Music as a Tool of Conflict Transformation?

“I have waited and dreamt of this moment for years…We only want to do good. Music must go out from here to all our friends everywhere… To all Kashmiris,” said world renowned conductor, Zubin Mehta on 7 September 2013 while leading the orchestra in the famed Mughal Garden in the heart of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir on the Indian side.

The concert, organized by the German embassy in New Delhi, was perhaps the first of its kind in the troubled Kashmir, in which the famous Bavarian State Orchestra of Germany played Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky. The orchestra also played Kashmiri music in conjunction with a Kashmiri ensemble, led by Abhay Sopori. The concert titled Ehsaas-e-Kashmir (the feel of Kashmir) can be watched here.

Expectedly, the music program received opposition from separatist leaders, who called for protests against it. Some opposition groups organized a parallel concert titled Haqeeqat-e-Kashmir (the reality of Kashmir) in the city. The good thing that can be observed is that the protests took the shape of another music concert, not violent demonstrations and bloodshed.

Can music be an instrument of conflict transformation? Putting it in another way, can music like other forms of art such as dance and drama, literary fests, etc. play an effective role in changing the mind of leaders and their followers who seek resolution of conflicts through violent methods? Particularly in the case of Kashmir, which has a rich Sufi culture and various musical traditions, how far can such an occasion can be a catalyst in moderating the violent positions of the parties?

Before the start of the program, German Ambassador John Steiner told the audience that the concert is a tribute to the people of Kashmir and their culture. In his words, “The distance between Munich and Srinagar is 7,756-km. Today, the distance reduces to zero. German and European cultural heritage bow to Kashmir, to its history, to its beauty and to its difficult reality and journey.”

Such a program also took place in 1955 when the Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin visited the valley. However, in the 1990s the separatism took a violent turn with support from across the border and also with repressive measures by the Indian security forces. The violence led a whole generation of Kashmiris, who were born and brought up in those years, to question the very status of Kashmir and turn towards violence under the guidance of radical leaders.

But one can notice that even the separatist leaders were divided on this concert. Some of them questioned the very organization of the program by Germany in a disputed territory and called the move a ploy to showcase that everything is normal in Kashmir. While some others described the expensive event as a waste of resources which could be diverted for poverty eradication or development purposes. The Nawaz Sharif government of Pakistan, a party to the conflict, remained muted concerning the concert. This indicated the moderate approach of the newly elected government to the conflict, and its interest in cultivating friendly relations with India.

Music, which is not essentially religious, has often been a victim of radicalism in Kashmir. Radical groups in Kashmir like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Dukhteren-e-Millat, Jaish-e-Mohammad, etc. perceive music as antithetical to religion. Besides music, they perceive freedom of expression and gender equality in the same way. In that sense, they share same values and ideas with other radical groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pragaash, an all-girl rock band in Kashmir, which was getting popular in the region due to its avant-garde music, had to vanish within months of its emergence due to threats from these radical groups. In contrast, another girl of Kashmir origin in Pakistani city of Karachi, Maha Ali Kazmi has become popular due to her romantic song Nazar, which can be watched here.

Any observer with having a sense of reality of the Kashmir conflict, and an understanding of the reality of national, regional and global politics in the post-cold war globalized world will be comfortable in arguing that neither the rigid positions of India and Pakistan, nor the separatists are going to be realized. The official Indian position that undivided Kashmir is an integral part of India, and Pakistan’s official position of supporting Kashmir’s right to self-determination (with the hope that it will merge with Pakistan), are matters of the past. This was realized in the early 2000s when both countries decided to make the border flexible, allow people- to- people contacts and commence cross-border trade. I have argued in my monograph ‘ Making Kashmir Borderless‘ that a borderless Kashmir with free flow of goods, ideas and people across the border (while retaining the symbolic division to satisfy national egos) will perhaps be the most feasible solution to the protracted conflict.

The South Asian subcontinent, which includes India, Pakistan and the undivided Kashmir, shared a common history and many aspects of culture. This is no truer than in case of music and drama. Noted Bollywood actors like Balraj Sahni, Dev Ananad, Dilip Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Kapoors and a host of others hailed from Pakistan, while noted Pakistani singers like Mehdi Hassan, Munni Begum, Reshma and many others hailed from India. The history of cross-cultural linkages is indeed legendary. The famous Sikh shrine Nankana, the birth place of Sikh religion founder Nanak, lies in Pakistan, while the famous Sufi shrine in the name of Chisti, frequented by Pakistani Muslims, lies in India. As a friend from Pakistan told me, it is the vested interests that create most of the problems. Common people, busy in the daily routines of life, want to live in peace and enjoy themselves. The concert early this month sends this message. More such events should be organized in both parts of Kashmir with support from New Delhi and Islamabad.

Published in http://blogs.umb.edu/paxblog/ on 29 September 2013

Music and Harmony

In evening during pranayam I listen to the song Vaishnava Jana to Tene Kahiye Jo Pid Parai Jane Re (roughly translated, the person is divine who feels pain of others and helps relieve the pain), the devotional song. My purpose here is something different. I am not focusing on this particular song or pranayam or the subject of devotion, but something different – music and its impacts. I am here using the term music not in a particular sense but in a wider sense. As I was listening to the song Vaishnava, I noticed that the tabla (a membranophone percussion instrument) starts from the beginning of the song in a particular rhythm and continues in the same fashion till the end of the song. It is difficult for me to explain or describe the rhythm as I have no expertise on music, but I could trace a pattern throughout. There was no break in the rhythm in between till the end of the song. I could find consistency and harmony throughout the song.

As I was pondering over this subject, I discover that music follows a particular pattern. I can stretch this logic and argue that music implies harmony. Whether it is devotional song, or romantic song, or sad song, or any genre of music, whether it is rock and roll or classical music, all follow a particular pattern. When we listen to music of a particular song even without any words in it, we can identify from which movie or genre it belongs to. In schools and colleges there are such competitions when students listen to music and tell the title of song or name of the album or movie. 

Going a little further, a study of musical instruments too provides wonderful revelations about creation of harmonious sounds these instruments make. Tabla is a kind of cylindrical drum covered with animal skin and guitar is the string instrument with a wooden body. The musical instruments do not have significance without the sounds they produce. In old India, or even now in rural India, people make wonderful musical instruments from simple things and with trifle investment. For instance, daskathia music in Odisha is played with two pieces of polished wood. There are many such, what I call, improvisations which are on a diminishing gear nowadays as people turn their face from villages to cities as they believe cities are providers of riches, not villages. This is another subject of discourse. 

My purpose of narrating these musical instruments is to link these instruments and their purpose of delivering harmonious sounds. This leads me to question, why do we like the sounds made by these instruments in a certain fashion, but not in all manners. We do not like if a tabla player play his tabla abruptly without any pattern. We do not like if the harmonium player plays only one note such as Sa or Re or Ga. So, the discovery here is harmony does not imply monotony or singular sound. It implies plurality and change. Hence, harmony embodies in its core diversity, plurality and change. The musician knows it, and gives these directions to the instrument. When these instruments are clustered in a particular harmonious fashion, we identify this particular music with a particular song. Even if the song is absent, we identify this music with that particular song. 

This leads me to another question. Why do we like music? I reasonably believe all human beings like music, though the type varies from person to person. I like romantic music; I like the music more than the song itself. Another person may like ghazal or kawali. Our personalities may not match our song preferences. But the commonality is that we like songs. I am sure almost all people of the world like music. The question is why? Why do we like music? Is it that we are wired in such a way that we are condemned or induced to listen to music? Or, is it a matter of habit, culture or cultivation? 

I do not have any clear answer on this question. I suspect the answer is: both. We have a tendency to listen to or to like something harmonious, pleasant, which the music provides to us. Our habit, culture and cultivation mold our taste of music we prefer. While parents born and brought up in India may prefer to listen to carnatic music of India, their children born and brought up in the US may prefer to listen to rock or hip hop or salsa. But, in both case they like to listen to music. I do not intend here to make any generalization.

This brings me to think that human being has a tendency to like harmonious things, whether it is music or something else. One can argue that human being too has the tendency to get idle or incline towards destructive things. It is a matter of big debate, and here I can say human being may have tendency for both, and it is the equilibrium or balance between the two, or tilt towards harmony that brings the best in human beings. My focus here is on harmony and music. When we listen to a song we like, the harmony in that song echoes or awakes the harmony in us, and there is a connection between the two, or a kind of symbiosis. Our internal harmony responds to the external harmony of that song. We find ourselves without notice that our heads start moving from side to side, our hands start waving, our toes or feet making moves, or we start lisping the song – all these movements in our body respond to the harmony of the song in a harmonious way.

These are some of my non-expert thoughts on music. It is such a profound subject and, to a large extent, such a technical subject it is difficult to analyze the subject without deep knowledge on it. But mine is a layman’s approach on the subject. I believe there is a musician in all of us. We sometimes sing songs without knowing, whistling beautiful sounds. I also believe that harmonious music can awake harmony in individual and help build a harmonious society, in which pluralism and diversity can be the order. I too have a belief that music can elevate the human spirit to higher echelons of consciousness and make the individual free from narrow thinking. Music can lift our spirit from a stinking pond of rigidity and dogmatism to a wide ocean of pluralism and harmony. Music too can evoke good things in nature and surroundings. I read somewhere that harmonious music can help healthy growth of plants. From history, I draw a beautiful example. It is said that Tansen, the court musician of the 16th century Mughal Emperor, Akbar, had the wonderful capacity to mould forces of nature by his songs. His songs Meghmallhar could cause rain and Deepakraag could cause lamps to get lightened. Some scientists may dispute this story, but the essence of my argument is that the harmony in music can play powerful role not only in transformation of the individual but also her surroundings.