Abstract

In this paper, I begin with a brief discussion on ‘folklore’ and try to bring into analyses various definitions on folklore given by different scholars. I would like to see how far these definitions are applicable in a discussion on what is said to be tribal folklore. Historically the main idea of studying the tribal folklore has been to discover their past and bring ‘fixity’ to tribal culture. Against this, I argue that adivasi cultural forms and their productions transform themselves from one generation to another, even if they are not formally articulated. I will try to demonstrate that adivasi oral narratives do not merely embody their occupations, rituals and traditions, but they actively engage with socio-political issues such as colonization and nationalization of their life-worlds.

Introduction

The term ‘folk’ is usually defined as a group of people who share at least one common factor such as occupation, language or religion. However, what is considered important is that the group shares certain common traditions which it calls its own. A member of the group may not know all other members, but she/he will probably know the common core of traditions belonging to the group, traditions which help the group to have a sense of group identity. In the nineteenth century and to some extent in the twentieth, the folk were also thought to be rural and illiterate as opposed to the urban and literate.

A quick examination of the definitions of ‘folklore’ will show that the term has been used to mean ‘primitive’ or ‘pre-modern’ traditions. Thus folklore emerged as a new area of knowledge in the nineteenth century as embodying the entire panorama of traditional cultures, often carried through oral transmission, through performance and through material artefacts by the so called ‘primitive people.’

Definition of Folklore

The term ‘folklore’ was supposed to have been coined by the well-known folklorist William John Thoms in 1846 to mean:

…the traditional institutions, beliefs, art, customs, stories, songs, sayings and other life current among backward peoples or retained by the less cultured classes of more advanced peoples (Quoted by Richmond xi).

It has been pointed out by some scholars that the urgency for the study of folklore was taken up in the nineteenth century due to the changes taking place in agricultural life and the disappearance of age old tradition. For those who cherished such an idea, folklore and other forms of folktales were central to the conflict between tradition and modernity, which dominated the cultural history of the West in the nineteenth century. But this is not the only way in which folklore was understood. In fact, there are as many approaches to the study of folklore and as many definitions as there are folklorists. Specifically, folklore was said to be orally transmitted from person to person and from generation to generation. The oral criterion was intended to distinguish folklore from written or literary materials. The renowned American folklorist Archer defines ‘Folklore’ as “the material that is handed on by tradition, either by word of mouth or by custom and practice (Quoted in Newell 5).” It is further argued that European oral traditions were related to traditions found among savage tribes thus necessitating the extension of the scope of the term folklore so as to include tales, ballads, superstitions, myths, games, proverbs, riddles, beliefs, and practices of the tribes concerned (Quoted Newell 7).

In most of the non-Western societies too, folklore has been part of the oral tradition; they are usually told aloud. It is argued that this makes it possible to dramatize the events, to portray different characters with different tones of voice or expression, and to bring the stories and characters to life for the listeners. It is also argued that i n societies where many aspects of their culture are transmitted orally from generation to generation, namely “folk-tradition,” important elements of identity of the community are developed as part of these traditions. Further, folk traditions are seen to be instrumental in preserving the culture of the community, through their songs and dance. We all know that anthropologists studied advasi communities, particularly cultural performances of collective activity, whether for pleasure or grief as songs are an integral part of such gatherings. Such an anthropological understanding of ‘folklore’ can be seen in the work of A.K. Ramanujan, the famous Indian poet, scholar and folklorist. In the introduction to their book Another Harmony (1986), Ramanujan and Stuart Blackburn observe that:

…it is [the] quality of immediacy which best distinguishes folklore. Though often anonymous and always carefully constructed, folklore is only thinly (sometimes transparently) contained from the sources of life, and of death. Like any art form, it is a reformulation of the world (30).

Often it is these kinds of perceptions or worldviews of the ‘folk’ that came to determine the understanding of the figure of the adivasi. Scholars, both western and Indian alike, armed with the necessary tools provided by anthropology, undertook major studies of adivasis in India and produced a vast pool of knowledge which is considered to be ‘objective’ and ‘authentic’ within and outside the academy. But the important issue here is that the guiding intellectual and conceptual frameworks of such knowledge most often escape any serious scrutiny.

As one can see, the anthropological definitions of ‘Folklore’ are derived from the romantic tradition of the nineteenth century. The German philosopher Herder identified the national bodies of folk poetry, folk tales and folk songs to trace the German national history. Such a quest for heritage seemed at first to be a virtue to the extent it acted as stimulus for imaginative research and national pride. During 1930s, massive folk literature was published in Germany. This particular historical development soon gained a universal status, including in the colonial and post-colonial India. Thus most studies of adivasi life or ‘ folklore’ in India mainly focused on cultural forms such as tales, songs, beliefs, customs, traditions, rituals and so on. In short, their interest has been around the ‘pleasing’ aspects of the community. Further, I argue, they simply romanticized folklore rather than pointing out its significance in terms of resistance and contestation. I’ll come back to this issue, and now I would like to tell you about the marginality of ‘folklore.’

Marginalization of Folklore

In India, despite the fact that the majority of the people are still outside the boundaries of literacy, scholars have not paid much attention to folklore in the same way as they assigned importance to the written text. Written texts do not capture important aspects of history and other socio-political issues of many communities in India, including adivasis. And yet, today we know that ‘folklore,’ even in its conservative avatar, is almost excluded from the literary frameworks of scholarly analysis. There has been some discussion in the recent years of theorizing the ‘popular’ or ‘popular culture’ or ‘popular politics.’ But, nowhere do I find active interest in studying seriously the adivasi art forms. For instance, as my PhD research shows, the Lambada Bhats, have a rich oral narrative tradition, which cannot be simply termed as ‘folklore’ in the traditional sense, but it needs new tools of analysis. I hope, the Dept. of Cultural Studies, Centre for Social Exclusion and, of course my own department, will encourage their students to take up research projects in this grossly under researched area of knowledge.

Let me now move on to the Lambada Bhats and tell you why I think they are important. My study is by no means exhaustive. It is a preliminary one. As Susie always reminds us, PhD is not the end of research but only a beginning. I do have plans to continue my research. Let me share with you some really good news that I got from ICSSR yesterday. My proposal to do a major research project on the Lambada Bhat oral narratives has been accepted by the ICSSR and I’ll soon resume my research.

For those who are not aware of Lambadas: They constitute around 2 to 2.5% of the total population of Andhra Pradesh. They are also called Banjaras. Most of you know Banjara Hills, but some of you probably do not know that Lambadas were the original inhabitants of Banjara Hills not until long ago. This land was given to Lambadas by the Nizam as they supplied the required grain to the Nizam’s army. After India occupied the Hyderabad state, this land was seized by the government and was later allotted to many influential people who built film studios, five star hotels, and personal bungalows and so on. Thus until some four decades ago, Banjara Hills was the property of Lambadas. Very little is known about this history today. For a historical understanding of Lambadas during the Nizam rule, one can refer to Dr. Bhangya Bhukya’s excellent book titled Subjugated Nomads: The Lambadas Under the Rule of the Nizams.

Talking about the economic history of the Lambadas, Bhangya shows that Lambadas were a trading community in the medieval south India. They played a vital role in the long-distance trade in the sixteenth century. They supplied provisions to the areas affected by famine and drought and also to armies during wars. Bhangya has pointed out that the Lambadas served the Sultanate, Mughal, French, British, and Nizam armies as independent transporters. Their trading operations flourished mainly on their pack-bullocks, which provided them with dependable means of transport at a time when roads were not developed and other modern means of transport were quite unknown. However, they gradually gave up their nomadic habits. Furthermore, the introduction of quick means of modern transport facilities hastened the decline of their business operations as their slow moving pack-bullocks could not compete with the fast moving locomotives like buses, trains etc. But with the advent of the colonizers, they were compelled to seek alternative livelihoods and put an end to this caravan trade. So they got settled with occupations such as cattle-raising and agricultural labour (Bhukya 20). Bhangya shows that Lambadas confronted the colonial state power which had adversely transformed their lives. Later they became agricultural labourers and even bonded labourers in the farms of the zamindars. Moreover, the colonial state branded them as ‘criminal tribes’ and that stigma continue even today.

Although, of late, Lambadas are beginning to enter educational institutions, by and large, they have been excluded from the modern spaces of development. In Hyderabad, thousand of Lambada minor girls are employed as domestic servants and adults as construction labourers, auto drivers and so on. Almost seventy percent of them have no homes of their own.

In order to fully understand the Lambadas and their history, a detailed study of the songs sung by Bhats, which narrate the genealogy of both individuals and community, will be an important resource. The oral narratives of Bhats open up new possibilities of understanding of the life-worlds of Lambadas, mostly neglected by the mainstream humanities and social sciences. My study of the Bhat narratives so far alerted me to the slippery terrain they occupy between history, on the one hand, and myths of origin, on the other. They are not proper histories in any technical sense; nevertheless they are basically imaginative negotiations with their past as they are also relevant to their contemporary conditions of living and identity. Even today, for the Lambadas, their past histories are alive because of the narratives sung by Bhats, though they have no concept of history per se. Due to this ambiguous relationship with their past, we can say that Bhats are genealogists, rather than simply storytellers; and that their preoccupation is with collective memory, rather than formal history.

Since I come from the same community, I myself have grown up listening to the stories told in our community as they are an important part of the oral tradition of the Lambada Bhats. Thus, I certainly have an advantage in terms of accessing and making sense of the knowledge produced by the Lambada Bhats. But I don’t believe that it is an unmediated access. Whatever theoretical concepts that I have learnt in the academy and outside definitely enrich my understanding.

Folktales are Dynamic not Static:

Although ‘folktales’ are believed to be fixed and unchanging possessing a distinct artistic form that lend them a certain finishing touch, my observation or experience regarding them has been on the contrary quite different. Lambada Bhat narratives are dynamic in the sense that each time they are told, they get constituted anew. This is true with many adivasis, especially the nomadic communities whose stories are retold both in time and place. Thus their tales acquire the significance of a travelling metaphor that finds a new meaning with each new telling. These tales represent the adivasi experience of the outside world as they move on from place to place. Moreover, these narratives go on changing from performer to performer.

Oral narratives are told in different ways. To understand the tale, we need to know the source of the tale, i.e the teller, the timing of the tale as to when it was told, the place where it was told and the audience – to whom the tale was told, what the listeners thought of the tale and how the audience responded to it and so on. Professionals and non-professionals perform these oral narratives. Bhats are engaged by Lambada families or organizations. In villages, it is true that there are troupes that perform epics about heroes or local gods and saints. Such performances are generally dubbed, within the disciplines of social sciences and anthropology, as reflections of ‘folklore’. Franz Boas, one of the pioneers of modern anthropology, considers folklore to be a kind of “mirror for a culture” and suggests that folklore of a people could be considered the autobiographical ethnography of those people (Boas 393). However, I suggest that we should move away from such simplistic representations of ‘folklore’ because, Bhat narratives, for instance, do not simply ‘reflect’ the Lambada ‘folk’ culture. On the contrary, they represent the world in front of us in complex ways and provide us a glimpse of the non-adivasi societies through the adivasi eyes. That is why I feel that a critical examination of the Lambada Bhat narratives can offer us rich insights into not only the history but also contemporary life.

Folklore as Community Identity

It is assumed by many scholars that ‘folklore’ is supposed to have the function of preserving the shared identity. Closely related to this kind of conceptualization of folklore bearing groups in terms of shared identity is the conceptualization of folklore as a within-group phenomenon. Folklore is thus understood to have been created and recreated by the whole group as an expression of their common character. It is spoken of in terms of tradition, with tradition conceived of as a super organic continuum, i.e. the folk are “tradition bearers”, that is, they carry the folklore traditions on and on through time and space. Particular people and generations come and go, but the group identity is understood to persist and the tradition is supposed to live on.

Folklore is not only equated with the culture of tribal people, but also considered to be the ‘other’ of civilization. American folklorist Richard M Dorson argues:

Folklore is…the hidden submerged culture lying in the shadow of the official civilization about which historians write. Schools and churches, legislatures and courts, books and concerts represent the institutions of civilization. But surrounding them are other cultural systems that directly govern the ideas, beliefs, and behavior of the world people…the subterranean oral expression…that permeate…the less literate societies (Dorson102).

However, it must be pointed out that folklore is also defined as antithetical to culture in the sense that the former is static. Therefore, according to this understanding, cultures produced by the mainstream keep on changing according to their needs so it is termed as dynamic whereas ‘tribal’ folklore, although moves from generation to generation, has been thought to be essentially unchanging. As a result, interestingly, in India, adivasis are understood to have produced folklore whereas advanced societies are said to have produced culture, thus denying ‘culture’ to the adivasis.

Folklore is not just Historical but also Contemporaneous

Thus, it is important to emphasize the contemporariness of ‘folklore’, even when it deals with the cultures and communities who are supposedly living outside the realm of modernity. There are many things that deal with the everyday issues of tribals that folklore engages with. That is why insisting that folklore is purely traditional is problematic. One can find more examples of this kind of argument and even books that deal with folklore are structured based on such a premise. Lowry Charles Wimberly, for example, in his book Folklore in the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published in 1928, included mainly medieval literature, from chronicles, from classical sources, and from tradition, as he believed that they contained in them the different cultural strata of, what he called, the “primitive thought” (xii). Extending this line of thinking i.e. folklore is essentially history of the primitive communities attempts were made to establish that ‘folklore’ actually is the source of all human history.

In his book, Oral Tradition as History (1985), Jan Vansina, argues that oral tradition or folklore is being hailed as the chronicle of human history by providing evidence to the origin of people and their subsequent migrations to their final destinations. (Preface p.xiii). It is precisely this kind of broad but limited understanding of folklore that came for criticism from those who focused on the contemporary character of folklore. Wendy Singer in her book, Creating Histories: Oral Narratives and the Politics of History-Making (1997) says that,

…oral narratives…explained and historicized events by placing them into the context of the lives of their listeners. These narratives created histories, justified political action, and linked political issues to the social context of the rural environment…as well as staged opportunities to tell and retell rural stories. These all represented sources of history (79).

Talking about this issue, W. Edson Richmond notes that ‘emphasis on tradition merely served to maintain the nineteenth-century understanding of folklore as a preserved relic, which implies that folklore was a vestigial element in culture and it was a key to reveal the past, but of little or no significance for modern society’ (xi).

Some Marxist thinkers seem to have overcome this limitation of looking at folklore as merely history. Yuriy Mateevish Sokolov, whose study is influenced by the Marxist principles, argued that, ‘folklore,’ apart from being an echo of the past, is also the vigorous voice of the present. However, the problem with the Marxist conception was that ‘folklore’ is appropriated to suit the Marxist narrative of class conflict (45) by linking it with working class life. In other words, folklore was seen as a controlled expression of proletarian ideals. Thus Sokolov argued that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin demonstrated their sympathies for folk productions. Lenin was supposed to have declared that folklore must be considered from the “social-political point of view,” and as an aid to understand the “hopes and expectations” of working masses. Such framework of analysis, which appropriates ‘folklore’ in the service of a universalist ideal, I would argue, would not be productive to analyze Bhat narratives as it erases the local or the more immediate battles that this particular art form is engaged in.

Another important issue that I would like to raise is that the study of folklore has been dominated by the non-tribal scholars, who have failed to understand the adivasis as they often tend to romanticize ‘folklore’ as well as the adivasis rather than understanding the latter’s material relationship with nature, their response to modernity and their struggles for survival.

For instance, folklore has been an important source of education for tribals. The transmission of not only the cultural traditions, values, and histories of tribals from one generation to the next takes place through folklore, but also the entire knowledge that the tribals possess, whether it is about the hills and forests, plants, forest produce, animals, land, agriculture, seasons, rain, herbs or the issues that arise out of their interaction with the non-tribal populations and a great deal of other things get transmitted through folklore. This aspect of folklore has been recognized and documented to some extent by the anthropologists, particularly in their study of “primitive” societies. However, what is interesting to note is that, only certain kinds of adivasi knowledge which falls within the contours of ‘folklore’ is considered authentic by the scholars.

Folklore as Little Tradition

Another significant issue is the dubbing of ‘folklore’ as ‘little tradition’ as opposed to civilization. Robert Redfield, an American anthropologist who influenced the study of folklore in India, says, in a civilization, there is a great tradition which reflects more and there is a little tradition of the largely unreflective many (41). That is to say that what exists in Sanskrit such as the Vedic texts or traditional sacrificial rituals, the epics, the mythologies of divinities like Vishnu and Siva are usually considered the Great Tradition, whereas oral literature of the tribes and other marginal communities, with their own local gods and sacrifices and so on, rendered in regional languages and dialects, is dismissed as “Little traditions.” However, for adivasis such as the Lambadas, folktales such as Sakis in Gorboli (Lambada Language) play a major role. These tales are available in the form of songs in the Lambada tribes. These songs are recited by the Bhats and also by the people in the community. They narrate tales (Sakis) on every major social occasion.

Lambada Bhat Narratives

As I mentioned before, Lambada Bhats inhabit many parts of Andhra Pradesh. Their language is called Gorboli. It does not have a script. There are no documents and recorded historical evidences to ascertain the history and the origin of the Lambadas. I believe that Bhat narratives are an important source not only to ‘record’ the history of the Lamabada community but also to analyse how Lambadas have been negotiating with the changing socio-politcial powers over time. I already gave you a sketchy idea of the history of Lambadas that they had been a trading community and eventually how they became agricultural labourer and so on.

After 1820s the Lambadas changed their lifestyle and created new social identities for themselves. A new cultural movement came into existence in their community and this was initiated by a Lambada saint, Seva Bhaya. He inculcated new values such as vegetarianism, cleanliness, non-violence and abstention from liquor. He had a great influence on the Lambadas and they gradually started moving towards his teachings. Bhukya says: Seva Bhaya had a profound impact on the community. His movement not only united the community for the first time into a single force, but it also created a new consciousness and paved the way for a new cultural assertion (330). In this movement, the spiritual culture of the Lambadas was articulated and rearticulated in order to unite and mobilize the community. The Lambadas’ new consciousness and genealogy is available in the form of oral culture. The Lambadas have very rich and strong oral tradition and every “Thanda” had a Bhat who preserved these traditions. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, John Briggs says that:

Among their habits is none which is more remarkable, and comes in strong confirmation of their own accounts…and this the fact of each horde of any size having a Bhatt, or bard, who recounts in metrical rhapsodies the action of their forefathers, and is the principal actor in all festivals; he plays on a kind of guitar, and the airs are some of them very pretty. The Bhatts are common, even at the present time, among the people of Marwar; and both facts confirm the tradition of the Bunjara histories. This retention of their habits and native tongue for several centuries is perhaps one of the most remarkable instances of the kind to be found in any history, when we consider that they have no written records, and, unless among themselves no intercourse in the language (Briggs 173).

Thus, each Lambada Thanda had a Bhat who preserved their history in an oral form from the caravan days. This practice still exists today in the Thandas. I interviewed Ramjhol Bhat, the sole survivor of this tradition in our community in our area. I have also recorded some of his performances.

The whole nature of the narration, voice and the gesture, are important for the tales to bring liveliness. The inbuilt narrative skills of the Bhats bring liveliness to these tales. These tales help exploring different forms of historical imagination in the past. And these Lambada Bhat tales may be useful in furthering the vision of an alternative history.

There have been attempts by the mainstream historians to appropriate Lambadas into the Hindu religion. However, when we observe the Lambadas, we realize that none of the major Hindu gods/goddesses are part of their life. Nor do they have access to Hindu temples and scriptures. Lambadas are not idol worshippers. This is evident from Ramjhol’s words:

Sorata matire dadalago soratan lago

Randova rego soratan lego

sordharegore chalto matire manikya si

Bhata phathar kain dhokhechi manikay saso dev

Chalto Manikya dhoklo sai. Nahi phathar se kam puri atma dhoko sai.

Chori paraghareri nari chadi devero phansi

(Do not pray to idols. Pray to human beings, they might help you someday.)

This shows that the Bhats seem to put a great deal of emphasis on human rather than Hindu gods and Hindu religious practices. Absence of stone images and idols can be noticed in the above song. There are no temples or images in the Lambada thandas because Lambada culture has not developed any stone images. Ramjhol Bhat asks the point of praying to these images. Why should we run after these images? Further he says, why worship these idols? Living beings are more important. The emphasis here is on avoidance of images of worship. Lambadas do not have any temple culture. Since they live in the fringe of the villages they keep talking about other Hindu gods. Therefore, assimilation of the dominant Hindu religious aspects is practised by the Lambadas. But their assertion appears in the narrative form. However, the above song shows the resistance against the dominant religion which may not be perceived or owned up by the community.

During Lachunayak’s marriage his uncle Ramjinayk went to collect some money which he lent to others. People who borrowed money from Lachunayak promised to return at the time of harvest. So Ramjinayak went to collect the money. Ramjinayak took four people along with him. While coming back the sun set so they thought of staying at Umal Ghad village. They spent their night in Umal Ghad village and got up early in the morning. They saw Madhu Patel going to toilet. They are happy seeing him and wished him saying “ram….ram Patel”. He saw them and said ohh you are from Lachunayak’s thanda! They say Patel ji, “yes”. Patel says “You bastards have come for dacoity ohh oh Lachunayak has sent you to get some money for his wedding. You are dacoits”. Saying this, Madhu Patel calls the police and gets them all arrested. While going towards the police station, Ramjinayak asks Madhu Patel that if you get all of us arrested then who will go to our thanda and inform our nayak. Madhu Patel says Ramji nayak you go and get your nayak. Ramjinayak goes to his thanda and informs the incident which happened with Madhu Patel. Then the nayak of the thanda remembers the incident that Madhu Patel had asked for a cow but he refused to give. Lachunayak goes to police station and asks his fellow community people whether they had done dacoity. They say no and then Lachunayak tries to convince the police but it goes in vain.

As Bhangya Bhukya says, even if the lower communities claim the upper status that would not change the mind sets of the upper caste. It is not only the Indian upper caste who looked down upon the Lmabadas but also the colonial state considered these people as criminal tribes. Although the Nizams managed to suppress the remnant traces of the dacoits, the “criminal” stigma attached to the community not only hampered their social life, but also prevented them from earning a decent living. Their caste bore the very identity of “crime” which followed them like their shadows. Even after the declaration of around six lakh tribal people as “non-criminal” in Hyderabad area, after India’s independence, these people were looked down upon. The Habitual Offenders Act of 1954 was enacted which was implemented in order to monitor their advances, lifestyle, locomotion and other facets. Thus, in no proper term were they considered to be free from the stigma.

The stigma of being a criminal haunted the Lambadas for a long time after independence, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, as first Law Minister of India, revoked the Criminal Tribes Act in 1952 (Venkateshesh 161). The notified criminal communities were de-notified. It was replaced with the Habitual Offenders Act, which targeted the individuals not the communities. Though, the communities were de-notified the stigma still continues. As an antithesis to this, the Lambadas began to rearticulate their own identity. Till date, the identity of the Lambadas remains a major issue in postcolonial India.

What is interesting here is that we find references to these kings in the narratives of the Barots of northern Gujarat as well as the Bhats of the southern India. There might be some variations in the narration and plot, but the characters and themes are essentially the same. Thus, Ramjhol Bhat claims that it was the Lambadas, the rulers in the medieval period, who heroically fought against the imperialism of Mughals. Such a claim challenges the nationalist story that the kingdoms that existed in medieval India were ruled by Hindu kings and that they were plundered by Muslim invaders. Thus, it exposes the deceptive strategies of the hegemonic nationalist narratives, which appropriate everything into their Hindu religious fold.

References:

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• …“‘Delinquent Subject’: Dacoity and the Creation of a Surveillance Society in Hyderabad State.” The Indian Economic and Social History Review.New Delhi: Sage 44, 2, 2007. Print. pp. 179-212.
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• Wimberly, Lowry Charles. Folklore in the English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Kessinger: Kessinger Publishing, 1928, Print.