His Master's Voice? Exploring Qawwali and 'Gramophone Culture' in South Asia

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Popular Music (1999) Volume 18/1. Copyright 1999 Cambridge University Press.

Printed in the United Kingdom

His Master's Voice? ExploringQawwali and 'GramophoneCulture' in South Asia1

REGULA BURCKHARDT QURESHI

'No modern communications medium is more intrusive in modern Indian life thanrecorded and electronically amplified sound' (Babb 1995, p. 10).2 In South Asia,even the most exclusive student of unmediated music-making cannot avoid amediated public soundscape that may well transmit the music being studied overloudspeakers, radios, televisions, and cassette players. This is certainly the case forqawwali, a musical genre which is firmly embedded in Sufi practice, but is alsowidely recorded and media-disseminated for as long as the life of the Indian recordindustry itself. Acknowledging this musical reality after years of live study hasprompted me first to situate the study of recorded qawwali vis-a-vis my own schol-arly conventions and vis-a-vis the pioneering work on sound recording done in thevery region of my own study. The aim is to address the problematic of an ethno-graphic approach to recorded qawwali, and to present preliminary findings, includ-ing some culturally meaningful examples from the repertoire.

Why have music scholars been reluctant to address the recorded dimensionof the live genres they study? In interrogating my own practice, I see several relatedfactors accounting for the received consensus on this matter. One is a conceptualseparation of recorded music from live contexts, articulated by early theorists whoresponded to recordings as alien to, if not destructive of live musical practice. Theother is a scholarly focus on the entertainment genres that dominate recorded pro-duction and are categorised as popular music. Driven by the phenomenal expansionof sound recording, the study of recorded music has emerged as a distinct fieldlinked to popular culture. These are intrinsically Western developments, linked totechno-culture and the history of commodification. The resulting trend of approach-ing mediated music as an autonomous domain and of privileging its identity as'popular music' can, however, limit exploring vital connections with the contextsof traditional live' music-making. And since this trend essentially parallels theWestern expansion of recording technology and its sonic imperialism, it can alsoget in the way of locally centred perspectives on mediated music.

For ethnomusicologists and scholars of traditional musics who are committedto contextualising live music and creating culturally appropriate interpretations,engaging with sound recording ethnographically has presented a special paradoxto their scholarly identity. While fundamental to the very existence of the discipline,recording technology has been so integral a tool to the project of ethnomusicology

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64 Regula Burckhardt Qureshi

that its practitioners have generally agreed to ignore its existence in the 'field' itself.The thrust of our substantive attention has been on questions of ethics and represen-tation, focusing mainly on our own recording practices as a tool, rather than asubject of musical ethnography (Myers 1992).

During the gramophone era there have also been obvious impediments to theethnographic study of sound recording, caused essentially by the extensive controlheld over the technology and its use by the world's five major recording companies(Gronow 1981, 1983). This includes lack of access to production processes anddecisions, while information on the consumption, dissemination, or reception of therecorded product has also been a problematic subject, particularly in colonial set-tings and unitary successor states. Gramophone recordings have been accessible tostudy primarily in two ways: as the result of capitalist commodification, and as amusical-verbal text.3

The advent of cassette technology, a low-cost, two-way medium with itswidely accessible means of production, distribution, and consumption has changedthis situation fundamentally. For one, the increasing globalisation of non-Westernmusic as 'World Music' has caused ethnomusicologists to bring cross-cultural issuesto popular music studies (Meintjes 1990, Guilbault 1990). More fundamentally, theproliferation of local musics on record is generating ethnographic studies ofmediated musics in a range of non-Western societies (Manuel 1988b; Waterman1990; Erlmann 1991; Yampolski 1991; Guilbault 1993), providing a site of entry forstudents of live music.

To consider recorded sound from an ethnographic point of view requires abroader view of the phenomenon of sound recording, in which the interaction withthe life of non-mediated music is fundamental. This is well exemplified for SouthAsia in the recent work of Peter Manuel and by Scott Marcus, each of whom hasbuilt on his study of live genres (ghazal and biraha respectively) to create ethno-graphies of their media-isation (Manuel 1988b; 1993b; Marcus 1995b) and to situatethese cases within a consideration of the larger impact of cassette recording (Manuel1993, Marcus 1995a). What these studies contribute to the field of sound recordingis that they approach recorded music no differently from live music, even thoughits reified state invites - and understandably often receives - treatment as an auton-omous object. In the process, both authors question the conflation of recorded withpopular entertainment music, since they find that recordings not only transform afunctional genre into personal or public entertainment, but may also replace sucha genre and become functional themselves. The other major contribution is to showhow in a free market environment4 the cheap and small-scale process of cassetteproduction not only creates musical diversity but also breaks up the monopolisticcontrol over both musicians and audiences which had characterised the gramo-phone era (despite a fundamental similarity in production relations between thetwo media).

From my perspective on qawwali as a historically entrenched religious genre,as well as a mediated one, these are fundamental insights to be contextualised andproblematised further. In relation to recorded qawwali, there is a need to link func-tionality to ideologies of practice, and, even more important, technological inno-vation to social conservatism. The cassette medium is an obvious instance: wherethis decentred, flexible technology enables innovation and resistance, it can also beco-opted to reinforce social and aesthetic conventions, especially where entrenchedaesthetic notions and patterns of reception for recorded music date back two to



Exploring Qawwali and 'Gramophone Culture' in South Asia 65

three generations (Manuel 1993). My own years spent within a South Asian, middle-class milieu, as well as among urban musicians, most of them Urdu speakers, havemade me keenly aware of such a blend of notions and patterns embodied in anearlier repertoire of recordings, and how their affective, social, and aesthetic pres-ence in people's memories is being reinforced by massive cassette reissues fromthat repertoire, even when being superseded by new recorded output.5

Does this suggest another way of seeing the proliferation of recorded reper-toires on cassette? If consumer preferences are predicated on their particular lan-guage, community, and milieu-specific musical repertoires, then cassette technologyoffers as potent a means of reinforcing established musical habits as of expandingor replacing them. The real significance of the technology is that it enables a largenumber of other milieus or constituencies, especially rural and lower-class ones, toaccess recordings of their particular musical preferences. The result, if surveyedacross the land, is a richly diversified, inclusive market offering, but this offeringmay also be seen as an aggregate of very particular repertoires, targeted to andconsumed by particular regional and communal constituencies.

This scenario of diversity stands in stark contrast to the gramophone era whenthe music of most constituencies was either silent or marginally co-opted into thestate broadcasting system or parodied in film music, while their constituents hadto subsume their aesthetic to the pre-eminence of what Manuel terms 'standardised,common-denominator music' (1993, p. 58). In the process, established attitudestowards hegemonic recorded music of the past decades have become an integralpart of the response to the present musical expansion (Manuel 1993; Marcus 1595a).

More difficult to explore are consumption and listening preferences, renderedparticularly intriguing by the duality of the medium as both a sonic commodity anda sonic experience to consumers. Since aural sampling becomes crucial to attractingbuyers, the means to widely disseminate performances of recordings is essential, asis the need to attract listeners to them. The dissemination chain introduces a furtherdimension of context and meaning, including the status of the medium itself andhence the issue of control over its deployment.

The (re)signifying potential of the medium needs also to be seen in relation toestablished performing forces. In the case of qawwali, a hereditary performing classhas been guarding a repertoire sanctioned by patrons and spiritual experts, and onemay ask whether such a socially entrenched set of patrons and performers with aculturally entrenched repertoire is predisposed to maintain this producer-consump-ter nexus? What are the bounds of spiritual patronage and who, then, becomes astudio performer of the genre? Without immediate reference to a specific audience,how does recorded mediation affect the construction and articulation of meaningwithin these historically situated social and aesthetic boundaries?

I am raising these interconnected issues not in order to address them substan-tively, but rather as a context for exploring mediated qawwali from outside thedomain of media studies. Inserting the notion of a particular constituency or milieuand its attachment to, or use of, a particular live-recorded genre may be one wayof approaching the impact and role of sound recording, both ethnographically andwith reference to a body of recorded repertoire. Central to this attempt are readingsof qawwali 'texts' which are informed by verbal and musical responses drawn frommy involvement with the qawwali 'speech community' in India as well as Pakistanover the last three decades, but most intensely during 1968-9, 1975-6, and 1985,with oral sources extending back in time to the 1920s.




Noteworthy about this milieu is the categorical distinction between 'speak-ers' - the qawwali musicians - and 'hearers' - their Sufi audiences and patrons, butalso secular listeners. Furthermore, in a traditionally gender-divided social sphere,qawwali as a live practice has always belonged in the male domain, admittingwomen only as marginal and mostly secluded listeners. This was changed byrecordings, which women could and did hear at home; indeed, my first copiedqawwali tapes came from women, our Lucknow neighbours, in 1965. They also lentme their hand-wound gramophone.

More generally, the hearing audience of recorded qawwali has extended to amilieu at once specific and broad; it is characterised by a strong identity of qawwaliwith the Urdu/Hindustani speech community and with cosmopolitan urbanMuslim culture, including a historical association of Sufism to the imperial courtand to feudal authority (Ahmed 1963). It is surely significant that the languageand cultural vocabulary of this milieu coincides with the language that dominatedgramophone recording, film, and indeed urban public life not only under the Brit-ish, but also subsequently in Pakistan and even to a large degree in Northern India(Lelyveld 1994).

Among urban Muslims, an entrenched attachment to hegemonically dissemi-nated recordings can thus be seen as a token of linguistic and social identification,in addition to being simply a response to a familiar devotional genre. More ubiqui-tously, non-Muslim listeners, especially those within the Hindi-Urdu-Panjabi lan-guage area, have a clear if generalised familiarity with qawwali as a distinctivelydevotional musical genre with a distinctly Muslim identity, rooted in religious prac-tice, but also extending into the secular domain - in the Indian sense of what Iprefer to call spiritual cosmopolitanism.6

What is the impact of several decades of mediated qawwali? In which wayshas recording technology been implicated in the shaping and expansion of theqawwali constituency, beyond the communities of Sufi practice, and in the broaden-ing of the qawwali genre to serve the interests of its patrons? How relevant to thisshaping has the continuing public performance of live qawwali been, as a religiousgenre with a powerful semantic capacity rooted in its function?

A historical-causal perspective on these questions is limited by the fact that,unlike genres only recently co-opted into the repertoire of recorded sound, liveqawwali has coexisted with its recorded counterpart longer than living memory.What qawwali music sounded like before the existence of recordings is thereforeonly indirectly accessible through written or pictorial sources and oral tradition(Khan 1949, Imam 1959-60, Ruswa 1963). Instead, I propose to approach 'impact'as an interactive and continuous process over time, situated within two contexts or'cultures': the context of sound recording or 'gramophone culture', and the contextof Sufi culture and live qawwali.

The context of gramophone culture

Studies of cassette production have made it particularly obvious that the recordingmedium itself is central to the impact of sound recording. Dealing with the gramo-phone medium is complicated by its industrial status and its links to economic andpolitical power. Several dimensions need to be considered as a context for exploringthe impact of the gramophone medium on the qawwali genre and its cultural andsocial uses.




The pioneering study of non-Western gramophone cultures by Wallis and Malm(1984) links the industry to national culture and policy. These links ensure thehegemony of the recording industry through political economic means, while fos-tering a symbiotic interaction between recorded 'popular' and live traditional music.The focus is on the state exercising power, or on communities within states symboli-cally actualising power through music. By historicising the relationship betweenpower and music, Attali (1985) and Donakowski (1977) highlight the continuity thatlinks the political use of music before and after the advent of gramophone recording,while Gronow (1981) traces the Western hegemonisation of the gramophone industryworldwide. Crucial to this equation are universal accessibility, bringing musicdirectly to the individual listener in a seemingly unmediated process, while at thesame time enabling centralised control over production and distribution.

The industrial-technological dimensions of gramophone culture have beenviewed effectively from a 'mode of production' perspective (Shepherd et al. 1977;Kayser 1976). In its inherent semioticity as a product, the mass manufacture anddistribution of a recorded song is quite comparable to that of any commodity andso shares with it features such as the fragmented production process, the alienationof producer from consumer, the loss of diversity, standardisation, and the marketas locus of patronage. What complicates the analogy is the dual property of musicas both message and medium of its dissemination, so that consumption is possiblewithout acquisition. This makes the role of dissemination through public media amajor facet of gramophone culture, especially in economies with limited purchasingpower. Dissemination is also a crucial prerequisite for the successful marketing of'style' embodied in the recorded product. Important to the early gramophone era,broadcasting provides a consumption model for potential patrons of recorded per-formances dissociated from a live context, a social abstraction which is paraphrasedby the music maker's name and by information about the music. In the West, thisabstraction has something of a predecessor in printed music (Rosing 1984). Relatedto this history is the Western-initiated practice on early Indian recordings of havingsingers announce their name at the end of the record.7

Broadcasting can also give consumers of recorded music a sense of context byaffording them the opportunity for gestures of participation. Audience feedback,paralleled in India by buyer responses solicited by the industry from regional retailoutlets across the land (Joshi 1977, Farrell 1993), serves to assess the market, andfeeds back directly into the production process as guidance for achieving a 'formulaconsensus' to produce the musical substance as well as a 'product image' (Wallisand Malm 1984). Both become part of a dialectical interface between a societalgroup's desire to assert its identity, and the record and broadcast industry'sreinforcement by feeding their product into the channel of group expression, acti-vating the powerful capacity of music for mobilising actual or potential sharedidentity (Hennion 1983, p. 192).

However, the mobilisation of groups within the larger social unit of the nationstate has socio-political implications on both sides. For the subculture, a 'communityof myth consumers' (Hebdige 1979), this articulation creates the potential for shap-ing musical style, so as to create a symbolic violation of the social order through apotential 'detachment from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalised form'(Hall 1977). To realise fully that potential ultimately requires that the group itselfcontrols the means of sound production. Political Independence as well as Partition,as witnessed in South Asia, can be seen as the achievement of this goal. Within a




state, marketing the articulation of subcultures can only be maintained 'so long asthe dominant classes succeed in framing all competing definitions within theirrange' (Hebdige 1979, p. 19); hence the concern of governments to regulate thegramophone industry and subsume it into cultural policies. Broadcasting, the pri-mary target, is appropriated directly, whereas record production is controlledthrough licensing arrangements that regulate access to the necessary technology.Arrangements made normally with a single major recording company8 ensured thatthe recording industry worked hand-in-glove with broadcasting.

As documented by Charles Hamm for South Africa, (1991), the music mediahave served colonial governments in their agenda of 'identity management' of thesubjugated population. In India, with its linguistic, regional and communal hetero-geneity, subculture management has constituted a primary challenge, for whichthe recording and broadcast media offered tools of crucial importance.9 Like mostpost-colonial polities, South Asia has a recent history of political and economiccentralisation in which central authority co-opts regional cultural forms to serve itsagenda through a marriage of technology and hegemony. While information onrecording companies is scant,10 policy papers surrounding the establishment ofbroadcasting in India show a keen sense of awareness of these issues (Lelyveld1988).11

Gramophone technology has, of course, also imposed drastic musical con-straints on musicians who were drawn initially from live traditions.12 In particular,limited amplification acoustics and the three-minute record devalued performance-related skills like vocal prowess and improvisation, both of which have been priorit-ies in the live performance of qawwali.

The context of live qawwali

Qawwali musicians and their Sufi patrons share a highly normative oral musicaltradition which is solidly rooted in the quasi-feudal establishments of Sufi shrines.Qawwali follows the Islamic conception of religious music or chant where musicserves text and religious function (Roychaudhry 1957), but it follows the culturalperformance norms of South Asia (Singer 1972). As detailed elsewhere (Qureshi1995b) qawwali is the most culturally diverse among Muslim religious genres; it isalso the most 'musical'. In addition to the standard Urdu, it uses entire verses andpoems in Farsi, the classical language of Sufism, and in Hindi, the language ofHindu devotional poetry. Musically, qawwali admits rhythmic and even melodicaccompaniment on dholak and harmonium which Sufis justify by their impact onemotional arousal. The function of qawwali music is to present mystical poetry ina musical setting so as to arouse mystical love, culminating in ecstasy, in listenerswith diverse spiritual needs. The poetry addresses the Prophet and Sufi saints, orexpresses mystical states. The music is placed in the service of this spiritual aimthrough its distinctive features. Acoustically, clapping and a stirring drum beatarticulate repeated divine invocation while group singing and enunciation empha-sise the text message; durationally, the musical rhythm articulates the poetic metre;and structurally, the musical form represents text units, while flexible repetitionserves to respond to diverse listeners' needs.

The fact that qawwali is performed by professional musicians or qawwals freesMuslim devotees from such engagement; socially it also articulates the norm offeudal patronage for music specialists, as has been the case for art music in South




Asia. Furthermore, qawwals are documented as having been open to secular musicmaking and musical entertainment at least from the early eighteenth centuryonward (Khan 1949; Dhond, n.d.). These performers are only mediators, lackingreligious status, whereas spiritual (and economic) control resides with the patronsof the event. The record of both textual and circumstantial evidence indicates thatqawwali has always served as a medium to extend communication to all potentialfollowers of the Sufi path, which in effect means all societal groups, including themajority of non-Muslims in India, and ranging from the highly literate to the unlet-tered. In light of this background, it is hardly surprising that qawwali early onbecame a popular and much-recorded religious genre in South Asia.

A life-sketch of qawwali on record: the colonial phase

To convey the historical depth and the rich overlay of style and content, I shallbuild this sketch on a historical sequence of qawwali recordings. Given the lackof access to sources on qawwali record production, the paucity of information ondissemination, and the ephemeral nature of the reception phenomenon,13 this sketchcan offer no more than an impressionistic composite of historical information andfeedback from performers and listeners. It is inevitably centred on qawwalirecordings themselves, for they are seen as the textual site for articulating, receiving,transmitting, and transforming meaning: not as objects, but as living musical enti-ties.

In practice, recorded qawwali entered the lives of well-to-do Muslim familieswith the purchase of gramophones starting in the late 1930s. Qawwali recordingswere the mainstay of many family holdings; such 'spiritual' (haqqani) songs wereconsidered appropriate listening for women, although love songs (ghazal) and,increasingly, film songs were also popular, while children were ubiquitouslyregaled with the famous laughing record'.14 Given the considerable expense of agramophone,15 far more households acquired radios once they became available inthe early 1940s. Gramophone records were disseminated over the radio and also inpublic locations, mainly shops.

The songs chosen as examples are among the many well-known recordingswhich people I know owned or heard a lot. Back to the earliest example from the1930, all these selections are today still familiar and dear to older Urdu speakers;together they present a repertoire selected for its salience within the performingand listening milieu itself. It is also notable that qawwali recordings disseminatedby the media continue to constitute a select repertoire by selected performers whothereby enter a pantheon of figures that 'one' knows, as the authors of songs whosesound or memory is shared. I have transcribed and discussed these selections so asto convey a sense of the impact of this music, and so connect the frozen performanceto the living context of its reception by individual listeners. At the same time, theyare concrete instances of the broad historical developments that constitute the widercontext of this recorded genre.

In South Asia, recorded sound came to a highly centralised colonial empirewith a long history of hegemonic control. Under British and, earlier, underfeudal Muslim rule, this highly stratified society was dominated by, and orientedto its powerful central elites and their local counterparts. The struggle for inde-pendence saw the emergence of new ruling elites in India, Pakistan and laterBangladesh, along with the growing self-assertion of groups or subcultures shar-




ing linguistic, regional, or religious identities. From this resulted a dynamicprocess of political power seeking cultural domination, and cultural identityseeking political assertion. At the same time, social hierarchy and long-termcentral domination have contributed to a strong cultural conservatism.16 Anotherfactor contributing to conservatism is the pervasive power of oral traditionwhich reinforces the power of memory and of cultural things remembered. Mostimportant, oral tradition served as a channel of elite control long before theadvent of recording technology.

After the advent of sound recording all these forces continued to exercise theirimpact even though record manufacture, like all mass production, did entail a shiftof orientation from the land to the commercial segment of society, from the resourceholder to the cash holder. Did gramophone technology, then, simply serve the samecontrolling elites or their successors? Examining the qawwali genre suggests thatthe far reach and at the same time the fragmentation of the listening context pro-moted a supra-local commonality, abstracted from, though not superseding, localmusical identities.

South Asia's long history of recorded sound is characterised by the monopolyof the British Gramophone Company, later EMI, one of the 'Big Five', which estab-lished record production in India in 1908 (Gronow 1981). Its monopoly started beingeroded only in the late 1970s when some competing companies were finally able toenter the market (Kinnear 1985). The salutary diversification resulting from this wasquickly superseded by the shift to cassette technology in the 1980s. EMI's hegemonyfell and so did the production of records, clearly because of the absence of anycopyright protection (Manuel 1993). This trend appeared earlier in Pakistan wherean open market permitted the free influx of cassettes and playback equipment,unlike India where this is a more recent development.

The initial monopoly of the Gramophone Company extended to the manufac-ture of gramophones and to all distribution; it was further reinforced by the equallycentralised broadcast media (Lelyveld 1988). Indeed, as noted, the continued statemonopoly over radio and TV in both successor states largely accounts for the rela-tively limited impact of recent diversification in the sound production industry. Thereason is the central role played by media dissemination in a society where theability to buy recorded sound and its playback equipment was concentrated amonga relatively small elite.

The early history of qawwali recordings mirrors the contradictions playedout in the development of the industry. Qawwali was prominent among the firstrecordings made in Calcutta in 1902 by a touring agent for the Gramophone Com-pany (Gronow 1981, Farrell 1993). The three qawwals recorded then, Pearu, Kaloo(Kallu), and Fakhr-e-Alam, went on to gain enduring fame with numerous laterrecords (Joshi 1977). But it was not until the early 1930s that gramophone recordingbecame widely established, with a major local production facility, and with widedissemination through locally assembled Japanese phonographs and through thenewly established All India Radio.

In between, during the 1920s, an initial phase of musical diversificationsaw several other recording companies in operation while the Gramophone Com-pany was making recordings in several cities according to regional preferences:qawwali was recorded in Delhi according to the taste of a Persian-Urdu elite(Hyderabadi 1982), while Bombay served Gujrati and Marathi markets. By thelate 1920s, however, the Gramophone Company had consolidated its hold on




the market and established a policy of consolidating their production and reper-toire to address urban popular tastes that shared the largest possible market.For qawwali this meant moving production to Bombay and using a widelyunderstood lingua france of Urdu-Hindi, or Hindustani to a studio sound thatcould be produced in the same facility for all genres. According to a historianof qawwali, Akmal Hyderabadi, this shift to a more popular type of song waspromoted by a qawwali-loving but unlettered producer at HMV Bombay, to theregret of more literate Sufi adepts.17

This conception of qawwali fits with the Gramophone Company's early focuson recording urban professional performers and on music primarily of two types:the light and classical courtesan songs aimed at an elite audience, and popularreligious songs (Joshi 1977, p. 19) categorised by the industry as 'devotional'. Pre-ferred by linguistically and musically less sophisticated Muslim audiences, 'MuslimDevotional' was seen to hold an appeal for the Muslim religious community atlarge. Its prime market was the urban business communities, especially in Bombay,who had diverse sectarian and language backgrounds but shared Islamic tenets andbasic Urdu, both as a lingua franca and a language of religious devotion.

The qawwali recordings of the first decades of the century reflect this reality.Their texts are mostly in simple Urdu, quite unlike the standard religious qawwalirepertoire which used either Persian, literary Urdu, or devotional Hindi. Anotheradjustment to a standard Muslim market is topical: the early recordings are predomi-nantly hymns to the Prophet (na't), with a few Shi'a hymns (marsiya) and only a fewsongs addressed to Sufi saints, not to mention texts expressing mystical states or emo-tion.

Example 1. Kaloo Qaunval: 'Oh Let Me Die by the Tomb of Muhammad'(Ham mazar-e-Muhammad pe mar jaenge) (Angel 3AEX-5191)

Verse 1: Nam-e-ahmad ke sadae utar jaengeZindagi meri ek khwab kar jaenge

Refrain line: Ham mazar-e-Muhammad pe mar jaengeVerse 1: I offer my all in Ahmads' (Muhammad's) name

He turns my life into a dreamRefrain line: O let me die at the tomb of Muhammad

VERSE 1

(HARMONIUM) VOICE (HARMONIUM IN UNISON THROUGHOUT)J> = ca.28OTonic = C#

Nam - e - ah - mad ke sad - qe u - tar ja - en

r p U r(HARMONIUM)



Regula Burckhardt Qureshi

JMJ J JNam - e - ah - mad ke sad qe u - tar ja - en

(BANJO)

8Je T p p r P 'r

(HARMONIUM)

Zin - da - gi

(BANJO)

ek khwab fl kar ja - en

J j JUd Y P 'r rg (HARMONIUM)

(BANJO)

-jJ>-r

j

Ham ma - zar - e - Mu - ham - mad pe mar ja - en -

f i j Ji3Hge, Ham ma - zar - e - Mu - ham - mad pe mar_ ja - en - ge

Example 1, 'O Let Me Die by the Tomb of Muhammad' (Ham mazar-e-Muhammad pe mar jaenge) is a favourite song by Kaloo Qawwal that exemplifies thisstyle. Transcribed from an LP reissue of recordings by both Kaloo and Pearu, therecording dates originally from the early 1930s when the two singers were 'reigningsupreme in the realm of recorded music' and also 'drew large crowds whereverthey sang' (Ahmed 1968). The solo song is accompanied by spirited tabla playingand very plain melodic accompaniment on the harmonium while a 'banjo' offersthe melody in tremolo strumming an octave higher. The simple devotional poem isset to a standard Muslim hymn tune for this particular poetic metre, a multiple of-u- (long-short-long syllable).

The Gramophone Company pursued a clear policy of exploiting separatereligious communities as markets. This is evidenced by the release of the same filmmusic for Hindus and non-Hindus, along with communally differentiated advertis-ing (see Joshi 1977). At the same time the Company created its own 'hegemonythrough style' in the form of a standard ensemble: a solo voice accompanied by theimported harmonium and tabla became the ubiquitous sound combination for allrecorded song, including qawwali. Initially, the limitations of recording and micro-phone technology may have contributed to this acoustic simplicity, but with thedevelopment of autonomous music for the silent cinema, and with 'talkie' films inthe 1930s, the basic studio instrumentation was expanded to include the clarinet




and other instruments borrowed from Western popular music. One non-Westernimport came from Meji Japan in the 1920s: the daishokoto, a factory-assembled boardzither (koto) with typewriter keys to stop the strings and a sound somewhat resem-bling a banjo. Called bulbultarang (nightingale's voice) or simply 'banjo' in India(Qureshi 1980), it became a particular favourite with popular qawwali. These West-ernised innovations are hardly surprising given that record and film production,and even radio, were Western imports and initially in the hands of Western pro-ducers. Even after the gradual indigenisation of the industry, the long years ofexclusive dissemination and the glamour of its studio identity have given thisinstrumentarium great staying power up to the present.

To reach all possible audience groups the general policy was to target religiousand language communities and then to identify genres within them. By far the mostwidely recorded category, 'Urdu Muslim Islamic,' encompassed the qawwali reper-toire under consideration here. Initially Urdu was the predominant language cate-gory for all gramophone recordings, given its official status under the British. Inaddition, the label Urdu represented the Muslim cultural identity and even subsumedsongs in Hindi. The Gramophone Company's eclectic search for markets also led tosome early recordings of unaccompanied chant, including a recorded segment ofQur'an recitation,18 although these appear to have been discontinued soon. In con-trast, it soon became clear that qawwali could double as entertainment, not onlybecause qawwali with its instrumental accompaniment is closer to secular song, butalso because of its heterodox religious provenance and its often highly metaphorictexts.

During the British period the record industry settled for solo songs of a populardevotional type with little evidence of the authentic sound character of Sufi music. Ofcourse, the three-minute duration of these recordings could hardly permit the free-dom to repeat and amplify musical portions which is so essential to that idiom. Infact, the early recordings share stylistic traits with contemporary urban entertainmentmusic like charbait and nautanki, as well as with the music that accompanied silentfilms and was later incorporated into film songs (Joshi 1984). But ultimately the indus-try did not invent this idiom: it only promoted and projected it, thereby giving prefer-ence to what were essentially freelance urban entertainers over the tradition-bearinghereditary qawwali performers who were, and still are, affiliated with Sufi shrines in aquasi-feudal arrangement. Through this preference Pearu, Kaloo, and Fakhr-e-Alambecame 'stars' who also performed widely before huge live audiences, both Muslimand non-Muslim (Enayatullah 1976), and in settings ranging from open-air groundsto recital halls (Lutfullah 1989). They were often dressed in Western clothes and sittingon chairs; Kaloo is remembered for always appearing in an impressively neat Westernsuit (Enayatullah 1990). His photograph (Ahmed 1968) embodies a Western-Islamicimage: with tie, shirt and jacket he wears a Fez, the formidable Pan-Islamic head-dressfavoured by elite Muslims at the time.

The recorded solo style of qawwali singing had a limited impact also on thereligious qawwali performed in shrines. By the 1940s two recording artists emerged,Azim Prem Ragi and Waiz Qawwal, who also impressed Sufi audiences. While inproper Sufi settings they did not use studio instruments as was done for recordings,Waiz Qawwal used to intone a simple melodic accompaniment on the sitar. Therecognition of these performers in Sufi circles is reflected in their names and specialtitles - Waiz ('Religious Commentator'), Prem Ragi ('Minstrel of Love') - which werebestowed upon them by Khwaja Hasan Nizami, a great Sufi and literary figure




attached to Delhi's Nizamuddin Auliya shrine (Gore 1976), This fame in turn influ-enced the diversification of qawwali recordings towards including some genuineSufi classics, like Azim Prem Ragi's recording of the famous Persian poem Namidanam die manzil bud by the thirteenth century poet Amir Khusrau.

Out of this early interfacing between religious and recorded qawwali stylesthere appears to have emerged a highly significant shift in structure, both textualand musical, towards what I term narrative-didactic qawwali. The underlying prin-ciple is that of inserting verses (girah) between reiterations of the same line of songtext, a practice originally meant to explicate difficult Sufi poems (Gore 1976, Nizami1975). The growing popularity of the practice among Sufis coincides with theincreasingly important patronage of the urban business communities who lackedthe classical education of the traditional Muslim elite. In popular qawwali the tech-nique of verse insertion was easily expanded into a form of story telling (katha)where each episode is followed by a punch line repeated clamorously. Because herethe singer controls the text sequence, he can turn it into a purely audience-orientedentertainment.19 Recordings could present only a highly compressed version of thistechnique, but thanks to the qawwal's proverbial ability to respond appropriately toany performance context, successful versions abound even on three-minute records.

Example 2. Ismail Azad: 'Our Muhammad is Full of Splendour' (Muhammad hamare bari shanvale)(EMI 4 TC 04B 3962)

Refrain: Our Muhammad is full of splendour!Inserted verse: Muhammad gave his community the Faith

In giving the Faith, he gave the Qur'anThrough Him, the weak became strongBecoming strong, they became courageous tooWhen Muhammad came, then blessing came tooWhen blessing came, the good fortune came tooWhen good fortune came, then abundance came tooWhen abundance came, then benefaction came tooAnd the splendour of Muhammad's prophecy came tooOn his brow the stamp of prophethood came tooHow great it is that Divine Law came tooSovereignity came and miracles came tooInstantly the mantle of Faith came to allThrough Muhammad's coming, the Qur'an came to all:

Refrain: Our Muhammad is full of splendour!

Refrain: Muhammad hamare bari shanvaleInserted verse: Muhammad ne 'ummat ko iman baxsha

Jo iman bakhsha to qur'an bakhshaGharaz natawanon men taqat bhi axJo taqat bhi ai to jurrat bhi aiMuhammad jo ae to rahmat bhi aiJo rahmat bhi ai to daulat bhi aiJo daulat bhi ai to barkat bhi aiJo barkat bhi ai to ne'mat bhi aiMuhammad ki shan-e-risalat bhi aiSar-e-pusht mohr-e-nabuwwat bhi aiBari bat yeh hai shari'at bhi aiVilavat bhi ai karamat bhi aiSar-e-dast daman-e-iman ayaMuhammad ke ane se qur'an aya:

Refrain: Muhammad hamare bari shanvale




REFRAIN

ife^fJ = ca.2O4Tonic = B[>

J ' J J V'l fl \ ^ ^Mu-ham-mad ha - ma - re_ ba-n shan - va - le

P it

(STRINGS)

GIRAH(NO TABLA)

J'J J J ' J J j ' J J J ' J J j j J J i ' J JJ'J'JJ'JJJMu-ham-mad ne 'um-matko T-man d bakh-sha Jo i-man d bakh-sha to qur-'an d bakh-sha

i JJUJJ-'JJJ j j jG h a - r a z - n a - t a - w a - n o n m e n t a - q a t bh i ai J o t a - q a t bh i a - T to j u r - r a t bh i a - i

J J J'jij-J J i j'jJj'j iM u - h a m - m a d j o a - e to r a h - m a t bh i a - i J o r a h - m a t b h i a - i t o d a u - l a t bh i a - i

i J W J J JJ o d a u - l a t b h T a - T t o b a r - k a t b h T a - T J o b a r - k a t b h i a - i t o n e - " m a t b h i a - i

J J f JM u - h a m - m a d kT s h a n - e - r i - s a - l a t b h T a - T S a r - e - p u s h t a m o h r - e - n a - b u w - w a t b h T a - T

Y j J J J J J J'JJ J'JJa - n b a t a y e h h a i s h a - n - a t b h T a - T V i - l a - y a t b h T a - T k a - r a - m a t b h T a - T

i r pr rSar-e - dast a da-man-e-l-ma-n s a-ya Mu-ham-mad ke a - ne se qur-'an a-ya:

REFRAINTABLA ENTERS

Keh Mu-ham-mad ha - ma - re_ ba-n shan - va - le




Example 2, 'Our Muhammad is Full of Splendour' (Muhammad hamare barishanwale) well illustrates the chain-like process of text insertions by the first famousBombay qawwal, Ismail Azad. A star of the 1940s and 1950s, he also set the trendfor Muslim performers of recorded qawwali in India to adopt names with patrioticreference (azadi designates India's Independence) and hence supra-communalappeal, thereby neutralising the communal identity which is inevitably containedin all traditional Muslim (and Hindu) names. The name was later adopted by sev-eral other, totally unrelated qawwals, most famous among them Yusuf Azad whomade his name with popular secular qawwali recordings.20

Musically, this narrative style is outstanding for its lack of melodic movement,except for melodic markers at structural turning points in the song. Most conspicuousamong these is the impending conclusion of the inserted girah recitative; it is markedby a conspicuously high register and a quick descent into the refrain. The verses con-tain a repetitive, even playful, oratory typical of other Indian oral narratives. Indeed,this style of qawwali became highly popular as a non-religious genre, especially incontests (muqabila) between two qawwal parties who, in live performances, outdideach other in improvised verses. In Bombay, such contests were favourite live enter-tainment in the 1940s, sponsored by Muslim neighbourhood associations.21

The increasing use of narrative naturally led to a topical expansion in textualcontent, reflecting on conditions of the time, including changing political realities.Even a cursory review of sound recordings as well as broadcasting shows thatthey were profoundly affected by both the freedom movement and the subsequentindependence from Britain. The effect on qawwali records is notable in a thematicshift towards a heterodox Sufism addressing Indian saints and embracing a generalhumanism which extols all religions. This accords with the spirit of independentIndia's commitment to secularism, a term which in the Indian context means lessto eliminate religion from consideration than to give consideration to all religions.

Example 3. Habib Painter: 'This is Where You Find God'(Bhagvan isi men milte hain) (EMI 7EPE 1440)

Verse: Man, this image made of clay, this is where you find GodBut when he forgets himself, you find the devil in himYou find God in him, and you find the devil in him

Refrain phrase: This is where you find GodInserted verse: Just see the observances of these Sheikhs and Brahmans . ..

As if God were confined to temple and Kaaba . . .The Ka'ba, the church, the gurdwara, the river Ganges,Why be concerned with the differences among them?Your purpose is to worship, do it wherever you please,

you fool!Refrain phrase: You can find God everywhere!

Verse 1: Yeh khak ka putla hai lekin Bhagvan isi men milte hainJab rup se ghaflat kar le to shaitan isi men milte hainBhagvan isi men milte am shaitan isi men milte hain

Refrain phrase: Bhagvan isi men milte hainInserted verse: In sheikhon brahman ki parastish koi dekhe

Keh jaise haram-o-dair men baitha hai Khuda band. . .Keh Kaba-o-kalisa gurdwara-o-girja gangaInsan in jhagron se tujhe matlab kyaTujhe sajda hi karna hai, jahan chahe vahan karle, pagle:

Refrain phrase: Bhagvan sabhi men milte hain




VERSE 1CLARINET (WITH HARMONIUM AND TABLA)

J = 160Tonic = G

r r tir r ^ r r tfrVOICE (CLARINET AND HARMONIUM IN UNISON, TABLA ACCOMPANIMENT THROUGHOUT)

# #t l

Yeh khak d ka put - la hai le - k in_ Bhag - van i - sT meri_

J' J J' J Jmil - te ha Bhag

CLARINET

van i - si men mil - te hairi

r r(TABLA STOPS)

FREE RHYTHM (NO TABLA)

r L J r r r

(CLARINET) Bhag-van i - si mei i_ mil - te hairi (CLARINET)

L T rJab s rup d se gha - flat kar le to shai - tan i - sT men.

TABLA ENTERS

J J^ J J 4 4 i^0 J . Jmil - te hairi shai - tan i - si men. mil - te hairi




GIRAH

FREE RHYTHM (NO TABLA)

J1' J" J"1Bhag-van i - si meii mil-te haiii In sheik-hoii brah-man ki pa-ras-tish ko-i dek-he_

J' J J J' J J JKeh jai - se ha - ram - o - dair 5 men bai - the hairi Khu - da band

0 m 0 0 d * *

Keh Ka - 'ba - o - Ka - li - sa gurd - wa - ra - o - girja gan - ga

In - san in jha - grori se tuj - he mat - lab kya

r r i r rTuj-he saj - da hi kar-na hai_ ja-haii cha - he va-hari kar - le pag - le

Example 3, 'This is Where You Find God' (Bhagvan isi men milte hain) is afamous song extolling this ideal. Habib Painter, an equally famous qawwal,hailed from Northern India, but assumed an anglicised trade name reflectingBombay business patronage rather than that of a Sufi shrine. The stayingpower of this recording is evident since it has been quoted by the contem-porary Abdurrahman Kanchwala and much later by Ghulam Farid Sabri inanother famous narrative qawwali, T am Immersed in Love for the Saint',(Main to Khwaja ki divani). The text uses a basic Urdu-Hindi of deliberatesimplicity which is reinforced by an equally simple descending melody withrepeated notes, especially to conclude every refrain (milte hain). Here theaccompaniment shows a prominent use of the clarinet, indigenised in tech-nique to offer ornate embellishments of the simple song tune. Indigenis-ation becomes visible as well in the performer's dress and presentation in per-formance. The high collared shervani coat22 has replaced the Western coat andtie, and even on stage these performers have returned to sitting on a sheet-covered floor.

Essentially, the 'story-telling' qawwali represented an expanded influenceof popular entertainment on record production; but its lower-class characterevoked disapproval from the Muslim elite, begining with elite performers them-selves. Long-time HMV producer of classical recordings G. N. Joshi reports atelling incident from 1952 when the great classical ghazal singer, Begum Akhtar,




was almost irreparably lost to the Gramophone Company because an unletteredofficial made the offensive suggestion that she model her na't recording on theqawwali style of Ismail Azad (Joshi 1984, p. 71). The fact is that the narrativeqawwali had, by the 1950s, become a highly successful, secular performinggenre, and recordings by its star peformers were excellent sellers. This turnedqawwals like Ismail Azad and later Yusuf Azad into prime recording artists andin turn enhanced the impact of their 'Bombay style' on recorded religiousqawwali.

A further factor in this complex feedback process is that of the film indus-try, now concentrated in Bombay, and its enormous output of song records. Byabout 1950 a distinct filmi vocal sound had become established, adapted to themicrophone and reflective of the essentially romantic stereotype of the malehero. This somewhat crooning sound (klasiki avaz, literally 'classical voice') standsin distinct opposition to the vocal norm of religious qawwali, but it has clearlyinfluenced recorded qawwali. Another facet of film music is its focus on melodicstructure, composed or arranged to create a memorable tune at least for themain song line, as well as an attractive instrumental frame introducing the songand separating its verses. Both features began to appear in qawwali gramophonerecordings, culminating, by the 1960s, in 'composed' qawwali songs, arrangedand recorded under the guidance of a music director. These include a set ofreligious qawwali recordings from the one 'Muslim Social' film which was madearound India's greatest Sufi saint: Muinuddin Chishti of Ajmer. Appropriatelyentitled Spiritual Lord of India (Hind ke Wali), the film employed as its musicdirector the versatile Hindu qawwal Shankar Shambhu who also starred as themain singer.23

Example 4. Shankar Shambhu 'O Let Me Come Face to Face with You'(Didar tumhara hojae) (EMI EMOE 2378)

Verse 1: May peace come to my restless heart, suoport to mytroubled life

My eyes thirst to see You, O might I come face to face withYou

Refrain Phrase: O let me come face to face with YouInserted verse: The world calls you the Messiah of our time

A single glance from you can heal the lovesick soulPlease drop your veil and show us your splendour

Verse 1: Betabi-e-dil ko chain ae, jine ka Sahara hojaeDidar ki pyasi ankhon ko didar tumhara hojae

Refrain: Didar tumhara hojaeInserted verse: Kahti hai tumko dunya masiha-e-zamana

Achche hon ek nigah men bimar tumhareParda to ho chuka zara jalva bhi dikha do




i

INTRODUCTION

VIOLIN (2 TABLAS)

Ni-gah - e - shaug d kab se mun - ta - zit hai dld_ d ho - ja - e

VOICE 2VOICE 1

su-kuh - e - dil mi - le

aut 'a-shi-goti ki 'ld_

VERSE 1

, BOTH VOICES

ho- ja -e_

FULL OPENING LINE

J. J. ;J a j ' " jBe - ta - bi - e - dil ko chain a - e_ Be - ta - bT - e -

j J J J '! i J. mdil ko chain a - e_

TABLA ENTERS

jT - ne ka sa - ha - ra

ho ja - e, ho - ja - e, jT-ne ka sa - ha - ra

VOICE 1 (DIMINUTION TO 2/3)

ho - ja

Be - ta-bT-e-dil ko chain a - e, jT - ne ka sa-ha-rS ho ja

VOICE 2 (DIMINUTION TO 1/2)

Be - ta - bi-e-dil ko_ chain a - e, jT - ne ka sa-ha - ra_ ho - ja - e




DT-dar d ki pya - sT i - khoii ko

DT-dar 3 turn - ha - ra

ho- ja - e, ho-ja-e, Di-dar turn - ha - ra h o - j a - e

GIRAHp r r Lr r

VOICE 1

JJ j'U jJ J J jKah - ti ha turn - ko dun - ya ma - si - ha - e - za - ma - na

Ach - che hoti ek ni - gah men

VOICE 2

bi - mar d tum-ha - re_

Par-da to ho chu-ka za-ra jal -

TIHAI PATTERN

p^ 4

va bhi dik - ha do, za- ra jal - va bhi dik - ha do, za-ra jal

(DIMINUTION)

va bhT dik - ha do_ Par - da to ho chu - ka za-ra jal - va

s c_rr r r ^bhi dik-ha do, Kab se pa-re haiii ta - l ib-e-di - dar_ d tum-ha - re ,_ Di -




REFRAIN

di - dar d turn - ha ho - ja

Example 4, 'O Let Me Come Face to Face with You' (Didar tumhara hojae) isperhaps the best-known of these songs, enhanced by the stunningly melodioustenor voice of Shankar Shambhu, whose effortless high register and vocal agilitymake him a musical favourite among recorded qawwals. The use of a second singerenhances the melodic scope of the song, while retaining its solo quality, in keepingwith the established style of recorded qawwali. Appropriate for its film setting, thesong uses a catchy tune spiked with syncopation, coloratura patterns and a forcefulcadence with a punchy 'first ending' (on the word hojae repeated in diminution)signalling a repeat of the refrain phrase. Brief instrumental interludes in the styleof the instrumental 'piece' of film songs include Westernised chromatic bits, butShankar Shambhu also eclectically employs classical techniques of rhythmic intensi-fication (tihai24 and diminution). The text is a simple song of longing for the Saint'spresence.

The most important impact of the film industry on qawwali, however, isits successful adaptation of the idiom to entirely secular purposes, invariably infilms of the category 'Muslim Social' where a colourful qawwali-type groupsong, sung by either/or men and women, served to invoke a typical Muslimatmosphere while introducing musical and visual variety. To serve this purposeit follows logically that such songs should emulate the typical sound characterof qawwali: group singing, hand clapping, rhythmic accentuation and crisparticulation.25 A famous landmark is the first women's qawwali from the 1948film Zeenat.26 The sum total of all these developments was a diversification anddilution of the genre's religious character in its recorded form.

Post-independence trends

Following Independence in 1947, two distinct sound recording histories began toevolve in India and Pakistan, although the Gramophone Company continued tohold a virtual monopoly in both countries. Their different religious-political foun-dations found expression both in record production and in the disseminating media




of radio and later television. This in turn affected patronage and therefore the well-being of recording artists themselves.

India made major changes to its broadcast policy which had an importanteffect on qawwali. In contrast to its regular appearances during the first decadeof All India Radio, qawwali virtually disappeared from programming for someyears after Independence. Under B.V. Keskar's policy of cultural nationalism formusic,27 mainstream AIR programming focused mainly on the patronage ofclassical music and for five years even banned air play of all popular or filmirecords. From the late 1950s qawwali reappeared in sharply reduced form ontwo 'special audience' programmes, which in an interesting way also reflectedthe two-tier 'class structure' of qawwali. The 'Urdu Programme' served toarticulate Muslim culture, while the 'Rural Programme' addressed a regionalpopular audience. At the same time, Bombay-style secular qawwali washeard on filmi broadcasts of Radio Ceylon and later All India Radio's VividhBharati.

Recordings made during the 1950s and 1960s reflect in their texts an increas-ing emphasis on Hindi vocabulary, on Indian saints - rather than the Prophetand Arabia - and on the religious tolerance of Sufism. Hindu performers gainedmore prominence in the recording field - though not in the Sufi establishment -also because many talented Muslim qawwals were lost to Pakistan (Henry 1988,p. 214).

In Pakistan, both national radio and the recording industry were establishedin Karachi in the early 1950s. This newly constituted nation's search for a musicallyexpressed identity apart from India led to emphasis on distinctive elements inqawwali, as the one musical genre with a clear Muslim identity (Qureshi 1996).Radio Pakistan created and strongly propagated a qawwali-like national genrebased on the poetry of the great national poet Muhammad Iqbal and labelled Iqbal-iat. But despite massive dissemination on the radio this genre never gained popularor industry acceptance.

During the same period, religious qawwali was broadcast on RadioPakistan each Thursday night and Friday evening, gradually supplanting Iqbaliatas a form of quasi-national music. The Gramophone Company of Pakistan foundthe market soon supporting an increasing production of qawwali, in contrast tothe limited demand for classical music that could largely be satisfied with re-releases from India. A fortuitous constellation of factors supported the expansionof the qawwali idiom in Karachi during the 1950s and 1960s. Patronage wasintense among immigrants from Urdu-speaking areas of India, while qawwalsbrought different local styles from Sufi centres in India, with resulting compe-tition, imitation, and mutual inspiration among them; all this took place inKarachi during the years of immigrant hegemony in what was then the centreof Pakistan.28 The expansion was characterised by both the preservation of tra-dition and by musical innovation, especially in the direction of art music, adevelopment which had been pioneered much earlier in Panjabi qawwali by thelate Mubarak Ali Fateh Ali (Enayatullah 1976).

Recordings became the effective vehicle for standardising and disseminatingthese innovations, predictably within the parameters of the established 'Bombay'model of popular qawwali. What made this possible and helped push recordedqawwali into a place of musical prominence was the belated introduction into




South Asia of long-play technology in the 1960s.29 By 1972 numerous 45 rpmand several LP records of religious qawwali had appeared - including reissuesfrom India - and more LPs followed throughout the 1970s.

The first long-play recordings present 'composed' studio performances withthe conventional studio instrumentation and instrumental interludes, and withemphasis on a memorable tune at least for the major melodic segment of thesong. At the same time, they are essentially replications of religious qawwaliand therefore contain not only religious texts but also the musical features whichare meaningful to qawwali as a religious idiom. These include the special,powerful drum beat of qawwali, along with forceful handclapping on rhythmicaccents, multiple repetition of salient phrases (takrar), appropriate verse inser-tions, and a performance style focused on verbal enunciation and a strong,open-throated singing voice. The introduction is strongly rhythmic and oftenincludes a traditional introductory verse sung in recitative (ruba'i). But in betweenverses, instrumental interludes are absent or reduced to minuscule cadentialformulas, so that the continuous verbal communication of the song is not inter-rupted. The recording articulates the essentially open-ended sequencing of theverse structure, but presents it in a purposefully composed performance, forultimately it aims at creating a memorable entertainment even while invoking areligious experience.

Three performers from Karachi led this development, first on 45 rpmdiscs, followed by several LPs. Manzur Nyazi and Bahauddin, highly pedigreedamong hereditary qawwals (qawwal bachche) and associated with the Nizamud-din Auliya shrine in Delhi (Qureshi 1995b), introduced a rich Sufi repertoireand performing style. But it is Ghulam Farid Sabri, from a regional shrine anda generic musician's lineage (mirasi), who came to dominate as an innovator andperformer and within a decade went on to become the very embodiment ofmodern qawwali in the Indian subcontinent and even abroad. Focusing on hismusic and its impact since the late 1960s illustrates the transformation ofPakistani qawwali into a national idiom and the role of recording in theprocess.

In Ghulam Farid Sabri a number of qualities converge that have gainedhis recordings the widest distribution and recognition, turning them into modelswhich have been imitated and emulated in Sufi assemblies throughout SouthAsia. His tunes are well composed and arranged, even where he uses traditionalSufi melodies, supporting the text in both style and structure, but also shapedto the need for tunefulness and memorability.

Melodic and rhythmic variety abound in Ghulam Farid Sabri's recordings,starting with the introductory verses, and extending to melodic inserts as wellas final invocational formulas. His first long-playing recording, Tajdar-e-Hamm,illustrates these qualities: the melody in raga 'Bhairavi' is melodically expansiveand rhythmically diverse, as well as technically demanding. Known and imitatedby qawwals all over South Asia, this is musically the most remarkable andcertainly the most famous of all Ghulam Farid Sabri recordings, as is summarisedin Example 5. For the first time in recorded qawwali the text features the fulllinguistic and connotational range of Hindi and Farsi verse inserts, in additionto the main text in Urdu.




Example 5. Ghulam Farid Sabri: 'Lord of the Kaaba'(Tajdar-e-Haram) (EMI LKCA-20000)

Refrain line (Urdu):

Inserted verse (Farsi):Refrain line (Urdu):

Lord of the Kaaba, bestow your benign glance on usso that we, the deprived, may have a betterlife

Prophet of God, look at my wretched conditionLord of the Kaaba, bestow your benign glance on

Inserted verse (Hindi/Farsi):

Refrain phrase (Urdu):Repetition/Inserted verse:

Repeated Phrases:

(H) What can I tell you, Prince of Arabiayou already know what troubles my heart

(F) O you who are called 'unlettered', when Iam separated from you

(H) my nights are endless.Your love makes me forget all sense,

how long must I wait for news of you?(F) Won't you cast a secret glance at me,(H) Won't you listen to my voice?Lord of the KabaOh You, Prophet of God/Tell the morning

breezeOh You, favourite of God, oh you the chosen

oneOh You, who exudes fragrance of musk and

amberOh You, helper in need, oh miraculous

healerOh You, solace of those who are sick with

sorrow.

Opening Line:

Refrain:Inserted verse (Farsi):Refrain (Urdu):

Tajdar-e-Haram ho nigah-e-karamham gharibon ke din bhi sanvar jaengeTajdar-e-Haram ho nigah-e-karamYa Rasulallah ba ahwal-e-kharab-e-ma babinTajdar-e-Haram ho nigah-e-karam

Inserted verse (Hindi/Farsi):

Refrain phrase (Urdu):

(H) Ka turn se kahun ai Arab ke kunwarturn janat ho man ki batiyan . . .(F) Gahe bafigan duzdida nazar(H) kabhi sun bhi to lo hamri batiyanTajdar-e-Haram ho nigah-e-karam

Repetitions/Inserted verse:Repeated Phrases:

Ya Rasulallah/Kahna Saba ko . . .Ya Mustafa, ya mujtaba . . .Ai mushk bez amber fisha ...Ai charagar, Isa nafas,Ai munis-e-bimar-e-gham




INTRODUCTION

BANJO

J = ca.lO4-16CHARMONIUM Tonic = Gjj

Qis - mat meri_ me-rT_

HARMONIUM

OPENING LINE

J = 104 CHORUS

Ta-jfl-dar - e - Ha - ram ho ni - gah - e - ka - ram

ham gha-n - bori ke din bhi san - var ja - en - ge

REFRAIN

J = 108 SOLO

Ta - id-dar - e - Ha - ram ho_ ni-gah - e - ka - ram o

Taj a dar - e - Ha - ram, ho ka-ram._ Taj_ dar - e - Ha -

ram, ni-gah-e - ka- ram,_ Taj_ d dar - e - ka - ram, ka-ram. ka - ram_

GIRAH (FARSI)

J = 120 SOLO, THEN CHORUS

Ya Ra-su-lah lah ba ah-wal - e-kha-rab-e - ma ba-bTn




REFRAIN

J=,32

JJJJJ'J ^m0 J 0 01 0Taj s dar - e - Ha - ram ho ni - gah - e - ka - ram ho ka-ram,

GIRAH: SOLO, THEN CHORUS

ur 'r a0 0Taj s dar - e

Ka tum_ se ka-hun ai Rab d ke kuri-warha - ram

tum_ ja - nat d ho man_ ki ba-t i-yari

r r L T IGa-he ba-fi-yan a duz d dT - da na-zar 3- kab-hi sun bhito lo ham-ri ba-ti-yan:

m0 0Taj 5 dar - e - Ha - ram ho ni-gah-e - ka - ram, ho ka-ram

TAKRAR REPETITION (AND GIRAH)

J = 144 A ; SOLO Kah-na sa - ba_

TCHORUS Ya Ra-su-lal - lah Ya Ra-su-lal - lah Ya Ra-su-lal -

Ya Ra-sQ - lal - lah Ya...

TAKRAR PHRASES

J = 160 (16 PHRASES)

J J i n J JJ t:Ya Mus-ta-fa Ya Muj-ta-ba Ai mushk bez am - bar..

Ai cha-ra-gar T-sa na-fas Ai mu-nis-e-bi - mar-e - gham




Within the confines of this word-dominated genre, the Sabri recordingsshow an expanded role for instruments, adding variety within, and also betweensongs to underscore their character. To begin with they invoke the sound identityof traditional qawwali through the prominent use of clapping, harmonium, andbanjo as well as the powerful dholak reinforcing the tabla. But they also use afull complement of studio instruments, singling out instruments with appropriateassociations: a touch of introductory sitar, to invoke classical music as well asclassical qawwali, or the tambourine with metal discs, suggesting popular appealfor simple devotional texts through its association with singing mendicants.

Perhaps the most important of these trends was the emulation of Middle East-ern drum beats to enhance the increasingly popular Arabic text inserts or refrainsby imparting an Arab flavour which acoustically suggests the abode of Islam andits Prophet. Example 6 has such an Arabised drumming pattern throughout, alongwith its highly effective refrain phrase which is characterised by the sequentialrepetition of 'Mustafa' (a title of Prophet Muhammad).

Finally, Ghulam Farid Sabri judiciously expands the element of art music inhis recorded idiom, extending a trend that was pioneered by the late Mubarak AliFateh Ali and also taken up by Manzur Nyazi and Bahauddin. Ghulam Sabri doesso through raga melody and melodic virtuosity; both are self-consciously featuredin the form of short improvisatory passages but timed so as not to break the flowof the text message. Favourites are salient phrases of a few popularly known ragaslike Darbari, a raga associated with the Mughal court of Akbar, which serve to evokeMuslim high culture without demanding a sophisticated ear.

In sum, Ghulam Farid Sabri pioneered the transformation of the live qawwaliidiom of which he was a practitioner into a pre-composed repertoire for recordings.These in turn became standards for mediated dissemination, or even for 'staged'concert-type performances, but they also continued to accord with an educated Suficonsensus, not only in Pakistan but also in India where Ghulam Sabri's recordingsquickly gained universal currency among Sufis and Muslims generally. Informedby the same religious reference frame, recording and radio producers were import-

Example 6. Ghulam Farid Sabri 'Mustafa' (EMI LKDA 20050)

Refrain:

Refrain:

Mustafa, Mustafa, MustafaMustafa Mustafa Mustafa salle'ala

O Chosen One (title of the Prophet), God be praised.

Mus - ta - fa, Mus-ta - fa, Mus-ta - ft_ fa, sal-le-'a - la

AJ J TTj^ifegta - fa, Mus - ta - fa, Mus - ta - fa.




ant as technical collaborators in this transformation, which also indigenisedrecorded qawwali, by moving it away from the Westernised sonic frame of popularmusic used in earlier decades.

The process received an important impetus when television broadcastingwas introduced by President Ayub Khan for political purposes in 1967, at thesame time as low-cost TV sets were becoming widely available. PTV's weeklyqawwali programmes gave performers the opportunity to develop a nationalvisual identity as media stage performers; furthermore, the high status of tele-vision reinforced the image of qawwali as 'high class' and serious public enter-tainment. Hand in hand went the spread of qawwali 'concerts' in clubs and atgovernment functions, culminating in outright government patronage in the formof cultural representation and delegations abroad. From this, finally, followedinternational tours and record contracts, primarily for the group now called SabriBrothers. These developments also motivated a modest shift towards a trendierpersonal image for qawwals, through features like long hair and a more effusivearray of gesticulation.

Many other qawwali records were produced during the same decade of 1969-79, most of a more popular, narrative type and by qawwals of mainly Panjabi origin.Even a few women qawwals made recordings, typically singing in a low enoughpitch for a standard male chorus to accompany them in unison.30

A different combination between qawwali and popular style was introducedin the 1970s by Aziz Mian who was the second performer to be featured onlong-play records.31 He emerged in the mid-1970s with a vigorous didactic narra-tive style reminiscent of the older Waiz Qawwal, but reinforced by a strongbackup chorus for intense multiple takrar repetition. Significantly, his popularityfor 'fighting with God' in song arose directly from the impact of his flamboyantdelivery on the, by then, well-established platform of 'television qawwali'. Show-manship and golden shervani coat notwithstanding, what is remarkable is hisstrict adherence to serious moralising, if not strictly religious topics, by means ofrespectable Urdu poetry. This upwardly adapted version of the popular narrativeqawwali style testifies to the middle-class market targeted by recorded qawwaliin Pakistan.

The most recent development in Pakistani recorded qawwali is the rise toprominence of a once again more classically oriented performer team headed byNusrat Fateh Ali. Musical heir of the great Panjabi qawwal duo Mubarak Ali FatehAli (and son of Fateh Ali), Nusrat has brilliantly expanded their special tradition ofnot only melodic but also rhythmic improvisation. He continues to sing and recordthe repertoire he inherited, both in shrines and on stage. His songs of Panjabidevotional poetry made him nationally particularly attractive in Pakistan, given thePanjabi majority and its cultural assertion in recent years (Nayyar 1988), not tomention his appeal to the international Sikh and Indian community. But NusratFateh Ali's career and musical achievements belong distinctly outside the gramo-phone era and cannot be pursued further here.32

Assessing the impact of gramophone culture

The manifest function of early recorded qawwali was a combination of entertain-ment and generalised devotion, clearly Muslim though not particularly Sufi.Initially, the recorded articulation of Muslim cultural identity is rather populist,




catering to the urban business-class buyers and also to middle- and upper-classwomen secluded from live performances - both largely unlettered groups at thetime. Later, recorded qawwali managed to articulate its religious as well as culturalidentity in Pakistan through a style both artful and entertaining, based on a consen-sus of producing forces and consuming elites that continued to see live practice asa relevant model for the mediated product, acoustically as well as textually. Theresulting indigenisation of qawwali recording favoured hereditary qawwals ratherthan mere studio performers; most of all, it was built on a market of a broad Urdu-speaking public in Pakistan.

A coalition between three agents of patronage is behind the actual pro-duction and life of recorded qawwali: the producer, aided by the disseminator,and, ultimately, the buyer. EMI, a low risk taker among large record companies,pursued a recording policy informed by established socio-religious categories.Within these they took decisions to produce individual artists on the basis ofwhat would sell well within three months (Joshi 1984). With performers easilyaccessible and largely ignorant of royalties (Joshi 1988, Bhyrappa and Ranade1988, pp. 84-5), the company's investment was low and largely production-related. Disseminating the categories of Muslim religious music - and of qawwaliwithin it - as reifications of highly contextualised musical genres was an import-ant function of the radio, along with the actual broadcasting of the new decontex-tualised music.

Serving state ideology, the radio of course pursued an agenda whichchanged from British to Indian and Pakistani hegemony, but the structure of thepartnership has essentially remained the same, and so has the main role of theradio: to help create a context of entertainment for the recorded product, disem-bodied from its religious function. Here the difference between British, Indianand Pakistani hegemony becomes significant relative to the place assigned toqawwali in the larger scheme of musical categories, for priority ranking on thestate-owned media amounts to little less than state patronage. Under the Britishthe radio provided mainstream promotion for qawwali, reflecting their predilec-tion for ruling class culture. Under Nationalist inspiration, AIR first dropped thecategory qawwali, then converted it into an adjunct idiom for two marginalaudience categories 'Muslim' and 'Rural'. By contrast, Pakistani Radio and Tele-vision moved qawwali to mainstream religious programming, and expanded thison television into mainstream entertainment for a national audience.

In Pakistan, a significant contributing factor to the rise of qawwali to thestatus of serious public entertainment was the vacuum left by the gradual declineof the art music culture. In part because of the strong cultural identification ofart music with India, and because of its negative Islamic valuation, it found noofficial patronage and the ranks of classical musicians dwindled rapidly.Qawwali was accorded a quasi-state patronage which provided for the recordingindustry not only advertising but also something close to market control overlistener and buyer. Listeners were guided by this official patronage, consumingqawwali as an approved package of Muslim entertainment-cum-devotion. Buyers,on the basis of observation and reports, largely followed suit, but they alsowanted diversity and novelty, hence the industry's reliance on a tried studioformula along with an openness to new versions of that formula.

The performer, finally, played a role as the sole identifiable human agentbehind the recorded qawwali, but only if an association between them was




created for the listener - hence the performer's ingenious technique of sayinghis own name on the record. Recording qawwals did become widely knownand drew secular audiences at public performances. But the development of a'qawwali star' image remained limited, even in Pakistan (possibly becauseqawwals' identity is too closely attached to the functional religious context ofqawwali and to the service character of their professional status), until televisionbestowed a visual identity on Ghulam Farid Sabri 'with his long hair', AzizMian 'with his golden shervani and wild gestures', and Nusrat Fateh Ali 'withhis rotund face and body'. It was their entry into the Western World Musiccircuit with concerts reinforced by recordings, that gradually invested GhulamFarid Sabri and especially Nusrat Fateh Ali with stardom.

Considering things from the qawwali performer's own vantage point, arecording could transform him from an executor of a ritual to a musical initiatorserving a secular patron. Initially drawn from the class of urban entertainerswith rural roots, recording artists later also included hereditary perfomers withSufi patronage whose outside success derived from their ability to adapt theirmusic to the needs of the market. But recordings outside the film industry haveessentially been no more lucrative than performances; their return is fame morethan money. Recording 'stars' still depend on live patronage of whatever class,although they can use their fame to get it. An extreme example of this is theparticipation at the 1975 anniversary Curs) celebrations at the Gulbarga shrineby Shaukat Nazan, a qawwal whose claim to fame - and his very name - derivefrom the fact that he had once been a member of cinema recording star AzizNazan's qawwal party.33 According to South Asian qawwals, both famous andnot famous, financially more important is a recording qawwal's easy access tolucrative private engagements of wealthy businessmen where 'black' money isspent on 'wine fountains' and on competitive, conspicuous tipping during theqawwals' performance. This of course stands in stark contrast to hereditaryshrine performers who rarely manage to get contacted for such boons.34 Theexposure to recordings has in fact enabled non-hereditary or atai (amateur)performers to swell the ranks of a traditionally hereditary profession, with theirrepertoires built directly from recordings, thereby putting competitive pressureon hereditary shrine performers.

In their own way these performers and spiritual leaders are engaged in whatamounts to a constant process of mediating between the established expressivetradition of Sufism, which is vested in the oral tradition of its affiliated performers,and the highly persuasive current idiom of 'Sufi entertainment', which is enshrinedin recording. The degree of accommodation between the two varies nationally andregionally; its surface correlates are spiritual status and cultural literacy among Sufipatrons, but the impact of their choices ultimately depends on their economic pos-ition and social support within the larger polity. Here India and Pakistan providecontrasting instances for the position of recorded qawwali during the gramophoneera.

In India, Sufi shrines have retained their feudal assets, enabling internal con-trol over the live qawwali tradition. But wider patronage has shrunk, leavingrecorded/mediated qawwali to serve as a generic token of Muslim presence withinthe national soundscape. The recordings of the early decades remain as a nostalgicreminder to Muslims of a wider public presence for qawwali, a voice positioned




closer to the centre of hegemonic culture which was made audible through theGramophone Company's studio idiom.

In Pakistan, Sufi patronage is widespread, the Sufi constituency has elitelinks and considerable local as well as cosmopolitan support. This enables con-tinued Sufi control over live qawwali. But the same constellation has also facili-tated the co-optation of Sufi cultural-religious priorities within the national cul-tural agenda, so that by the end of the gramophone era no fundamentaldissonance existed between qawwali as religious ritual and qawwali as mediatednational music. From the Pakistani vantage point, the early recordings, thoughvalued (and today re-circulated on cassettes) as the emerging voice of Muslimsonic culture, have been superseded by a much more compelling national (andtoday international) qawwali idiom; already in the late 1970s Ghulam FaridSabri's 'Tajdar-e-Haram' (Example 6) could be heard as background music in across-country luxury train compartment.

Who controls the sound of mediated qawwali?

Media-isation is clearly more than the application of recording technology; at thesame time, the recorded product has been fundamental to the introduction ofmediated music into South Asian musical life through the way it has been dissemi-nated and received, imposed and appropriated. The central issue appears to becontrol over what is being disseminated and to whom.

Control was certainly an issue where recorded qawwali was consumeddirectly. In homes where senior men or women controlled the precious familygramophone as well as the listening audience,35 playing records was an intimateshared experience without the social constraints of a formal performance. Thateven today strong memories of such listening experiences are associated withgramophone records is evident from the Listening Meetings of the Society ofIndian Record Collectors in which individual collectors play their records forother members at home.36 In either case, the basis of the performance is owner-ship of recordings and playback technology, or control over the sonic contentand its dissemination.

Control and ownership are likewise at stake in the milieu of live qawwali andits use of media-isation. The conservative spiritual hierarchy and quasi-feudal socialstructure that have enabled Sufi communities to control live qawwali productionhave not prevented them from using media technology for disseminating the soundof its performance for their own purposes, and under their control.37 Both loud-speakers and direct broadcasts of special qawwali assemblies are widely used bySufi establishments in order to extend the ambit of a qawwali ritual. Likerecordings, these media remove the music from its context, but what they dissemi-nate is their own locally generated Sufi performance. However, the extended rangeof amplified qawwali always contains a contradiction: of wanting to reach the earsof more devotees in large venues and beyond, while also protecting the integrity ofthe ritual from inappropriate or ignorant listeners.

That loudspeakers are not adopted without an awareness of their impactbecomes evident from the continuing resistance in shrines where the leadership isboth spiritually sophisticated and economically secure. The most famous suchleader who banned loudspeakers categorically was the Mutawalli, a senior Sufiofficial at Muinuddin Chishti's shrine in Ajmer. In contrast to all other qawwali




events held at this, the most frequented shrine in India, the Mutawalli's own famed'special' (khas) assembly remained un-amplified, so ensuring the spiritual appropri-ateness of all listeners, and underscoring the exclusiveness of the gathering(Mutawalli 1975). For similar reasons, loudspeakers are absent from some rural-feudal shrines like Kakori (near Lucknow), where qawwals strain to be heard atlarge outdoor assemblies.

Radio 'relays' of major shrine rituals, though long established and valued byboth Sufi leaders and qawwals, can also become a site where control over themediation process is contested. In 1975 I witnessed the 'relay' in the NizamuddinAuliya shrine in Delhi, where well-packaged live broadcast allowed for severaldesignated performers to sing a time-controlled version of one song each (Luthra1986, p. 349). When the opening of the first song sent a senior Sufi into an ecstatictrance, however, the performer did his ritual duty by repeating that same phraseover and over until the Sufi's trance abated, using up all the broadcast time in theprocess. Despite the interfering presence of technicians and equipment, and theannoyance of the producer, the team of Sufis and performers asserted their controlover the mediated product.

The vigorously functional context of live qawwali stands out against the muchlamented destructive effect of recording on traditional secular idioms (Wallis andMalm 1984), a process which is today encroaching on many South Asian musicaltraditions (Manuel 1991). While recorded wedding songs now regularly replace livesinging at weddings, qawwali recordings, to my knowledge, may represent butnever replace live qawwali in a Sufi assembly.

Present trends

Today, despite the widespread diffusion of cassette technology, gramophone cul-ture with its monopolistic alliance of recording, film and broadcast media has leftits impact as the voice of continuing centralised power structures in both India andPakistan. Live qawwali, a remnant of Muslim religious-feudal hegemony, retainsits ritual integrity in both countries. In fact, as developments in Pakistan show, it isrecorded qawwali which continues to derive meaningful religious reference fromthe live ritual, resulting in a musical idiom that conveys to its listeners a functionallycomposite and portable experience of entertainment. This represents Muslim ident-ity and devotional Islam all in one - a musical style-package by and for the nowemancipated 'subculture' of Indie Islam. Taking Hebdige a step further, this rep-resents a manifestation of hegemony rather than religion, through the assertion ofstyle.

Emancipated subcultures, however, do not remain static, especially whenvying for hegemony. In Pakistan, where qawwali represents the dominant culture,its national musical style package has been affected by a changing elite constel-lation: from a first generation dominated by immigrants from India who identifiedwith Urdu and South Asian Sufism to a more Western-oriented younger generationthat identifies with local cultures and languages as well as a Westernisation ofmusical taste.

At the same time, the Islamisation movement of the 1980s has promoted anorthodox ideology which is reflected in the proliferation of cassette recordings ofproperly religious music in the form of chanted Qur'an recitation and unaccompan-ied hymns, not qawwali. This flourishing repertoire is remarkable for its faithful




adherence to religious constraints on its musical presentation. However, those veryconstraints would prevent even the most attractive hymn recordings from servingcultural purposes. Long before present-day 'fundamentalism', when such a hymnto the Prophet was recorded by a courtesan-actress in a 1930s film38 its screeningprovoked such protests from Bombay Muslims that the cinema hall had to be shutdown. A similar response becomes manifest today in the explicitly devout listeningattitude taken on, especially by women, when hymn recordings are being played,even informally at home.39 In contrast to the heterodox q

Documents

His Master's Voice? Exploring Qawwali and 'Gramophone Culture' in South Asia