Folksongs of North India: A Review Article

Author(s): Antoinette DeNapoli

Source: Anthropos, Bd. 108, H. 2. (2013), pp. 604-608
Published by: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23509864
Accessed: 24-02-2020 08:39 UTC

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 604 Berichte und Kommentare

mon Folksongs
festivities of North India
associated with
through which they cemented t
A Review Article
also slowly disappearing. The c
dormitory system - namely, i
the readily available Antoinette DeNapoli labour fo
es of the cultivation cycle, ha
the official ban imposed on th
tion. Nonetheless, The voices andthelifeworlds ofdormitory
the marginalized re
and continues main to underresearched
perform topics in South Asian
its Stud ro
tions in the day-to-day ies. Subaltern scholars, especially,life
and others haveof t
spheres of recreation, sought to address and redress thisfestivit
lacuna; so it is
accommodation of visitors - both kin and nonkin. with Smitha Tewari Jassal's "Unearthing Gender.
Even in the context of monetary economy of today,Folksongs of North India."1 Erudite and original,
this book makes a signal contribution to scholar
the values of sharing, collectivism, and cohesion,
which have been fundamental to the Muduvan life, ship on gender, class, caste, sexualities, identities,
are still manifested in the form of such practices and
as labor by bringing attention to the lives and prac
sharing the food and hardships of life in general. tices of low-caste peasants in the rural North Indian
In almost all Muduvan settlements, irrespectivecountryside.
of Engaging and expertly written - Jas
their size and location (whether situated in forests
sal's prose enacts a most pleasing poetics to this
reader's ear - the genius behind "Unearthing Gen
or outside the forests), one can still find dormitories
for both boys and girls. Today, however, they der" ex lies in its use of women's folk song genres,
ist largely as a cultural phenomenon and serve as likea those concerned with women's work, as source
marker of cultural identity and cohesion. materials with which to comprehend and appreciate
women's expressive traditions as vehicles for trans
mitting gender ideologies, caste/purity codes, and
Bibliography kinship systems. Jassal demonstrates through com
pelling analyses of the songs' texts and contexts,
Conner, P. E. their formal structures, that the songs that mostly
1834 Description of the Hill Tribes in Travancore. The Madras
peasant women sing in the private/female spaces
Journal of Literature and Science 1: 1-7, 54-83.
of the courtyard, in the open fields, and in ritual
Iyer, L.A. Krishna
spaces of momentous life-cycle ceremonies such as
1939 Muthuvan. In: L.A. K. Iyer, The Travancore Tribes and
Castes. Vol. 2; pp. 1—48. Trivandrum: Government Press. marriage not only provide important cultural com
mentaries into the intimate psychological worlds
Luiz, A. A.D. of women, but also remain situated in the highly
1962 Muthuwan. In: A. A. D. Luiz, Tribes of Kerala; pp. 203 complex political, social, and gendered economies
208. New Delhi: Bharathiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh.
in which they emerge. At the forefront of Jassal's
Menon, T. Madhava (chief editor) deft examination are the songs themselves, as, in
1996 The Encyclopaedia of Dravidian Tribes. Vol. 2. Thiru
her language, "discourses of emotion," embedded/
vananthapuram: The International School of Dravidian
Linguistics. negotiated cultural forms and social practices that
shape, and are shaped by, women's social-cultural
Sathyanarayanan, C. R.
2003 Forced Occupations and Settlement of Forest Dwelling lifeways. What stands out to me as the dominant
Tribes. A Study in a Wildlife Sanctuary in South India. In: motif in Jassal's work, which I would characterize
D. Chatty and M. Colchester (eds.), Conservation & Mo as a "performative ethnography," concerns the poly
bile Indigenous Peoples; chap. 32: 130-144. New York: vocality and plurality of interpretations the songs
Berghahn Books Online.
provide by virtue of their contextual variations. En
riching the pathbreaking insights, voiced in partic
ular by Kirin Narayan (1986, 1993, 1995) in her
work on women's songs in the Kangra region, Hi
machal Pradesh, and by Gloria Goodwin Raheja and
Ann Grodzins Gold (1994) in their work on wom
en's song/story cultures in Uttar Pradesh and Raj

1 Jassal, Smita Tewari: Unearthing Gender. Folksongs of North

India. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. 297 pp. ISBN
978-0-8223-5130-6. Price: £ 16.99

Anthropos 108.2013

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Berichte und Kommentare 605

asthan, Jassal shows that wom

are not, as colonial authorities
often assumed them to be, tim
rather change and transform in
cial conditions. "[T]he songs,"
fer a vividly expressive and in
Above all, the songs reflect w
dence and cooperation, in the
and ritual" (254). Most import
sive analyses of the song text
trates that the songs constitu
for challenging conventional
women's lives, power, agency
Even as Jassal sifts from the pe
ideologies of gender discrimin
she hardly resorts to apologetics
ings for the fact that the song
doxical nature of women's e
Jassal says, "The songs theref
sometimes conforming, often
casionally defiant and subv
Along with a concise introd
sion, "Unearthing Gender" con
each individually crafted for
the non-expert, and each indi
and interpreting a spectrum
genres or, as in chapter five,
ballad (Lorikâyan), all the whi
in their performance, social,
In the "Introduction," Jassal m
five and methodological object
sal convincingly distinguishes
study of women's lived practic
dia on the basis of an ethnogr
phasizes the study of nuanced
folksongs to illuminate disenf
to question sometimes; to str
the more conventional theore
caste/class/gender, etc., in So
tural capital" of predominantl
class, low-caste women in the
deserve serious academic cons
since they possess pedagogical
songs, as Jassal says, "pack a
women across the class/caste,
far as her fieldwork collectio
discusses that she conducted r
ing states of Uttar Pradesh (J
tricts) and Bihar (Chhapra dist
she worked primarily with wo
ant castes, she also conducted
from the peasant castes and f
(Brahmin; Rajput), in order to
line performance genres, such
Jassal explores in chapter five

Anthropos 108.2013

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606 Berichte und Kommentare

inappropriate and unwanted m

advances. Even more significa
trative femme fatales, jatsär c
what could happen to them if
gress established gender/caste
the unique perspectives indicat
tive feminine consciousness fe
to collective 19th-century att
lonial authorities and urban el
out women's expressive tradit
to challenge upper-caste m
The songs that the women w
sing also extend beyond the d
courtyard. In chapter two, "Si
sal illuminates the folk song
part of women's work cultur
light on the kajlT genre, which
that women sing while doing
work in the open fields. The s
mand for agricultural labor, t
formance, necessitates serious
song genre and its adaptation
folk genre performed largely
agricultural laborers, though
mediate" (laboring) castes also
inant features involve the son
of abandon, carefree mood, pl
heartedness, characteristics th
make bearable onerous agrari
as source materials, Jassal atte
social/economic conditions of
in the fields, and the gender in
agricultural labor, issues the w
worked refused to, or were re
licly, and yet had much to say i
songs. Significantly, this cha
unheard voices of underprivil
women and makes explicit tha
bor goes unnoticed, undocume
compensated, because of the p
that women's agrarian work re
sion of their domestic work.
file invisibility of the agricul
en she met is inextricably tied
ed at the lowest rungs of the
chapter, Jassal analyzes the k
from the repertoires of high-
tion to what she documented
laborers after a long day of h
ered some peculiar patterns i
first of all, even in the songs
wealthy/upper-caste househol
crepancies generally applicabl
lives with regard to the unequ
care, education, property, reso

Anthropo

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Berichte und Kommentare 607

demand equal shares of their na

not take advantage of legal av
inheritance rights for fear of
kin support. When it comes to t
conjugality as the site of daily
better example of this idea ex
the heroine of the Ramäyanä
Chapter four, "Sita's Trials," exa
songs, which, like the biyäh/b
formed on ritual occasions su
In this chapter, Jassal seeks t
during role Sita plays in the c
ant women in particular. Most o
sal's field study identified with
her as an exceptional role mo
practices of the women with
Sita exemplifies active, not p
in connection with her foresigh
and, most of all, her ability to s
simply against, the most egreg
edies. The Ramäyanä episodes t
the most significance for the
those concerning Sita's trial by
to the forest while pregnant w
and her final appeal to the mo
bear witness to Sita's purity by
the earth. In some Sita Manga
tions received wisdom about R
tion as maryadapurushottama
as she recognizes the many u
ments that marriage to him wil
These alternative Sita narrativ
women to imagine gendered s
act gendered normativities in
dominant patriarchal paramet
In the last two chapters of "U
Jassal takes a careful look at
culine performance tradition
ly titled "When Marriage Is W
performance of Lorikayän, a
dition indigenously characteriz
as gäthä (ballad) and, in the c
search, claimed by the Yadava
cattle grazing) caste. An upwar
clusive of a wide range of pea
Gopas, Goalas, Abhiras), "all o
scent from the Yadus, the dy
na is said to belong" (190), th
19th century and maybe befor
to rework dominant perceptio
ty by adopting high-caste Ksh
tices and norms. Jassal's analy
based on the adventures of th
Lorik, provides a fascinating
in which dominant Yadava cas

Anthropos 108.2013

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608 Berichte und Kommentare

emotions and the technologica

reverse normat
hegemonies, the festival
oral speech reinf
form
the structural inequities
analyses of it
the al
s
verts. But thea significance
theory of agen
of
native recent
possibilities it works w
affords o
the Ahearn
improvisation of (2001),
their it
oral
when the succeeds
original and in this
specific
ritual songs are altered, throu
onstrates as in
mercialization terof
two in herHoli
discussion about the Mallah women's
cassette m
empower women by
fishing cooperative, interrog
how women, I would say, tran
milial ties, the most
scend temporarily rather than,common
as she suggests, tran
the bhâbhï-devar
scend altogether therelation (wi
patriarchal structures limiting
younger brother)
their capacity to act. become
That the woman who was in a s
empowerment and,
strumental as
in the development Jassal
of the fishing coop
texts, of erative had to cut
female short her conversation with
sexual Jas
harass
appropriation sal because
ofthewomen'swoman's husband who was standing fol
Holi songs is within
possibly
earshot of their talk kept linked
anxiously looking at t
a pattern amongst low-caste/
his wife, suggesting that she return home and finish
lar, the consumers of toHoli
her domestic chores, testifies women's ongoing cas
inize" rigid, upper-caste
struggles to change and transform cultural mas norms.
been a popular Jassal'sway to
data indicates instead push
a pattern of women's b
der identities, and
negotiating the
between freedom cultur
and restraint; and be
Holi cassette tween
music victories and setbacks.
in In sum, Jassal's "Un
public
nant Brahmanicalearthing Gender" makes a superior contribution to f
parameters
of Gender and Women's Studies,
masculinity/male Asian Studies, Reli
sexuality.
Jassal's view,gious theStudies, Subaltern
masculineStudies, Global/Area Stud a
en's folk songs hints
ies; Development at
Studies. I intend "defia
to use it in the
zation norms" classroom.
(246) and, more
veiled "hostility that existfs]
women and lower-caste men" (2
promotes theReferences Cited
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that also seek to curb women's
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suggests that "the
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Mahmood, Saba
spontaneous song sessions is los
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bawdy
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rev
Holi, it is the feminine gender
Narayan, Kirin
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1986 Birds on a Branch. Girlfriends and Wedding Songs in
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line) folk song genres analyz
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norms/practices in empower
times subtle; sometimes over
tion of the songs to support
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ties in general face in the pre
clining folk traditions due to in

Anthropos 108.2013

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