Creating Stylistic Identity through Musical Hybridity in North India: Histories, Politics, and Theories for the Benares Gharana Open Access

Abstract

When a classical vocalist starts singing at a concert in North India, the audience can often
hear the vocalist's hereditary identity. Audience members may commend the musician for
authentically performing his genealogical style or perhaps deride him for modifying his
ancestors' aesthetics. Such hereditary sounds emerged within gharana lineages that were formed
in the early nineteenth-century. Typically, gharanas create distinct artistic identities by
maintaining a specific set of musical characteristics across multiple generations. For example,
vocalists in the Agra gharana created a consistent musical persona by maintaining a style of
open-throated vocal projections over the past six generations. Almost every other gharana
reflects this process in which collective identity emerges through the maintenance of distinct
musical sounds. Conversely, vocalists in the Benares gharana create a unified audible identity by
hybridizing a diversity of musical characteristics instead of perpetuating a singular stylistic
sound. For instance, while taking voice lessons in Calcutta, I learned about the ways in which
Benares gharana vocalists integrated the melodic sentiments of semi-classical genres with
formal structures from high-classical genres. I explore such examples of musical hybridity in the
Benares gharana by outlining two broad categories of sociomusical activity in the early
nineteenth-century. Afterwards, I situate my ethnographic data on the musical identity of the
Benares gharana within the interstitial space between these two broad categories. To offer an
interpretive solution to the ambiguity of this in-between identity, I deploy the history of musical
patronage in the Mughal Empire and examine the transformations were enacted by British
colonialism. Finally, I argue that the interstitial musical identity that developed in this colonial
period does not conform to the liberal theoretical paradigms of hybridity and liminality. Rather,
the ambiguous musical identity of the Benares gharana demands an understanding of hybridity
as a form of hegemony: the musical identity of the Benares gharana is an embodiment of the
political tool of artistic hybridity that was patronized by two rulers in the city of Benares during
the nineteenth century in order to create an insular identity for their citizens that could emerge as
an organized political entity to confront British imperialism.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Prefacing and Acknowledging ----- 1

Ch. 1) Introducing the Study of Music in India ----- 5
Ch. 2) Organizing Musics and Musicians in North India ----- 12
2.1) Sounds and Performers
2.2) Performing Sounds: Ragas or "Melodic Modes"
2.3) Performing Sounds: Talas or "Rhythmic Cycles"
2.4) Sounding Performances: The Light Classical Genre of Thumri
2.5) Sounding Performances: The High Classical Genre of Khyal
2.6) Organizing Performers: Mirasis in Biradaris
2.7) Organizing Performers: Kalawants in Gharanas
2.8) Dyadically Framing Sounds and Performers
Ch. 3) Fieldworking between Liminal Sounds and Performers in Calcutta ----- 47
3.1) Confusing a Fieldworker
3.2) Writing Identity: Brothel or Gharana?
3.3) Hearing Identity: Imitating the Sounds and Gestures of Sarangi and Shehnai
3.4) Hearing Identity: Borrowing Amir Khan's Khyal in Rag Hamsadhvani
3.5) Hearing Identity: Integrating the Sounds and Sentiments of Khyal and Thumri
3.6) Patronizing Identity: 19th Century Rajas and a 21st Century Undergraduate
Ch. 4) Historicizing Identity through Patronization ----- 93
4.1) Setting the Stage
4.2) Creating Gharanas: Politics and Technology Transform Patronage
4.3) Becoming Patrons: Benares Rajas Promote Aesthetics of Hybridity
4.4) Birthing the Benares Gharana: The Patronage of Hybridity Creates Musical Identity
Ch. 5) Understanding Hybridity without Liberal Ideology ----- 108
5.1) Two Paradigmatic Theories of Hybridity
5.2) Liberal Ideology and Turnerian Liminality
5.3) Colonial Critiques Create Postcolonial Hybridity
5.4) Hegemonic Hybridity in the Stylistic Identity of the Benares Gharana

Glossary ----- 118
References -----120
Appendix of Benares Lineages ----- 125

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Biology
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Anthropology, Cultural Music
Keyword	gharana classical music North India kalawant liminal ethnomusicology British colonialism mirasi dhrupad identity hybridity biradari Calcutta thumri khyal
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Lee, Tong-Soon, Emory University
Committee Members	Flueckiger, Joyce, Emory University Cox, Melissa, Emory University

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