Ramachandra Guha: India’s classical music unites faiths. Its syncretic heritage must be preserved
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Some 20 years ago, I was in Lahore for an academic conference, where I met an aspiring classical vocalist who travelled every week to learn from a teacher in Karachi. Though I cannot hold a note myself, I have had a lifelong love for Hindustani music. I was thus surprised to learn from this talented Pakistani singer that his teacher spoke derisively of a particular raga as one that “belonged to the Hindus” (woh toh Hinduon ka raga hai).
I didn’t have the heart to tell the young man that such distinctions did not exist among classical musicians in India, or that a singer he admired, Roshanara Begum, had continued to sing the ragas, Shankara and Durga, after she moved to Pakistan even though they were named for Hindu deities. I could also have mentioned Salamat Ali Khan’s rendition of Nadiya Kinare Mora Gaon where this singer (who also lived in Pakistan) explains that the thumri is based on the love of Radha for Krishna.
Admittedly, both Roshanara and Salamat were born well before Partition when such seamless interchange of ideas and motifs between different faiths was part of the musical culture of undivided India.