BHIMSEN JOSHI and the North Indian Classical Music

With the death of Bhimsen Joshi an era of North Indian classical music has come to an end. This era dominated the last four decades of the 20th century and had luminaries like Kumar Gandharva, Amir Khan, Gangu Bai Hangal, Hirabai Barodekar, Begum Akhtar, Pannnalal Ghosh , Bismillah Khan, Vilayat Khan, Ali Akbar and Ravi Shankar.

Although I come from the same region and my father was a musician, and I have listened to Bhimsen Joshi since my early youth, this article is not meant to be a tribute to him. He had a large following and I am sure a large number of decent articles will appear. For me he had a wonderful voice and he will be remembered more for his bhajans in Kannada and Marathi than his renderings in the more 'classical' mode.

This article instead offers a few critical comments on the North Indian classical music and its place in Indian culture. In the late sixties P. C. Chatterjee (the then director of All India Radio, Calcutta) asked me, 'How does the Indian classical music reflect contemporary sensibilites?' He added that when he asked this question to the musicians themselves, it made no sense to them. I can understand it not making any sense to the musicians, but it surprises me that why this question has not been raised at all? Hereafter,  the word Indian music, refers to north Indian music only. Indian classical music does not reflect contemporary sensibilities as does art or writing. Why so? Classical music in the West reflected the triumph of the bourgeoisie, Napoleanic wars and so on. Can the  Indian classical music be actually called classical?

 Before we come to comment on it let us have a look at the terrain we are dealing with. Indians like to trace every thing back to the Vedas. However the living and continuous tradition of   this music dates after the Mutiny (The Indian War of Iindependence) of 1857. Many Indian princely states, having their wings clipped, patronised musicians. In as much as the Mutiny was mainly a north Indian affair, it is not surprising that six of these music gharanas (schools/traditions) found patronage in the small kingdoms in Deccan, in the border districts of today's north Karnataka and Maharashtra. Bhimsen Joshi also belonged to this region. These musicians rendered a refined version of the folk music. Later with the increase in competition they developed styles, some of which are quite unmusical to distinguish themselves. With the advent of railways they began to travel and had musical conferences in various Indian cities. These were patronised by 'patriotic' gentry.

 It was Bhatkhande who systemised the knowledge in the early decades of the 20th century. First he published two volumes of dialogues discussing aspects of each raga and the way they were rendered by different schools and trried to fix a standard. Later he published six volumes of 'Kramik Pustakmala' which was a proper course in Indian music and was taught in Benaras by Ratanjankar and others.

Bhatkhande and others by this time were part of the 'nationalist' discourse and taking pride in the 'great Indian traditions'. In Bengal the Brhamo Samaj used music in their assembalies and were probably the first to publish Indian notations in Devnagari script by 1880s. Rabindranath himself took lot of interest and a school of aesthetics and divinity through  music (you can reach God through great music!) came into being with Dilip Kumar Roy as its chief exponent.

 We must remember that in spite of the styles these gharanas developed it was still very musical and pleasing even to ordinary people, unlike the post independence, particularly the post 60s period to which Joshi belongs. In the 50s and even up to middle of sixties the musical conference tradition of the pre independence continued. 1967 changed all that.

We need harldy delve in to the details of sea change this period brought in India. It was the end of the Nehru era, or the euphoria of independence. Now on Indian people knew that a new ruling class has entrenched itself and they have to fight it.

 In music the classical music was driven to the drawing rooms of the rich and of course it went abroad. An affected sense of appreciation came in to being and musicians also began to perform to cater to this class and moved away from the larger middle class audience, although individually they nostalgically craved for it. Kiran  Seth in Delhi tried to revive interest in the children of these rich people in the universities by starting SPICMACY (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music Among Children and Youth). It was patronised by these classes but is more or less dead.

Coming back to the questions that we raised about its relevence to contemprary sensibilities, the answer is that largely it does not reflect. The reason is that it was always mainly a performing art for the patrons and with increrasing alienation of the ruling classes from the people it too distanced itself from its folk origins and got in to musical gymnastics and frankly became quite unmusical a nd un melodius. As one musician put it , music without melody is 'sic'. I am afraid Bhimsen Joshi was no exception along with Ravi Shankar and almost all the others. How about the word classical?  In spite of Indian system of notations we do not have written composition like in the west.  So there will not be musicians rendering 'old' classics. What propbably will remain the method of instruction and the daily practice, the 'riaz'. I think the word classical does not apply to the Indian music except to say that there was a so called 'golden' era of gharanas. 

 And that era to which Bhimsen Joshi belonged has gone. I am afraid it will be quickly forgotten, except for  what it did to popular music particularly in the Hindi cinema but also in Bengali and other north Indian cinema and to theatre. It gave great lyrics sung in a melodius and meaningful style that has endeared to every one during those decades and today they still live in the albums and are heard every where. As an aside classical music also rendered itself very nicely to humorous music. The great Manna Dey singing play back fo Mahmood exploited it fully.

 Among these classical musicians, Bhimsen Joshi himself will be remembered for his 'lighter' renderings of devotional songs. Probably the lone survivor among the greats  from this era will be Begum Akthar and Bismillah Khan, who never gave in to the gymnastics that these greats went in to please the new class. They remained melodius and meaningful.