscrupulous members of the Operating Management Committees (OMC). We felt that in some of the areas of Bengal-Bhutan border areas extreme communist rebel groups like the Maoists are working to cash the apathy of the workers to attract under their umbrella.
The rebel group is utilizing the poverty of the people, the apathy towards mainstream political scene and the marginalization of the community culture to shore up their base in the area. The Intelligence Branch (IB) of the West Bengal police has recently submitted a report to the state home department stating that the Maoist forces are gathering strength by roping in workers of the closed tea gardens under the banner of "Majdoor Kishan Sangharsh Samity".
Forming of Cumulative Polygon to launch the network
The volatile background of North Bengal bacons a situation to form a cultural networking with various communities based cultural organizations. Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in North Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The stoic silence of the larger community created a greater level of suspicion amongst these communities.
The tribal composition in the North Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the effort of cultural activism will serve as a lifeline of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
Take the case of Raju Oraon of Kanthalguri TG. He sings about shrinking wages, increasing work load and an uncertain future in his dumkachh tunes, a form of tribal song with an elegiac note performed in the tea gardens of North Bengal. Karam, Jetia, Baha and Solorahi (tribal porobs) have become low-key affairs with tea workers struggling to survive the worst ever crisis in the industry. At a time when such a threat looms large over the fate of folk and tribal culture not only in the tea gardens but in the entire North Bengal to start a dialogue by creating an open form of these communities is a need of the hour.
Paschjim Banga Yuva Kalyan Mancha(PBYKM) is working in the North Bengal area for last few years especially at the tea gardens to make an impact on the livelihood options of the workers of the closed Kanthalguri TG. They are also working in other three Kadambini TE, Shikarpur TE, Raipur TG. For last few years KalabotiMudra (a trust body on behalf of the traditional artists and artisans of Bengal and North-East India to document promote and propagate the grass-root-level people, technology and culture. Main thrust is to document & support people’s technology and Traditional Knowledge. It is managing two websites separately http://lokfolk.blogspot.com/ and http://buybengalihandicrafts.blogspot.com/ apart from jointly run website http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/) also working to document the culture of the teagardens as a part of its North Bengal Culture Initiative.
To unearth the voices of the communities through the community based organizations both the organizations formed a cumulative polygon together to do a cultural networking work at the North Bengal, where PBYKM will act as a primary resource group and Kalaboti Mudra will act as a cultural facilitator. The experience of working at the tea gardens as well as various parts of the North Bengal in both alternative livelihood options undertook by the PBYKM and to unearth cultural identities by Kalaboti Mudra ultimately help to organise the cumulative polygon. These two are coming into a conclusion after much deliberation and discourse that the need of the hour is to form a forum of the marginalized cultural community organizations across the five districts of West Bengal.
The cumulative polygon feels that the North Bengal is sitting in time bombs which are waiting for serial blast of unrest of greater magnitude. It was said earlier that the government and the civil bodies are just doing non-work or putting some patch works to address the core issue, the crisis of community identity. Like other parts history shows patchwork does not help to reduce the created boiling tensions between the communities. It is a known fact that voiceless people are trying to make their footprint felt and the cumulative polygon will facilitate the voices to come up in the mainstream arena.
Through starting a cultural networking the cumulative polygon wants to start to open a process of dialogue with these marginal communities more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones. The need of the forum is to come up with various formal and informal meetings it started with various ethno-cultural groups and communities.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the networking will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups. The networking is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.
For last few months this cumulative polygon is running a website dedicated to the culture of the North Bengal and North East India together. Through this website this joint social initiative will spread the voices of the communities to the larger masses. The address of the website is http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/. The websites will be opened to all the community members of the cumulative polygon and they can actively post they want to tell the larger society.
The action of the polygon will be to bring together most of the community based organizations of the five districts of North Bengal such as Darjeeling, Jalpaiguru, Coochbihar, South Dinajpur, North Dinajpur into a networking platform so that they can raise their voices.
The network will organize various districtlevel and statelevel consultative discourse to unearth the silent voices of the communities and the member CBOs will represent them. At the same time the network will react in various deep-rooted issues thrown in the mainstream arena if they feel the respected communities are going to suffer in any way.
The network will act as a lobby group and work as a mouthpiece in the government and other stakeholders to bring about changes of mindsets of the people who are at the decision making level.
It will publish a regular newsletter as well as other publications of Books, CDs, Videos and other form of publicity materials to propagate various cultures which is in the verge of extinction and aware various sections of the society about it.
To make the proposal the cumulative polygon is asking a funding of a paltry sum of rupees of 4hundred thousands.
North Bengal is a veritable cauldron of sub-nationalist passion and linguistic sentiment for some decade. From the hills of Darjeeling to the plains of the Dooars and the Terai, communities have been structured along ethnic and community lines. Over the years, the region has been witness to social and political implosions that have resulted in calls for political autonomy, Statehood, and boycott of the elections. In the most extreme cases, these exhortations have led to demands for sovereignty. Other left extremists are trying to put their foothold and trying to address these issues on their own way.
The increasing importance of “identity issue” in Indian marginal society in recent times is discernable in the proliferation of movements based on identity and animative campaigns at the grassroots level- the demand by the Gujjars in Rajasthan and the Tea tribals in Assam for recognition as Scheduled Tribes, or Gorkhs for Gorkhaland campaigns for recognition by excluded tribal groups, dalit women, dalit Christians and Muslims, several religious and linguistic minorities, and minorities within minority groups across the country. It is also reflected in the organized electoral politics in the form of identity-based mobilization. In some areas the some of the members of the wretched communities attracted towards the extreme political ideology to address the crisis.
The national movement and the exposure to the western culture mediated by the colonial rule made Indians very self-conscious of their cultural identity. The anxieties about the impact of globalization and marketization of economy, media and information systems, the leisure and style of life etc., which have direct impact upon the symbolic contents and the foundations of the tradition, have today generated anxious debate among the scholars, the people and the political parties on the policy responses of the state. Such policy has long been in the making, but today the process of globalization and its impact on culture, both local and national, give it a new urgency.
The demands made by such movements and campaigns engaging in identity question range from recognition, self- respect, preservation of their cultural identity from some kind of perceived threat to positive discrimination and share in power and resources.
The discontent of the indigenous people of the region had further increased leading to manifestations of militancy in some places. Sometimes brute repressive measures taken by the govt. without trying to understand the problems and resolve them. The region called North Bengal suffers from the required development. But development there is not directed towards the indigenous people of the region to uplift the community economically nor culturally. Their ethnic identity crisis related to their language and particular cultural life has to be understood in the light of this deprivation. The dialogue would open up these issues for threadbare discussion.
The Govt.’s obduracy to go on denying the fact of the region’s comparative economic backwardness, let alone the relevance of the cultural and linguistic movement that had been plaguing the region for a decade. All these are for the Govt. retrogressive and separatist and must be suppressed. The so-called civil society could not break out of this ideology to take proper stock of the situation. No stock taking of the situation by the government, neither the ruling and elite middleclass community opened a dialogue to understand the coming crisis of the communities. The need of such dialogue needed more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones.
The people living in the rural areas and in the remote tea gardens and especially the Schedule Caste (SC) & Schedule Tribe (ST), OBCs go on being deprived of these benefits still now. It can be said that the mainstream politics and the civil society per se are yet to be rid of the colonial concept of development. The urban babus are the recipients of all the benefits of the fruits of development. The common people in the villages or the tea gardens are kept at the bay. It is a bare fact that these tea garden workers and other marginal sections of the North Bengal, who are mainly Dalit and Adivasis, are not a priority group for anyone - not even for unions and the ruling political elites, whose focus has been on bringing irregularities of the capitalists in book and giving voices of the people who are merginalised and silenced. Largely invisible, the large section of the communities emerges from the undergrowth and silence, only when they become part of the statistics of development politics only.
This situation is further aggravated when it comes to another divide in North Bengal, that of the indigenous people and the migrants. At the sudden demographic change the indigenous people could not cope with the migrants to seize whatever opportunities were coming along. This led to their recession in every sphere and the consequent discontent over the years. Various works of Prof. Jeta Sankrityayana also refers to the plight of the people living in the plantation areas where the state had no role in the development. It is only recently that the Panchayet is introduced there.
Ironically, when we are talking about strengthening the communities we do not know that, there are more than 100 medical sciences among the indigenous people of India, known as Lokvidya. We have never tried to use them. The base of the so called modern allopathic healing system was based on the Indian traditional healing knowledgebase. The middleclass have thrown them aside along the people in our stride towards modernity.
It can be equally said about our folk culture. The middleclass forget that what we call folk and tribal cultures are really the cultures of the country. What goes in the name of culture as against folk or tribal culture is really the culture of the few, but the few being dominant do thereby suppress it. What happens here in North Bengal, is understandable in this light. There are many in the country, academics, activists, intellectuals, who are fighting this situation and what is needed is to relationship with them. It is a common concern of all.
Some of the leading activist-scholars like Claude Alvares’ & Dharmapal work thus assume great relevance. They relentlessly expose the claims of the West of its superiority and bring out the fact that till the advent of the British in India, it was a far richer and scientifically superior a country than the West. Their works are an eye opener and a must for all interested in understanding the machinations of the British in condemning our great achievements of the past. The justification for this gross exploitation and denigration of colonial victims was known as the civilizing mission. The colonial powers argued that in exchange for the wealth they plundered, both material and intellectual, they were providing the colonized people an opportunity to ‘modernize'. Rajini Kothari, the famed sociologist, pays a profound tribute to the importance of the work done by the scholar-activists when he says, “these are an ambitious undertaking though not modestly carried out. A Political battle that is intellectually waged.”
But today a lot of new facts are coming out which show how the West plagiarized Indian traditional science and called it its own and the urban upper class rich middleclass helped then in this plunder. Even the botanical taxonomy was essentially based on Ezhwa, Bangla, Tribal & other Indian traditional knowledge, but no Western scientist ever refers to the contributions of Itty Achuden to the now famous Hortus Malabaricus. And the ruling upper class middleclass minority did not try to unearth the massive portion of traditional wealth exists in the country. And still today the urban middleclass babudom blindly following the grand colonial development design to protect their clutch over the communities.
At the same coin the wretched plight of the Tea Garden people, their culture, education, health and sustenance being absolutely at stake, when few hundred years back they are the masters of their own fate. The colonial policy of development uprooted these tribal community en-mass to the North-eastern parts of India, especially in Bengal and Assam.
Now they are at the mercy and vagary of the Tea Garden owners and babus who proved to be irresponsible for centuries. The introduction of the Panchayet has taken place only the other day. The region is inhabited by a number of ethnic groups who are equally wretched and neglected. But no unity among them has either formed or was forged for a united struggle against a common enemy.
All these issues have proved to be problems because we are still guided by the old European concepts of single identity, single language and single development. These three 19th and 20th century concepts were all along active among our middleclass babus and leaders and us. experience has been one of sheer futility of all these.
It is a fact that no one in the government as well as in the civil society arena pays heed of the degraded crisis of cultural identity of these marginalized SCs, STs and OBCs and other marginal communities of the North Bengal. Hardly any documentation and dissemination work has been undertaken by any of the govt. and non-government agencies in the tea garden and largely at the North Bengal per se. The dominance of the minority middleclass elitist culture marginalizes the folk and tribal culture of these majority communities day by day.
The crisis of identity compelled with the socio-economic-cultural backwardness creating dangerous trends - that of a loss of faith in the mainstream political activities. Most of the tribals are non literate and thus grassroot governance at the tea gardens are at the hand of some unscrupulous members of the Operating Management Committees (OMC). We felt that in some of the areas of Bengal-Bhutan border areas extreme communist rebel groups like the Maoists are working to cash the apathy of the workers to attract under their umbrella.
The rebel group is utilizing the poverty of the people, the apathy towards mainstream political scene and the marginalization of the community culture to shore up their base in the area. The Intelligence Branch (IB) of the West Bengal police has recently submitted a report to the state home department stating that the Maoist forces are gathering strength by roping in workers of the closed tea gardens under the banner of "Majdoor Kishan Sangharsh Samity".
Forming of Cumulative Polygon to launch the network
The volatile background of North Bengal bacons a situation to form a cultural networking with various communities based cultural organizations. Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in North Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The stoic silence of the larger community created a greater level of suspicion amongst these communities.
The tribal composition in the North Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the effort of cultural activism will serve as a lifeline of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
Take the case of Raju Oraon of Kanthalguri TG. He sings about shrinking wages, increasing work load and an uncertain future in his dumkachh tunes, a form of tribal song with an elegiac note performed in the tea gardens of North Bengal. Karam, Jetia, Baha and Solorahi (tribal porobs) have become low-key affairs with tea workers struggling to survive the worst ever crisis in the industry. At a time when such a threat looms large over the fate of folk and tribal culture not only in the tea gardens but in the entire North Bengal to start a dialogue by creating an open form of these communities is a need of the hour.
Paschjim Banga Yuva Kalyan Mancha(PBYKM) is working in the North Bengal area for last few years especially at the tea gardens to make an impact on the livelihood options of the workers of the closed Kanthalguri TG. They are also working in other three Kadambini TE, Shikarpur TE, Raipur TG. For last few years KalabotiMudra (a trust body on behalf of the traditional artists and artisans of Bengal and North-East India to document promote and propagate the grass-root-level people, technology and culture. Main thrust is to document & support people’s technology and Traditional Knowledge. It is managing two websites separately http://lokfolk.blogspot.com/ and http://buybengalihandicrafts.blogspot.com/ apart from jointly run website http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/) also working to document the culture of the teagardens as a part of its North Bengal Culture Initiative.
To unearth the voices of the communities through the community based organizations both the organizations formed a cumulative polygon together to do a cultural networking work at the North Bengal, where PBYKM will act as a primary resource group and Kalaboti Mudra will act as a cultural facilitator. The experience of working at the tea gardens as well as various parts of the North Bengal in both alternative livelihood options undertook by the PBYKM and to unearth cultural identities by Kalaboti Mudra ultimately help to organise the cumulative polygon. These two are coming into a conclusion after much deliberation and discourse that the need of the hour is to form a forum of the marginalized cultural community organizations across the five districts of West Bengal.
The cumulative polygon feels that the North Bengal is sitting in time bombs which are waiting for serial blast of unrest of greater magnitude. It was said earlier that the government and the civil bodies are just doing non-work or putting some patch works to address the core issue, the crisis of community identity. Like other parts history shows patchwork does not help to reduce the created boiling tensions between the communities. It is a known fact that voiceless people are trying to make their footprint felt and the cumulative polygon will facilitate the voices to come up in the mainstream arena.
Through starting a cultural networking the cumulative polygon wants to start to open a process of dialogue with these marginal communities more and more for throwing up the right kind of discourses as deterrent to the oppressive ones. The need of the forum is to come up with various formal and informal meetings it started with various ethno-cultural groups and communities.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the networking will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups. The networking is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.
For last few months this cumulative polygon is running a website dedicated to the culture of the North Bengal and North East India together. Through this website this joint social initiative will spread the voices of the communities to the larger masses. The address of the website is http://kmneinitiative.blogspot.com/. The websites will be opened to all the community members of the cumulative polygon and they can actively post they want to tell the larger society.
The action of the polygon will be to bring together most of the community based organizations of the five districts of North Bengal such as Darjeeling, Jalpaiguru, Coochbihar, South Dinajpur, North Dinajpur into a networking platform so that they can raise their voices.
The network will organize various districtlevel and statelevel consultative discourse to unearth the silent voices of the communities and the member CBOs will represent them. At the same time the network will react in various deep-rooted issues thrown in the mainstream arena if they feel the respected communities are going to suffer in any way.
The network will act as a lobby group and work as a mouthpiece in the government and other stakeholders to bring about changes of mindsets of the people who are at the decision making level.
It will publish a regular newsletter as well as other publications of Books, CDs, Videos and other form of publicity materials to propagate various cultures which is in the verge of extinction and aware various sections of the society about it.
To make the proposal the cumulative polygon is asking a funding of a paltry sum of rupees of 4hundred thousands.
শনিবার, ৯ মে, ২০০৯
ACaseStudy
Raju Oraon sings about shrinking wages, increasing work load and an uncertain future in his dumkachh tunes, a form of tribal song with an elegiac note performed in the tea gardens of north Bengal. Karam, Jetia, Baha and Sohorahi (tribal porobs) have become low-key affairs with tea workers struggling to survive the worst ever crisis in the industry. At a time when such a threat looms large over the fate of tribal culture in tea gardens, the KalabotiMudra and PBYKM's initiative to make a documentation on tribal art and culture in the gardens could not have been better timed.
Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in north Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The tribal composition in the north Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the documentation process will serve as a record of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the documentation initiative will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups.
The documentation & dissemination is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.
Almost 150 years ago, the British brought these tribal workers, comprising Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and 10 other tribes from the Chhota Nagpur plateau, as bonded labour for the plantations in north Bengal. No effort has been made earlier to officially document the tribal culture and the way of life in the gardens. The tribal composition in the north Bengal tea gardens is said to be unique to the region. There are around 3 lakh tribal workers in the gardens today. In today’s fast-changing scenario, in which traditions and cultures are undergoing sea change due to technological advancement and globalisation, the documentation process will serve as a record of the life and culture of society in tea gardens so that the roots are not forgotten after the changes come to stay.
To be working extensively in the Dooars and Terai tea gardens, the documentation initiative will showcase the important festivals, songs and dances of the various tribal groups.
The documentation & dissemination is also expected to touch upon several aspects of tribal life - from their local brew haria to the social customs and practices prevalent among them.
CulturalExpressionsOfTheTribasOfTeagardens
The tribes of the tea gardens celebrate Karam puja as their main festival, which is observed in the night of Bhado Ekadasi (August). Other festivals are Fagua (the festival of color), Sohorai, Gobordhan puja, Ganesh puja, Tushu puja and Gram puja.
They were landless persons who were often neglected by the higher classes of the society on the one hand and exploited by the landlords or Zaminders on the other. Properly speaking, they belonged to different castes, creeds and sects. But here in west Bengal they have lived together, mixed together and created a new common culture. They are proud of this culture. These people while living in their fatherlands observed some sorts of festivals and enjoyed pleasures and happiness in their sad life. They have not forgotten them. They have observed them in Bengal as they did them in the past of them mention may be made of the “Karam Puja”. It is the best national festival of the people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal, which they observed thrice a year as “Buri Karam”,”Ram Jumuir” and “Jitiya Karam”. he people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal observe many folk-dances for the sake of their mental gratification of which the “Jumur dance” is the best. They observe this dance in time of the Karam Puja, specialy the “Jitiya Karam Puja” held in the month of “Bhada”. The meaning of the “Jumur Nritya” or dance may be explained thus – “Ju (jhu)” means the atmosphere; “mur” mens the act of doing something moving in a circle or circling or surrounding; Hence the dance means the dance which is performed in a revolving or circling manner. The Karam is performed in Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orisa, Tamilnadu and Chennai all differently but in the month of Bhadra. This puja is in vogue in Bengal not only at the tea gardens but entire length and breadth of Bengal. Its popularity is on the increase. People participate in the dance and song of the Jumur performed as an essential part of the Karm puja. However, the Karam-Puja is started on the fourth tithi of Bhadra on the one hand and ended on the “Acadashi tithi” on the other. The puja is held in a wide place. The “Karmatis” play an important part in the puja from the beginning to the end.
The ‘Jumur dance’ is chiefly matriarchal. It is seen that young girls or women mainly take an important part in it. But that is not the end of the matter however. The young people or men also participate in the Jumur dance. Thus it seen that the Jumur dance is an important concerted dance of the young boys an girls, or male and females performed in connection with the Karam Puja.
The important musical instruments used in the Jumur dance are the drum, madal (a long drum), cymbal, flute and so on. The Jumur dance begins with the beating of the drum used in the function. Then the young girls begin to dance in a circular manner catching each other together. Side by side the Jumur song goes on being sung.
The Jumur song is started with a prayer to the Goddess Saraswati. The themes of the songs of the Jumur dance are vast and varied. They speak of the different events that occurred in the life of Lord Krishna. Apart form them the songs give us a lively description of the variegated matters of the life of the people living in the tea gardens of Bengal.
There is no definite or fixed dress to be worn in the Jumur dance. Only the universal dress of the labour of the society is used in the dance. The dancers wear Sari and put on a kind of ornament named Dhutia around the fingers of their legs. Moreover, they were a flower – & specially a red flower on the plait of their hair.Most of the Jumur songs are of four lines. Of course, there are some lengthy songs which are more than four lines. Again, the songs may be divided into some divisions and they can be sung only according to time.
The people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal have formed an important part of her population. They love Bengal from the core of their –heart as their motherland and are ever ready to keep her glory and prestige insect. This is clear to us from the following Jumur song sung by them in the Jumur dance.–
“Hamara majdur kisan
Hamara rakhba Asamar man
Na balib par desh
Asam balib go mai Asam.”
The people of the tea garden tribes of Bengal have contributed much to her culture. Their festivals and Jumur songs and dances are attractive and pleasing. They have attracted all sorts of the people of Bengal. As such, their popularity is on the increase day by day.
They were landless persons who were often neglected by the higher classes of the society on the one hand and exploited by the landlords or Zaminders on the other. Properly speaking, they belonged to different castes, creeds and sects. But here in west Bengal they have lived together, mixed together and created a new common culture. They are proud of this culture. These people while living in their fatherlands observed some sorts of festivals and enjoyed pleasures and happiness in their sad life. They have not forgotten them. They have observed them in Bengal as they did them in the past of them mention may be made of the “Karam Puja”. It is the best national festival of the people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal, which they observed thrice a year as “Buri Karam”,”Ram Jumuir” and “Jitiya Karam”. he people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal observe many folk-dances for the sake of their mental gratification of which the “Jumur dance” is the best. They observe this dance in time of the Karam Puja, specialy the “Jitiya Karam Puja” held in the month of “Bhada”. The meaning of the “Jumur Nritya” or dance may be explained thus – “Ju (jhu)” means the atmosphere; “mur” mens the act of doing something moving in a circle or circling or surrounding; Hence the dance means the dance which is performed in a revolving or circling manner. The Karam is performed in Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orisa, Tamilnadu and Chennai all differently but in the month of Bhadra. This puja is in vogue in Bengal not only at the tea gardens but entire length and breadth of Bengal. Its popularity is on the increase. People participate in the dance and song of the Jumur performed as an essential part of the Karm puja. However, the Karam-Puja is started on the fourth tithi of Bhadra on the one hand and ended on the “Acadashi tithi” on the other. The puja is held in a wide place. The “Karmatis” play an important part in the puja from the beginning to the end.
The ‘Jumur dance’ is chiefly matriarchal. It is seen that young girls or women mainly take an important part in it. But that is not the end of the matter however. The young people or men also participate in the Jumur dance. Thus it seen that the Jumur dance is an important concerted dance of the young boys an girls, or male and females performed in connection with the Karam Puja.
The important musical instruments used in the Jumur dance are the drum, madal (a long drum), cymbal, flute and so on. The Jumur dance begins with the beating of the drum used in the function. Then the young girls begin to dance in a circular manner catching each other together. Side by side the Jumur song goes on being sung.
The Jumur song is started with a prayer to the Goddess Saraswati. The themes of the songs of the Jumur dance are vast and varied. They speak of the different events that occurred in the life of Lord Krishna. Apart form them the songs give us a lively description of the variegated matters of the life of the people living in the tea gardens of Bengal.
There is no definite or fixed dress to be worn in the Jumur dance. Only the universal dress of the labour of the society is used in the dance. The dancers wear Sari and put on a kind of ornament named Dhutia around the fingers of their legs. Moreover, they were a flower – & specially a red flower on the plait of their hair.Most of the Jumur songs are of four lines. Of course, there are some lengthy songs which are more than four lines. Again, the songs may be divided into some divisions and they can be sung only according to time.
The people of the tea garden tribe of Bengal have formed an important part of her population. They love Bengal from the core of their –heart as their motherland and are ever ready to keep her glory and prestige insect. This is clear to us from the following Jumur song sung by them in the Jumur dance.–
“Hamara majdur kisan
Hamara rakhba Asamar man
Na balib par desh
Asam balib go mai Asam.”
The people of the tea garden tribes of Bengal have contributed much to her culture. Their festivals and Jumur songs and dances are attractive and pleasing. They have attracted all sorts of the people of Bengal. As such, their popularity is on the increase day by day.
রবিবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০০৯
Documentation of Karbis Culture
For last few years Kalaboti Mudra organizing a series of documentation work on various cultural expressions of communities of North-Eastern parts India. This is a need of the hour. Until and unless the the uprooted urban population aware of these deep rooted cultures of the communities, the complete history and the cultural map of the eastern region well not be completed as well all the root of these urban communities will be lost forever.
To make this happen Kalaboti Mudra proposing a series of documentation and exposition initiative through its North East Initiative project
The Karbis, mentioned as the Mikir in the Constitution Order of the Government of India, are one of the major ethnic groups in North-east India and especially in the hill areas of Assam. They prefer to call themselves Karbi, and sometimes Arleng (literally "man" in the Karbi language). The term Mikir is now not preferred and is considered to be derogatory.[1] The closest meaning of mikir could said to be derieved from "Mekar". The Karbis are the principal tribal community in the Karbi Anglong district of Assam, a district administered as per the provisions of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, having an autonomous district of their own since 17 November, 1951. The Karbis constitutes the third largest tribal community in Assam after the Bodos and the Mishings.
The Karbis are a Bi-lineal, (where both the lineage from the mother as well as father is equally important )society and is composed of five major clans or Kur. They are Ingti, Terang, Inghi, Teron and Timung which are again divided into many sub-clans. These clans are exogamous, in other words marriages between members of the same clan are not allowed.
The traditional system of governance is headed by the Lindok or the king, who is assisted by the Katharpo, the Dilis, the Habes and the Pinpos. The Lindok is based in Ronghang Rongbong in the Hamren subdivision of the district. These posts of administration, however, are now merely ceremonial with no real power.
The Karbis owns glorious cultural traditions. The Karbis celebrate many festivals. Rongker is one such festival held around January-February by the entire village as thanksgiving to the various gods and for the prosperity and the well-being of the community. The Chomkan (also known as "thi-karhi" and Chomangkan) is a festival unique to the Karbis. It is actually a ceremony performed by a family for the peace and the safe passage of the soul of family members who died recently.
Most of the Karbis still practice their traditional belief system, however, there is also a significant proportion of Karbis who follow Christianity. The practitioners of traditional religion believes in reincarnation and honours the ancestors, besides the traditional deities like Hemphu and Mukrang.
The Karbi women are expert weavers and they wear home-made clothes. Their main attire consist the pekok, a piece of cloth with designs wrapped around the upper part of the body and tied into a knot on the right shoulder, the pini, similar to a sarong and a vamkok, a decorative piece of cloth tied around the waist over the pini. The men's traditional dress consist of the choi, a sleeveless shirt with a 'V' shaped neck and loose threads at the bottom, a rikong, which looks like a dhoti and a poho, a turban.
To make this happen Kalaboti Mudra proposing a series of documentation and exposition initiative through its North East Initiative project
The Karbis, mentioned as the Mikir in the Constitution Order of the Government of India, are one of the major ethnic groups in North-east India and especially in the hill areas of Assam. They prefer to call themselves Karbi, and sometimes Arleng (literally "man" in the Karbi language). The term Mikir is now not preferred and is considered to be derogatory.[1] The closest meaning of mikir could said to be derieved from "Mekar". The Karbis are the principal tribal community in the Karbi Anglong district of Assam, a district administered as per the provisions of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, having an autonomous district of their own since 17 November, 1951. The Karbis constitutes the third largest tribal community in Assam after the Bodos and the Mishings.
The Karbis are a Bi-lineal, (where both the lineage from the mother as well as father is equally important )society and is composed of five major clans or Kur. They are Ingti, Terang, Inghi, Teron and Timung which are again divided into many sub-clans. These clans are exogamous, in other words marriages between members of the same clan are not allowed.
The traditional system of governance is headed by the Lindok or the king, who is assisted by the Katharpo, the Dilis, the Habes and the Pinpos. The Lindok is based in Ronghang Rongbong in the Hamren subdivision of the district. These posts of administration, however, are now merely ceremonial with no real power.
The Karbis owns glorious cultural traditions. The Karbis celebrate many festivals. Rongker is one such festival held around January-February by the entire village as thanksgiving to the various gods and for the prosperity and the well-being of the community. The Chomkan (also known as "thi-karhi" and Chomangkan) is a festival unique to the Karbis. It is actually a ceremony performed by a family for the peace and the safe passage of the soul of family members who died recently.
Most of the Karbis still practice their traditional belief system, however, there is also a significant proportion of Karbis who follow Christianity. The practitioners of traditional religion believes in reincarnation and honours the ancestors, besides the traditional deities like Hemphu and Mukrang.
The Karbi women are expert weavers and they wear home-made clothes. Their main attire consist the pekok, a piece of cloth with designs wrapped around the upper part of the body and tied into a knot on the right shoulder, the pini, similar to a sarong and a vamkok, a decorative piece of cloth tied around the waist over the pini. The men's traditional dress consist of the choi, a sleeveless shirt with a 'V' shaped neck and loose threads at the bottom, a rikong, which looks like a dhoti and a poho, a turban.
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