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By Deepti Priya Mehrotra The deep roots of Islamic culture in India were explored in a week-long celebration of multiculturalism in Delhi recently
Early last month (April 1-8), New Delhi witnessed a festival of cultural performances, exhibition, seminar and public lectures projecting diverse facets of Islamic culture in India. Organised around the theme ‘Hind Islami Aqeedat ke Rang’ (Colours of Islamic Devotional Culture in India), the event was a celebration of multiculturalism. In his keynote address, Professor Akhtarul Wasey, Head of Department, Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia University, reminded participants of the incredible richness of Sufi music, Mughal architecture, and the many magical variations in the chanting of the Quran and azaan (the muezzin’s call to the faithful). Islamic culture in the Indian subcontinent is a wonderful synthesis, with deep roots in local art, music, language and theatre forms. Dr Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty, Member Secretary, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), explained that the idea behind the festival was to promote mutual understanding, absorb diversities and resolve misunderstandings. The focus was on aqeedat, or devotion, which in essence is the same as bhakti. In this confluence of cultures, there is ample material that needs to be studied by art historians, musicologists, linguists and other scholars. The exhibition of Islamic art, put up at IGNCA’s Mati Ghar, showcased over 60 religious posters and calendar art put together by documentary filmmaker Yousuf Saeed. Saeed noted: “Indian cities offer a wealth of popular visual art, from brilliant billboards, movie posters… to religious posters, calendars and other decorative material for devotees. While it is easy to find religious posters for a Hindu devotee, it is also not very difficult to get posters depicting Muslim themes and folklore.” The posters on display depicted attractive, fantastical images of Mecca, Medina, local shrines, saints and their miracles, in rich iconography. Urdu and Arabic calligraphy formed another fascinating section of the exhibition. Raza Zaidi, freelance artist and former Head of Department, Fine Arts and Arts Education, Jamia Millia Islamia, explained that calligraphy was especially favoured by Mughal emperors Babur, Akbar and Jehangir. Calligraphy, used as “symbolic representation of the unrepresentable, is a form of visual poetics… I have tried to bring its relevance to the present generation.” Zaidi presented ‘calligraphic paintings’, in which the artist used a paintbrush instead of a reed pen, on canvas, combining words and letters to create beautiful patterns. Photographers Abbas Hussain and Sameena Jawed sourced a large number of artefacts for the exhibition, including textiles, miniatures, household items, digital and manual prints, photographs, and replicas of beautifully carved doors and windows. Short films were screened showing craftsmen at work and displaying rituals and functions such as namaz, roza iftar and urs celebrations at dargahs (Sufi shrines). Performing artistes from across the country brought alive a wealth of folk, classical and semi-classical traditions, imbued with the values of harmonious living, honesty and piety. Naseer Ahmed from Assam performed zikr -- devotional songs composed by Azan Faqir, who migrated from Baghdad to Assam (1634-35) and composed zikrs to popularise the basic tenets of Islam and promote inter-communal amity. Zikrs, such as the following, continue to be sung at social gatherings in Assam: O Allah, I have no feeling of difference,
I have no feeling of disunity or hate,
Whether Hindu or Muslim, all come from the same Allah,
Only, Hindus will be placed in the pyre,
Muslims will rest in the grave,
Under the same earth. Qawallis were presented by the Nizai brothers of Nizamuddin, New Delhi, and the Warsi brothers of Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. A form of Sufi music, qawallis can put listeners and performers in a trance-like state -- the magic was very much evident, with mesmerising voices and hands clapping in unison. The roots of qawalli go back to eighth century Persia. During the first major migration from Persia, in the 11th century, part of the country’s musical traditions migrated to the Indian subcontinent, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Amir Khusro of the Chishti order of Sufis is credited with fusing Persian and the prevailing Indian traditions in the 13th century, to create qawalli as we know it today. Songs in the repertoire are mainly in Urdu, Punjabi, and a sprinkling of Persian, Brajbhasha and Siraiki. Singing groups typically consist of eight or nine men, in traditional black achkans (long coats) worn over white kurta pyjamas (tunics and loose trousers), and wearing black caps. From Kashmir there was the theatrical performance Bhand Pather. A Hanjura and his troupe performed the realistic social satire, incorporating a touch of mythological lore. Bhands have been performing since ancient times: the word comes from bhaan, a satirical drama mentioned in Bharata’s Natyashastra. Bhands were originally Hindus who converted to Islam and remain very secular in outlook. They are skilled actors, acrobats, dancers and musicians and speak in an idiom familiar to the common person. Chahar bayt, literally meaning ‘four-line verse’, was presented by Badshah Khan from Tonk, Rajasthan. Chahar bayt was traditionally an integral part of competitions held on full moon nights, around a fire, in villages and forest clearings. The evocative poetry is about battles and victories, adventure and romance. This singing style, developed by the Pathan Muslims of north India and patronised by nawabs, is slowly dying out.
Dramatist Habib Tanvir’s much-acclaimed classic Agra Bazar, depicting the humanist poetry of Nazir Akbarabadi, was read out to an appreciative audience. Nazir, a true ‘people’s poet’, often wrote songs for vendors, beggars and vagabonds. His colloquialism and slang cut him off from mainstream Urdu poetry; his work was discovered generations after his death. He earned a living by giving tuitions to children, and refused invitations and commissions from aristocrats like the Nawab of Lucknow. Rabia Basari, a play directed by Seema Aggarwal, Bharatnatyam dancer and teacher at the National School of Drama, interpreted the life of Rabia al-Adawiyya, an eighth-century mystic. Rabia was born in poverty and made a slave, yet she rose to become one of the founders of Sufiism. She was, in Farid ud-Din Attar’s words: “…that woman who lost herself in union with the Divine”. Aggarwal’s inspired choreography did justice to the early saint, highlighting both her austerity and her passion. Singer-musicologist Madan Gopal Singh sang a number of ‘songs of connectivity’ -- Sufi songs bridging lands and languages. As Singh explained to a rapt audience, these songs have come from Chisht, Khorasan, Samarkand, Hamadan, and blended with the musical traditions of Benaras, Lahore, Patial, Pak Pattan and Kasur… The ballad Heer Ranjha is actually a metamorphosis of the Radha Krishna myth into the contemporary life of Punjabi Muslims. Likewise, the spiritual content in Amir Khusro’s poetry deepened with his forays into Multan and proximity to Baba Farid. Singh said: “For Khusro, the fluvial confluence of myriad languages of the Indic topography held an abiding allure. He would often write poems with one verse running in Persian, and replicate the metre with precise exactitude in a local dialect, in the next… His songs seemed to traverse the registers of classicity and folk-culture with equal abandon.” Journalist Saeed Naqvi’s public lecture ‘Secular Ethos as Reflected in Urdu Poetry’ re-affirmed the secular values underlying India’s plural culture. Renowned scholar Asghar Ali Engineer emphasised the importance of objective interpretation of history, as a sine qua non for promoting inter-faith understanding. Noted writer and social worker Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Member, Planning Commission, Government of India, focused on the position of women, noting that women of different communities face many problems and that the need of the hour is research and committed action on various fronts, including history, social work, literature and the arts. Seminar participants presented a rich array of scholarly insights into poetry, rituals and spiritual traditions: Zubair Hudawi spoke on ‘Devotional Poetry in the Hybrid Language of Arabi-Malayalam’; Shahnaz Shaheen on ‘Awrad Khani -- A Traditional Mode of Spiritual Awakening’; S Mujahid Husain Husaini on ‘Moral Values as Depicted in the Marsiyas (elegies) of Meer Anees’; and Farhat Rizvi on ‘Naat and Mersiya Among Non-Muslim Poets’. S J R Bilgrami described ‘The Culture of Moharram’, while Azra Abidi reflected on ‘The Tradition of Moharram, with reference to Marginalised Muslim Women’, based on her research on tawaifs (courtesans) and mirasans (folk singers) in north India. A number of seminar papers examined the harmonising role of dargahs dotted across the length and breadth of India, revered by Hindus and Muslims alike. Yoginder Sikand explored ‘Popular Devotion and Reshaping of Identity As Shared, at Qalandar Dargah in south India’; Ghulam Ishaq Khan described ‘Religious Devotion at the Dargah of Hazrat Bal in Kashmir’; and Mumtaz Currim showed slides of the elegant aesthetics and complex rituals in these ‘Little Cities of Allah’ that come up around the tombs of beloved saints.
Ghulam-Sarwar Yousuf, a leading Malaysian scholar, transported seminar participants into the fascinating world of ‘Islamic and Middle Eastern Elements in Traditional Southeast Asian Theatre, with special reference to Indonesia and Malaysia’ -- indicating the ever-widening boundaries and scope for exploring cultural roots, origins and syntheses. As Dr Molly Kaushal, Associate Professor, IGNCA, who put in a lot of effort in organising the festival, remarked: “Initially, I thought this would be a one-time event. But now I realise it is only a first step. The journey has just begun!” (Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a Delhi-based writer) InfoChange News & Features, May 2008
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