Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:45:43.996Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Music and Society in Late Colonial India: A Study of Esraj in Gaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

Tirthankar Roy*
Affiliation:
Tirthankar Roy (t.roy@lse.ac.uk) is Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Get access

Abstract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indian classical music was in transition. Most readings of the transition stress the choices of the professional musicians, as these musicians and the institutions in which they functioned were caught up in political and economic movements such as nationalism and commercialization. This article studies a different type of transition: when a small-town professional group with a strong associational culture became musicians. This second process, standing in contrast to the received narratives, suggests novel lessons in the history of urban cultures during a time of change.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Bakhle, Janaki. 2005. Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition. Delhi: Permanent Black.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166101.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banerjee, Projesh. 1986. Dance in Thumri. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.Google Scholar
Gharana, Bishnupur. 2015. “Bishnupur Gharana.” http://bishnupurgharana.com/site/user/history (accessed February 3, 2019).Google Scholar
Bose, Sunil K. 1970. “Thumri in Hindustani Music.” Journal of the Indian Musicological Society 1(1):2932.Google Scholar
Boudhiya, Amarnath. 1994. Gaya darpan [Mirror of Gaya]. Gaya: Shree prachya vidya shodh sansthan.Google Scholar
Capwell, Charles. 1986. “Musical Life in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta as a Component in the History of a Secondary Urban Center.” Asian Music 18(1):139–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crooke, William. 1907. Natives of Northern India. London: Archibald Constable.Google Scholar
Deshpande, V. H. [1961] 1973. Indian Musical Traditions: An Aesthetic Study of the Gharanas in Hindustani Music. Translated by Deshpande, S. H.. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.Google Scholar
Deva, B. C. 1981. “The Harmonium and Indian Music.” Journal of the Indian Musicological Society 12(3):4552.Google Scholar
Garg, Lakshmi Narayan. 1957. Hamare sangeet ratna [The jewels of our music]. Hathras: Sangeet karyalaya.Google Scholar
Granovetter, Mark. 1983. “The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited.” Sociological Theory 1:201–33.10.2307/202051CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guha-Thakurta, Tapati. 1992. The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, B. L. 1973. “The Gwalior School of Music.” Journal of the Indian Musicological Society 4(1):515.Google Scholar
Hamilton, James Sadler. 1994. Sitar Music in Calcutta: An Ethnomusicological Study. Delhi: Motilal banarasidas.Google Scholar
Kippen, James. 1988. The Tabla of Lucknow: A Cultural Analysis of a Musical Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McGowan, Abigail. 2009. Crafting the Nation in Colonial India. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, R. J. 1990. “Clubs, Societies and Associations.” In The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950, Volume 3: Social Agencies and Institutions, ed. Thompson, F. M. L., 395444. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuman, Daniel M. 1980. The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of an Artistic Tradition. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
O'Malley, L. S. S. 1906. Gaya (Bengal District Gazetteers). Calcutta: Secretariat Book Depot.Google Scholar
Panchetgarh. 2017. “Music in Panchetgarh.” http://sgwebapps.co.in/panchetgarh/history-of-music-in-panchetgarh/ (accessed February 3, 2019).Google Scholar
Prasad, Narbadeshwar. 1952. “The Gayawals of Bihar.” American Anthropologist 54:279–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, Katherine. 1990. “The British Administration of Hinduism in North India, 1780–1900.” PhD diss., Cambridge University.Google Scholar
Rahaim, Matt. 2011. “That Ban(e) of Indian Music: Hearing Politics in the Harmonium.” Journal of Asian Studies 70(3):657–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ram, Kalpana. 2011. “Being ‘Rasikas’: The Affective Pleasures of Music and Dance Spectatorship and Nationhood in Indian Middle-Class Modernity.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17(s1):S15975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raychaudhuri, Bimalakanta. 1965. Bharatiya sangeetkosh [Anthology of Indian music]. Calcutta: Imdadkhani School of Sitar.Google Scholar
Roy, Tirthankar. 1998. “Music as Artisan Tradition.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 32(1):2142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy Chowdhury, Harendra Kishore. 1929. The Musicians of India. Calcutta: Kuntaline Press.Google Scholar
Mahabharati, Sangit. 2011. Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. 3 vols. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, Stan A. 1997. “Power and Delight: Vocal Training in North Indian Classical Music.” PhD diss., Wesleyan University.Google Scholar
Sopher, David E. 2011. “The Message of Place in Hindu Pilgrimage.” In Holy Places and Pilgrimages: Essays on India, ed. Singh, Rana P. B., 5780. New Delhi: Shubhi Publications.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Lakshmi. 2011. From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy: A Social History of Music in South India. 2nd ed.New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Lakshmi. 2017. Veena Dhanammal: The Making of a Legend. 2nd ed.Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Van der Meer, Wim. 1980. Hindustani Music in the 20th Century. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidyarthi, Lalita Prasad. 1961. The Sacred Complex in Hindu Gaya. New York: Asia Publishing House.Google Scholar
Vidyarthi, Lalita Prasad, Jha, Makhan, and Saraswati, Baidyanath. 1979. The Sacred Complex of Kashi: A Microcosm of Indian Civilization. New Delhi: Concept.Google Scholar
Weidman, Amanda J. 2006. Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar