Grounds technical and emotional

The discrimination about the artists and the surrounding suspicion has deeper roots, and is probably linked to unpredictability inherent in the arts writes Sarwat Ali.

The basic problem with music is the validity of the criterion under which it can be evaluated. It has usually been done either on purely technical grounds or the emotional content that it is supposed to evoke. Obviously, when dealing with the latter we find ourselves on very slippery grounds. It is said that a song or a piece of music has the capacity to make you happy, a composition evokes a feeling of sorrow, a musical movement appeals to baser instincts and some are pure and elevate you spiritually. But the relationship and process of music with the feeling or mood that is evoked has never been properly established.

Daud Rehbar is a scholar and a practicing musician. He is not one of those who talk nineteen to a dozen about the theoretical aspects, effect and function of music without ever having touched a musical instrument, or sung a musical phrase. Writing about Ustad Abdul Karim Khan in 'Batein Kuch Sureeli Si' he says that in the twentieth century the style of Karim Khan's music (asloobe ghina) influenced many singers but it must be stressed that the women singers were more influenced by him as compared to male singers. He goes on to elaborate by saying that women singers were influenced because they adopted his style that was shaista and baawaqaar. The sanjeedgi changed the style of music because it provided a counter to the miraasipan, which he further qualifies as ibtazaal (base) and rakakat (mean) and elevated music to be a purely spiritual exercise.

Many of the phrases are loaded and carry a specific reference or bias, and need to be looked at more closely before it can be safely said that these phrases can form the basis of sufficient reasoning to qualify as the basics for judging a piece of music.

The assumption here is that miraasipan is a quality that is integrally linked to immorality and meanness, the implication being that the social position of a person is fully reflected in his art. Since the miraasis are considered not to be respectable material, some immorality is reflected in their music. As far as Abdul Karim Khan is concerned he attributes the sobriety that he conferred on his music to his association with the pandits as they considered music to be sacred and part of religious ritual. It did not have the miraasipan of the Khansahibs so to say.

One reason he attributes to their lowly status is that musicians who played instruments which used the skin or guts of an animal were considered untouchables. Most of them converted to Islam to escape the social stigma that was attached to them and necessarily brought their habits and traits with them into their new faith.

As the logic goes this should have rid them of the stigma of their lowly status and liberated them to be treated at par in the religious order that they had adopted. It did not happen as they were still discriminated in an order when the entire body of art was under constant microscopic scrutiny and had to justify its existence and expression. It was never treated as self evident but had to be defined again and again to meet with the morally acceptable standards of society.

Unfortunately most who have written about music have not been practitioners and professional musicians, while almost all great musicians have been professional musicians in the sense that they have inherited the art of music -- they have been born to family of musicians and not are atayees, those not been born to professional musicians and have to acquire music.

The proof of music lies in its practice and the practicing musician has only focused on mastering the technicalities to a stage where it only becomes an effortless act to give a form to his musical sensibility. The non-practicing musician never has the skill to implement what he feels or thinks about. The mastery of craft is totally indispensable in music and any serious discussion about it without that level of mastery is merely hot air.

This dichotomy has existed in all societies, and it has only been in the twentieth century that the artists have perhaps become an icon and a star in the social sense. An artist was always a star but socially he was never accepted as an equal. His place was outside the sanctified circle of respectability and as an outsider he was supposed to provide pleasure and entertainment to the respectable section of society that usually provided patronage to the arts.

The performing arts have been much maligned and more than the performing arts the performers have been rated as immoral, of a lowly status and disreputable. This is a generic condemnation and is not directed towards an individual. The entire community is the target of this discrimination. In music, as indeed in other performing arts, the debate about the moral effect has occupied centre stage for a very long time. Even Plato was worried about the corrupting influence of the artists and poets, and was wary of offering them an honourable status in his 'Republic'.

It is quite sad that this prejudice has tainted and discoloured the true evaluation of music and scholars like Daud Rehbar -- without fighting or resisting it have fallen victim to it. Music that has come down to us has been in the form of practice and all the words ever created could not have been able to ensure the continuity of a tradition. The practitioners of music have overwhelmingly been miraasis and the music that we have inherited has oodles of miraasipan in it. If this is the only music that we have inherited then we are in no position to compare it with any other music which is essentially ours.

The European example is not applicable to us and cannot be blindly applied without giving due consideration to the local ethos. It only means that all the rest is only a wish fulfillment of what should have been, without totally having one's feet on the ground.

The discrimination about the artists and the surrounding suspicion has deeper roots, and is probably linked to unpredictability inherent in the arts. It does not yield to any simple meaning and interpretation and is always open to meaning which may not be found to be acceptable to the social order. Poets and artists have always been perceived as threats to any established code, be it political, social or moral. Perhaps that was the necessity for the art coming into existence, where it could imply more than its surface meaning. Some philosophers and religious scholars have got nearer to the true nature of the dilemma, labeling them as liars by not following their words with their deeds.