Articles on the Project
Views
Dr. Wandana Sonalkar
Writer and Retired Professor TISS Mumbai.
This promises to be an interesting exercise in showcasing the cultural world of the caste downtrodden in our society. While the musical genres of blacks in the US have been recognized and widely enjoyed, the songs of Dalit communities have not been seen as a contribution to the rich world of Indian music. Some figures like Wamandada Kardak are known to a wider audience in Maharashtra, but on the whole this is a form of musical expression unfamiliar to non-Dalit society.
In fact, there are many fine singers in villages and small towns, who even travel large distances within their own circuit, but are unknown outside their community. They use traditional instruments and they sing about the trials and sufferings of their people, as well as their hopes and dreams. They revere historical figures like Jotirao Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar as well as Savitribai Phule and Ramabai Ambedkar. Their songs are full of vigour and sometimes pain.
Somnath Waghmare and Smita Urmila are both young artists with roots in their community as well as having imprinted a footprint in the modern world of arts and media. Somnath’s films present the Dalit community as assertive and creating its own icons and festivals in a contemporary context. Smita is a visual artist with exhibitions and installations to her credit.
This project has taken both 0f them around the state of Maharashtra, which has a history of Dalit cultural expression that goes far back, long before Ambedkar. Ambedkar himself used the form of the jalsa (a word that means gala or celebration in several Indian languages) to spread a message of self-respect and social reform within the Dalit community. The continuity of this centuries-old tradition is preserved in the songs and performances of the village bands. Creating a digital record of their performances is a laudable undertaking that will generate source material for future cultural historians, as well as, more importantly, helping to sustain these rural groups, who often face obstacles and difficulties in keeping their art alive.
We live in times when new genres of cultural expression are being appreciated. This “Digital BookMobile” can be seen as an example of a genre that uses modern technology to bring together the old and the new, and to make traditional cultural forms easily accessible. We look forward to seeing what it brings to us.
All the best to Somnath and Smita!
Pranjali Kureel
Commonwealth Masters Scholar, 2021, University of Cambridge
Somnath Waghmare and Smita Urmila Rajmane travel to spaces that are not deemed ‘mainstream’ – from certain local parts of the cities to remote villages – to document the songs and poems of Ambedkarite artists. In many ways, they cross the spatial and temporal boundaries of the here and now to capture a moving phenomenon embedded in a larger cultural, political and historical process. As they note, these artists represent the legacy of poet saints and singers like Tukaram, Chokhamela and many more, going back to pre- Ambedkar era. The songs they document are the songs of resistance – ones that proudly speak of Babasaheb Ambedkar and his fight, and boldly challenge the norms of inequality. Also, appearing in the humble backgrounds in the videos and pictures of these singers, are photos or statues of Babasaheb and the Buddha, often also including Ramai, Shahuji Maharaj and other leaders. If this representation of resistance and challenge to hierarchy is one side of the coin, the other side is the cultivation of an emancipatory culture – with a sense of hope, a sense of moving forward. For example, to quote a few lines from one translated poem on the website, by Mahadev Sabane – With extreme hard work, the movement was shaped. Inequality was drowned in the sea of equality. Do not break these ties of love and brotherhood. Do not disobey Bhim…
One of the most compelling things that I find about this ‘digital bookmobile’ is that this project of digitization does not impose an outsider lens on the voices of the singers. Rather, the project is grounded in the Ambedkarite movement. For Babasaheb, a movement should not be ‘dead wood of the past’ but should be ‘evergreen’, and the project seeks to precisely do that. In the ever-dynamic digital age, it utilizes the online medium to bring forth the localized voices that resist oppression everyday, create a more emancipatory reality everyday. Hopefully, this digital library will serve as a public repository of songs and poems that otherwise are not heard beyond certain local boundaries. More English translations will be useful for people like me, who do not understand Marathi language. Hope more and more people will be able to derive insights and inspiration from the documented works of individual artists and singing groups.
Tereza Mensikova
(PhD student and sociologist, Masaryk University, Czech Republic)
Every community grows with the appreciation and preservation of its own cultural heritage. Although Dalit society has been systemically denied recording its own past in a written form for many centuries, its voice has remained alive and transmitted in many songs and poems of Dalit performers. The project of Somnath Waghmare and Smita Urmila attaches much-needed importance to the creation and performing of these voices: anticaste and resistance songs that accompanied Dalit communities in their emancipatory efforts, some dating long back to pre-Ambedkar times.
Both authors are highly skilled young artists dedicated to their work and look into the lives of Ambedkarite songwriters and performers with empathy and understanding. They introduce a rich cultural tradition that tends to be hidden from the wider public and thus help increase the reach of individual performers and enable their message to reach both Dalit and non-Dalit communities in India and abroad. Digital archiving is on the threshold of the future as a new way to connect people and their voices across time and space. The Ambedkar Digital Bookmobile follows this path with determination, providing new insights into the Dalit tradition and transcending the boundaries of the general audience of contemporary Ambedkarite jalsa.
I look forward to the future developments of this promising project!
Pranita Thorat
MA Student, TISS Mumbai.
Everything around us, the way our localities are built, our schooling is practised and the art that is presented to us, is a representation of brahmanical ideology. We take birth in a casteist society and learn the system that it abides by. When I was young my learning sources were my family. We would sit together for dinner and my grandmother would share her life experiences. Once she told us about an incident when she was pregnant for 9 months and she made the well water accessible for the dalits in the village. There were times when someone from the family would share about the cultural rituals that our family as farmers would do. There are songs that were sung by the community about Dr.Babasaheb,Jyotiba Phule,Savitribai Phule. These various ways of living was part of the dalit community in our village around 20 years ago. Eventually these practices faded away as we migrated to cities and our sources of knowledge were Television, Radio, Newspaper. Few of my family members remember the songs and culture which we shall pass on orally to the next generation, although there is no record of these incidents. Most of the reality of dalit community is thus lost or repressed by the oppressor. We are constantly presented with brahmanical ideology through all mediums. It is almost never that a TV channel is playing a song that relates to dalit lifestyle.
Lack of representation is a way through which oppressor communities control us. When there are no traces of our existence, everything that we fight for gets nullified. The existence of a dalit indvidual in today’s casteist discourse is in itself an act of resistance. We were guided with this knowledge Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who documented our realities through which we know our history and our rights. Our rights today are known to us through the anti-caste reformers and through some parts of history which we have in the form of literature and art.
In today’s time we are either represented as oppressed and “other” or our stories are curbed and repressed. Hence archival becomes one of the most important forms to continue our reform. Archival in the form of stories, poetry, songs, documentaries, etc. is the way we preserve our reality for the future generations to know. It is not only an attempt to continue our fight but also to assert ourselves in the society. Documenting carries out the process of
assertion and creation of history. Documentaries are proof of our lives.
Sanjeev K Sonpipare
(Visual Artist- Sanjeev Sonpimpare), Mumbai
An Artist, a Visual Artist, a Performance Artist, Photographer, a Film-maker, a Writer, an Activist, a Creative Individual, a sensitive person, a keen observer, sees and observes so many things in a day’s time. And this isn’t the same as what a common person sucked in routine, sees and registers in his/her daily grind. The act of “seeing” is special in the sense of grasping, with the “mind’s eye”, or even letting it just reflect and pass by like a mirror that holds no images. What’s with a Scholar, a historian or a documenter? How does a creative individual connect the dots, build an understanding of things as an evolutionary phenomenon, and as a whole? The questions about expressing and voicing the concerns as urgency!
Somnath Waghmare, a young PhD Scholar from Maharashtra, an Ambedkarite Artist, and Smita Urmila Rajmane, a public intervention Artist, Performer started this project in 2020, (during the Pandemic and when there were many restrictions about assembling) of documenting various Ambedkarite Artist Group performances, which sing and perform at local-small towns in Maharashtra State. These singers and groups, Shahirs who write and sing songs about the lives of the Dalits, the struggle of the discriminated, the marginalized community, and their stories of bravery too! It is also in the praise of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and many other Socio-Political mentors like Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Shahu Maharaj, Savitribai and Jotiba Phule, Vamandada Kardak and any others who inspired lives, to become light unto them. This has been a long history of being in darkness through the discriminatory Caste system, laid by the so called Upper-Class, Brahmnical order of governance and rule.
These songs are either a narration of a historical incident, or something quoted by these personalities that have transformed lives, made aware about what it means to be human. This helps in explaining about the importance of education, unity, brotherhood, equality and justice to the future generations. These songs are written and sung by Artists like Shahir Raosaheb Bhaurao Gaikwad, who is from Dharkhed (Parbhani) village .He sells Vegetables to make a living .There are groups like Yalgar Sanskruti Kala Manch, Shahir Mrs.Kakde (Pune) and Scholar Prof.Sachin Garud (Islampur) and a well-known Professor from JNU. And among them are other smaller groups too, that are documented as a part of the Project. The Bhima Koregaon Vijaystambha,
Perne, Maharashtra is one such remarkable historical place that’s reminiscence of the bravery of 500 Dalit Mahar soldiers(the Untouchables) who fought against the Brahmnical Peshwas, during the Colonial rule. These incidents stand as a reminder of reclaiming honor and dignity. The Mahad Satyagraha by Dr B R Ambedkar, the sacrifices by Savitribai and Jotiba Phule for the welfare and education of Women, are the few examples that these Shahirs keep reminding us through their songs.
These stories must be told, it is important to pass on the legacy, and the responsibility to the coming generations to keep it alive and inspire. It is important to know our history to create a sustainable future. The emphasis on education, the power of the “Lekhni” (pen) , the Indian Constitution that grants equal rights to all Citizens, become an inscription to be followed and trusted with all might. Just like Ambedkarite literature, and other available books, these live performances by these individuals and groups, vitalize and nourish the weaker sections of the Society that needs emancipation from the shackles of religious blindness, ritualism, superstitions and the discriminatory ideas that keep the morale low.
I believe this project has become a very effective means to vocalize, and an important document for further reference and study, for Students, Scholars and Academicians.