* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    California Mid-State Fair announces entertainment lineups for Frontier and Mission stages – KSBY News

    Exciting Entertainment Lineup Unveiled for California Mid-State Fair’s Frontier and Mission Stages!

    Spotify & OpenAI: Will Gen AI ‘Hollow Out’ Entertainment? – Technology Magazine

    Will Generative AI Transform the Future of Entertainment

    Author Richard Russo Will Speak At Sandwich Town Hall – CapeNews.net

    Join Us for an Inspiring Evening with Author Richard Russo at Sandwich Town Hall!

    Entertainment Partners Acquires CASHét, Digital Payments Vendor for Productions – Variety

    Entertainment Partners Acquires CASHét, Digital Payments Vendor for Productions – Variety

    Salem’s Harborwalk Garden Cultivates Community with Entertainment, Food, and Events – 105.7 WROR

    Discover the Vibrant Community Spirit at Salem’s Harborwalk Garden: A Hub for Entertainment, Food, and Fun!

    Entertainment-Focused Narrative and Culture Change Practice – New America

    Transforming Culture Through Engaging Entertainment Narratives

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    When fiction becomes fact: 3 pieces of modern technology inspired by Star Trek – Redshirts Always Die

    From Screen to Reality: 3 Modern Technologies Inspired by Star Trek

    The Isfahan Center for Nuclear Technology – UCF, ZPP, and IRR10 – Alma Research and Education Center

    Exploring the Isfahan Center for Nuclear Technology: Innovations and Insights from UCF, ZPP, and IRR10

    Inside the tedious effort to tally AI’s energy appetite – MIT Technology Review

    Inside the tedious effort to tally AI’s energy appetite – MIT Technology Review

    Finland Set to Lead EU Quantum Technology Defense Project – IoT World Today

    Finland Set to Lead EU Quantum Technology Defense Project – IoT World Today

    AI for lawyers: Win back your time using technology – nationaljurist.com

    Reclaim Your Time: How AI is Transforming the Legal Profession

    Prosecutors accuse men of exporting U.S. military technology to China – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    Men Charged with Illegally Exporting U.S. Military Technology to China

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    California Mid-State Fair announces entertainment lineups for Frontier and Mission stages – KSBY News

    Exciting Entertainment Lineup Unveiled for California Mid-State Fair’s Frontier and Mission Stages!

    Spotify & OpenAI: Will Gen AI ‘Hollow Out’ Entertainment? – Technology Magazine

    Will Generative AI Transform the Future of Entertainment

    Author Richard Russo Will Speak At Sandwich Town Hall – CapeNews.net

    Join Us for an Inspiring Evening with Author Richard Russo at Sandwich Town Hall!

    Entertainment Partners Acquires CASHét, Digital Payments Vendor for Productions – Variety

    Entertainment Partners Acquires CASHét, Digital Payments Vendor for Productions – Variety

    Salem’s Harborwalk Garden Cultivates Community with Entertainment, Food, and Events – 105.7 WROR

    Discover the Vibrant Community Spirit at Salem’s Harborwalk Garden: A Hub for Entertainment, Food, and Fun!

    Entertainment-Focused Narrative and Culture Change Practice – New America

    Transforming Culture Through Engaging Entertainment Narratives

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    When fiction becomes fact: 3 pieces of modern technology inspired by Star Trek – Redshirts Always Die

    From Screen to Reality: 3 Modern Technologies Inspired by Star Trek

    The Isfahan Center for Nuclear Technology – UCF, ZPP, and IRR10 – Alma Research and Education Center

    Exploring the Isfahan Center for Nuclear Technology: Innovations and Insights from UCF, ZPP, and IRR10

    Inside the tedious effort to tally AI’s energy appetite – MIT Technology Review

    Inside the tedious effort to tally AI’s energy appetite – MIT Technology Review

    Finland Set to Lead EU Quantum Technology Defense Project – IoT World Today

    Finland Set to Lead EU Quantum Technology Defense Project – IoT World Today

    AI for lawyers: Win back your time using technology – nationaljurist.com

    Reclaim Your Time: How AI is Transforming the Legal Profession

    Prosecutors accuse men of exporting U.S. military technology to China – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    Men Charged with Illegally Exporting U.S. Military Technology to China

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home News

A Delicate Weave: folk singers from Western India celebrate diversity in the face of intolerance

May 10, 2024
in News
A Delicate Weave: folk singers from Western India celebrate diversity in the face of intolerance
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A Delicate Weave (Jhini Bini Chadariya), a documentary film set in Kachchh, Gujarat in Western India, traces four different musical journeys, all converging in the ways they affirm religious diversity, syncretism (blending of religions and cultures) and love of the other in a country where religious politics too often divide communities.

Drawing on the poetic and musical traditions of poet-mystics Saint Kabir of Benaras (circa 1500) and Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai of Sindh (1689–1752), as well as the folk traditions of the region, these remarkable musicians and singers bear testimony to how these oral traditions of compassion are being passed down from one generation to the next.

Naranbhai Siju, Weaver and Community Archivist.
KP Jayasankar

It can take several forms. In Bhujodi, a village close to the city of Bhuj, in Gujarat, a group of young men meets every night to sing devotional songs. They are all weavers and feel a special bond with Kabir, who was also a weaver. They are mentored by Naranbhai Siju, a carpet weaver by profession and a remarkable self-taught community archivist, who spends his spare time recording and annotating this body of devotional music.

The women from Lakhpat, an ancient port close to the border between India and Pakistan, quietly subvert gender roles through their folk music performances. They are the first group of women in Kachchh to perform in public – and this has changed their lives.

The women’s group at the Lakhpat Gurudwara.
KP Jayasankar

Noor Mohammad Sodha is a master flautist from Bhuj who has been playing the jodiya pawa or double flute for more than 25 years, performing in India and also overseas. He has recently begun teaching three young people his skills, in the hope that this tradition will live on.

Noor Mohammed Sodha, Master flautist from Bhuj.
KP Jayasankar

Jiant Khan, 60, lives in the Banni grasslands of the area. On two nights every week, he meets people who travel from far-flung villages to sing the verses of the Sufi poet Shah Bhitai in the musical Waee form, a style from the northwest of India and beyond, performed with string instruments. Five years ago, there were only three people left in India who sang this rare and ethereal form – now the number has gone up to eight.

Jiant Khan, Waee Singer and Teacher, Jaloo Village.
KP Jayasankar

All these passionate musicians keep alive this delicate weave, committed to the project of what Naranbhai calls “breaking down the walls” – walls that have been built up through the politics of hate and intolerance that marks current times.

Pastoralists living in harmony

Since 2008, our team from the School of Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai have been creating video documentaries of the music of pastoral communities, in the region of Kachchh in Gujarat. This has resulted in the making of our three films – Do Din Ka Mela (A Two-Day Fair), So Heddan So Hoddan (Like Here Like There) and A Delicate Weave.

Gujarat witnessed ethnic violence directed against the Muslim minorities of the state in 2002, in which more than 2000 people are estimated to have been killed. Kachchh, though a part of Gujarat, remained unaffected by this outbreak of violence. We were inspired to explore the socio-cultural fabric that makes Kachchh an island of peace in a sea of intolerance and embarked on a process of documenting the Sufi traditions of music, storytelling and poetry that is an integral part of the lives of the pastoralists that live there.

This region has a long tradition of nomadic pastoralism, with many different communities that moved from Kachchh, across the salt desert known as the Great Rann of Kachchh, to Sindh, now in Pakistan, with their flocks of cattle and camels in search of pastures, in a process of rotational migration.

This movement over millenia resulted in strong kinship and trade ties between Hindu and Muslim pastoral or Maldhari communities in Kachchh with their counterparts in Sindh and Tharparkar across the Rann of Kachchh.

In earlier times, their religious identities were somewhat inconsequential and fuzzy. Many of these groups were nomadic people, with their own beliefs and practices, and there were also strong fraternal relationships between different communities, across religious persuasion, supported by stories about these ties from mythology and folklore.

Harder borders

The 1947 Partition of India transformed the lives of these communities forever, accentuating distinct and mutually exclusive religious identities – the new border became a faultline for divides that had never existed. The pastoralists were now hemmed into recently imagined nations, which continued to re-enact the tensions brought into play by Partition, their movements restricted forever.

After 1947, the border was somewhat porous until the India-Pakistan conflict of 1965, after which crossing over became increasingly difficult and the Rann became a militarised zone.

The emergence of hard borders, that are fenced and fortified, is not the only threat to the semi-nomadic pastoralism of the Maldharis. The past few decades have witnessed a slow and steady destruction of these ways of life, through the state’s environmental policies, the promotion of industrialisation, the proliferation of ecologically insensitive tourism and the bureaucracy’s condescending and cavalier attitude to these communities.

Fragility of life

Sindh and Kachchh share a common heritage, based on Sufism and other syncretic practices, as well as a shared repertoire of poetry, folklore, embroidery, architectural practices and visual culture.

The Bhakti poetry of Kabir, the 15th century mystic weaver-poet, is sung and recited across communities and religions. Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai the Sindhi Sufi poet wrote the Shah jo Risalo in late 17th century, a remarkable collection of poems that continue to be sung by communities throughout Kachchh and Sindh.

Many of these poems draw on legendary love stories, which speak of the fragility and finitude of life, the inevitability of grief and an ultimate surrender to and union with the infinite.

Our documentation work at the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has often been in collaboration with the organisation Kutch Mahila Vikas Sanghatan (KMVS) which spreads the belief that culture, music, language and lived traditions form an important component of empowerment initiatives since 1988.

One of these initiatives has brought together musicians of various communities, initially through community radio. The musicians now have their own association that helps in organising programmes, mentoring younger musicians and keeping these musical traditions alive and robust.

Over the years, but particularly after the earthquake of 2001, which killed more than 12,000 people, there have been many changes in the social fabric of Kachchh.

The earthquake brought in external intervention in a big way, in terms of reconstruction and rehabilitation, both by the state and non-governmental organisations. Today, Kachchh has also become a tourist destination, with the state-sponsored Rann Utsav (Desert Festival) that takes place between November and February and brings in thousands of tourists, with obvious effects on the fragile ecologies of the Rann and the grasslands.

Salt desert — the Rann of Kachchh.
KP Jayasankar

The effects of these changes are complex. While on the one hand, tourism and external markets have provided a boost to local arts, crafts and artisans, on the other, the ways in which they change relationships within communities can pose problems for community living. Exacerbating these changes is the shift towards parties on the political right in Gujarat, including Kachchh, which threatens the traditionally fraternal and symbiotic relationships between diverse communities.

This is the backdrop against which A Delicate Weave explores efforts to teach and learn these endangered musical traditions and sustain the utopian energies that characterise Sufi and other syncretic ways of being. These traditions affirm notions of diversity and peaceful co-existence within this precarious yet resilient social fabric.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/a-delicate-weave-folk-singers-from-western-india-celebrate-diversity-in-the-face-of-intolerance-87923

Tags: delicatenewsWeave
Previous Post

For LGBTI employees, working overseas can be a lonely, frustrating and even dangerous experience

Next Post

Moderna’s mRNA dreams meet reality with first post-Covid shot

Ecological crisis in Brazil’s Pantanal fuels human-jaguar conflict – Mongabay

Rising Tensions: How Brazil’s Pantanal Ecological Crisis is Igniting Human-Jaguar Conflicts

June 4, 2025
Why you’re catching the ‘ick’ so easily, according to science – Fast Company

Unpacking the ‘Ick’: The Science Behind Why We Fall Out of Attraction So Easily

June 4, 2025
Science Perspectives to Inform the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change – SDG Knowledge Hub

Science Perspectives to Inform the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change – SDG Knowledge Hub

June 4, 2025
My company transferred me from Chicago to London. Here’s how my lifestyle and the work culture compare. – Business Insider

My company transferred me from Chicago to London. Here’s how my lifestyle and the work culture compare. – Business Insider

June 4, 2025
Nvidia reclaims crown as world’s most valuable company as $1 trillion rally continues – Yahoo Finance

Nvidia reclaims crown as world’s most valuable company as $1 trillion rally continues – Yahoo Finance

June 4, 2025
Americans Are Worried About These 3 Aspects of the Economy — Should They Be? – MSN

Are Americans Right to Worry? Unpacking 3 Key Economic Concerns

June 4, 2025
California Mid-State Fair announces entertainment lineups for Frontier and Mission stages – KSBY News

Exciting Entertainment Lineup Unveiled for California Mid-State Fair’s Frontier and Mission Stages!

June 4, 2025
Altera Digital Health Collaborates With MCAG Amid $2.8B Blue Cross Blue Shield Provider Settlement – Business Wire

Altera Digital Health Teams Up with MCAG Following Major $2.8B Blue Cross Blue Shield Settlement

June 4, 2025
Appeals court upholds New York’s Reproductive Health Act – Spectrum News

Victory for Women’s Rights: Appeals Court Affirms New York’s Reproductive Health Act

June 4, 2025
When fiction becomes fact: 3 pieces of modern technology inspired by Star Trek – Redshirts Always Die

From Screen to Reality: 3 Modern Technologies Inspired by Star Trek

June 4, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (666)
  • Economy (680)
  • Entertainment (21,586)
  • General (15,261)
  • Health (9,722)
  • Lifestyle (683)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (681)
  • Politics (689)
  • Science (15,900)
  • Sports (21,184)
  • Technology (15,666)
  • World (667)

Recent News

Ecological crisis in Brazil’s Pantanal fuels human-jaguar conflict – Mongabay

Rising Tensions: How Brazil’s Pantanal Ecological Crisis is Igniting Human-Jaguar Conflicts

June 4, 2025
Why you’re catching the ‘ick’ so easily, according to science – Fast Company

Unpacking the ‘Ick’: The Science Behind Why We Fall Out of Attraction So Easily

June 4, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version