TRADITION OF SUFIANA KALAM AND MIRS

This is an initiative to engage with a tradition of Sufi singing in and around Pugal, a settlement in the north-west border region of the Bikaner district. The village of Pugal itself is around 80 kms north west of Bikaner city.

The musical tradition of Sufiana kalam developed in a predominantly pastoral context in early modern times. From medieval times Pugal has been an important settlement on the route from northern India to Bahawalpur and Multan. Vast stretches of sandy plains and extensive grasslands interspersed with dunes merging into limitless horizons dotted with long lines of caravans form the geographical backdrop in which this musical tradition unfolded. In addition to centuries of contact along trade routes, cultural exchanges built around marriage and kinship ties have woven together different communities in these contiguous regions. These have bequeathed to the Pugal region the rich spiritual traditions of Sufi mystics of the erstwhile West Punjab, Bahawulpur, Multan and Sind.

The singers of these mystical songs, mostly of the Mirasi community, are called Mirs in the local parlance. Be it the urs festival at a Sufi dargah or an auspicious occasion in a household, the performances of the Mirs have served as the means to attain the heights of mystical experiences. Moreover in a predominantly pre-literate oral culture, the mehfils of Mirs have been sources of knowledge--- moral, ethical as well as religious. In the social-cultural life of this region, the Mirs have been more than mere singers; like the Pirs, the Mirs have a spiritual status as well.

The kalams of Baba Sheikh Farid, Baba Bulleh Shah, Hazrat Shah Hussain, Hazrat Sultan Bahu and Khwaja Ghulam Farid are important elements of this tradition. These are sung in Sindhi, Punjabi and also in Siraki, a dialect having strong affinity with Sindhi and Punjabi. The Sufi and musical traditions of the Bahawulpur region have contributed the most in the formation of this musical tradition represented by the Mirs of Pugal. In fact, singing Sufiana kalam in Siraki, mostly of Khwaja Ghulam Farid from Bahawulpur, forms the kernel of this tradition.

Most of these compositions stress on love as the basis of the relationship with God. They are deeply iconoclastic in their denunciation of rituals, and the performance of prescribed duties; they disregard religious boundaries and lay emphasis on an ascetic withdrawal from worldly pursuits and yearning for communion with god through mystical experience.
     
Apart from being deeply mystical, intensely humanist, and robustly pluralist many of these traditions reflect a heightened ecological sensibility as well. For example, many of the kalams of Khwaja Ghulam Farid are passionate descriptions of the natural bounties of the Pugal region, especially when the desert blooms into a jungle during the rainy season. For communities whose lives mostly revolved around trade routes, caravans and free ranging pastoralism with its seasonal routes of transhumance, these couplets celebrating nature had an immense appeal. These kalams, while reaffirming the intimate ties communities had with nature, equally articulated the deep veneration they had for it.

The musical tradition has been popular in an area around the Pugal region --- around 80-90 km south west of Pugal till Barsalpur, and around 80 km in the north- west till Ghadsana. The entire region on the north-western border of Bikaner district adjacent to the Bahawulpoor region of Pakistan has been the social landscape of this tradition. This has been a region dominated by semi nomadic Muslim pastoralists, like Johiyas, Jalukas, Parihars, Goperas and Balochs. The region comprises around twenty- five villages- Khajuwala, Dantor, Ballar, Jaggasar, Kumharwala, Gangajali, Kankrala, Kundan, Dandi, Lunkha, Tharoosar, Dodha, Sattasar, Chhatargarh, Jalwali being some of the important and bigger villages. Besides these, there are several smaller settlements that initially grew around seasonal, temporary dwellings of the semi nomadic pastoralists around water points in the rainy season. These villages and settlements were divided among the different Mir families, each having an exclusive right to sing for particular villages or families.

Of late, this once vibrant tradition of singing Sufiana Kalam in the Pugal region has been fading out. There are many reasons for the gradual decline of this musical tradition; let us briefly allude to some of the most striking among these.


THE WANING OF TRADITION

The process of decline seems to have begun with the cessation of free movement and the seasonal migrations of pastoralists to Bahawulpur after the Indo-Pak partition of 1947. A political border between two countries now separated regions that had grown together for centuries. This closure was further strengthened by increased vigilance on the International border, especially after the Indo-Pak war of 1971.

With the decline in the fortunes and authority of the Princely state of Bikaner in the 1950s and 1960s, the thakurs of Pugal lost their earlier pre eminence in the social order as well. These feudal lords had been one of the main patrons for the Mirs and their singing. At the same time, we see the decline of the patronage for Mir singers by the Muslim community, especially the rich, of the Pugal region--- part of the larger collapse of the older moral economy. In a pastoral society undergoing a transition to a more settled context, characterized by a different relationship with nature, there has been an increasing tendency to view the singing of Mirs as quaint and anachronistic.

The Pugal region itself has been undergoing a fairly radical transformation. The coming of the Indira Gandhi Canal in the mid-seventies, with its associated land and water use practices, radically altered the meaning of nature that these communities had nurtured over a long time. It has eroded the very basis of the life style of these desert communities--- one that was based on pastoralism, extensive land use, and an expanded sense of time in the wide-open desert. The canal brought with it the dominance of a new clock time, work discipline and a cash economy firmly regulated by the market. Successive waves of new settlers over the last quarter of a century have given way to the creation of a densely populated and a heterogeneous society. Vast areas of the pastoral landscape have now become the command area of a sprawling network of canals dividing the land into slices of agricultural fields. The making of this heterogeneous society has profoundly altered the meaning of social relations, kinship ties and led to the dissolution of a range of socio-cultural practices that were intimately linked to the pre canal human geography and ecology. The Sufina kalam of Pugal, being one such cultural practice.

Even the major NGOs of the region have viewed these singers in narrowly instrumental terms--- as merely performers/communicators propagating messages concerning their development programmes. Not concerned at all with the musical traditions of the Mir community, this articulation of development communication locates these singers as only casual wage earners--- entertainers useful to either fill the cultural gaps in meetings, or gather people in villages. The rare attempts to address the livelihoods of these singers in a somewhat systematic manner concentrate more on mainstreaming these singers in the modern entertainment industry, without building upon their intrinsic skills of rendering the Sufiana kalam.       

More recently, the Mirs have been victim of bans imposed by the orthodox religious teachers of the region who regard singing of any sort as heretical to Islam. These bans have been part of a conservative and orthodox redefinition of Islam in the wider lives of these pastoral groups over the last decade and a half. This redefinition is spearheaded mostly by maulvis (many adhering to the Deoband school) who have come from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, operating from the numerous masjids and madrasas that have come up here in the last five to six years.

The complex of the above recounted factors have contributed in the waning of the musical tradition of Sufiana kalam. This has had a debilitating impact on the majority of the singers of the 80 odd Mir families in the Pugal region. As opportunities and occasions for performing dwindled, the old singers are forced to live lives of solitude, basking in the nostalgia of the good old days. The young singers are increasingly forced to leave singing and resort to other means of survival. Though the children of these Mirs are full of talent, and have a natural flair for singing, almost none are learning it. Their parents have practically nothing to hone their talents.
 
REINVIGORATING THE TRADITION

This is an effort by some of the young singers of the Mir community of Pugal, facilitated by a handful of listeners and former colleagues from outside the community. Prominent among the Mirs is Mukhtiyaar Ali around whom there is a team of Mir singers. Mukhtiyaar, member of a prominent Mir family of Pugal, is a singer with a promising voice and a strong determination to carry on with this waning folk tradition.


Singers: Samina Hasan Syed, Risham Syed
Poets: Classical Punjabi Poets and Najm Hosain Syed
Composer: Najm Hosain Syed

Iman Lcs is following