Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T09:17:35.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Articulating Regionalism through Popular Music: The Case of Nauchami Narayana in the Uttarakhand Himalayas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2012

Stefan Fiol
Get access

Abstract

As regionalism has become a politically and economically advantageous policy across much of Asia, vernacular popular music has concomitantly become an important arena for articulating and codifying shared regionalist sentiment. This article explores the reasons for the emergence of subnational regionalism within post-independence India, and its more recent resurgence since the 1990s, arguing that expansion and diversification of popular music (in combination with other media) industries have been central to these processes. Examining the case of the protest song “Nauchami Narayana” from the Uttarakhand Himalayas, the article then investigates how vernacular popular music can blend local signs of devotion and cultural identity in order to effect political change and articulate a space of regional belonging.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 447 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Applegate, Celia. 1999. “A Europe of Regions: Reflections on the Historiography of Sub-National Places in Modern Times.” The American Historical Review 104(4):1157–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Alison E. 1990. “Popular Film Song in India: A Case of Mass-Market Musical Eclecticism.” Popular Music 7(2):177–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Averill, Gage. 1997. A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axel, Brian. 2001. The Nation's Tortured Body: Violence, Representation, and the Formation of a Sikh “Diaspora.” Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Babiracki, Carol M. 2001. “‘Saved by Dance’: The Movement for Autonomy in Jharkhand.” Asian Music 32(1):35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baskaran, S. Theodore. 1981. The Message Bearers: The Nationalist Politics and the Entertainment Media in South India 1880–1945. Madras: Cre-A.Google Scholar
Basu, Sajal. 2005. Regionalism, Ethnicity and Left Politics. New Delhi: Rawat Publications.Google Scholar
Berti, Daniela. 2006. “Ritual Kingship, Divine Bureaucracy and Electoral Politics in Kullu.” European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (29–30):39–61.Google Scholar
Bondurant, Joan V. 1958. Regionalism Versus Provincialism: A Study in Problems of Indian National Unity. Indian Press Digests vol. 4. Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar
Chandra, Satish, Pande, K. C., and Mathur, P. C., eds. 1976. Regionalism and National Integration. Jaipur, Rajasthan: Aalekh Publishers.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterji, Angana. 2009. Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present: Narratives from Orissa. Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective.Google Scholar
Cohn, Bernard. 1987. An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Daniotto, Roberto Maria. 1996. “‘All the Regions Do Smilingly Revolt': The Literature of Place and Region.” Critical Inquiry 8(3):486–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denyer, Simon. 2007. “Indian Idol Reignites Gorkhaland Fire in Darjeeling.” Reuters (India), March 19.Google Scholar
Deol, Karnik. 2000. Religion and Nationalism in India. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dickey, Sara. 1993. Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dirks, Nicholas. 1993. The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Embree, A. T. 1985. “Indian Civilization and Regional Cultures: The Two Realities.” In Region and Nation in India, ed. Wallace, P., 19–35. New Delhi: Oxford.Google Scholar
Farrell, Gerry. 1993. “The Early Days of the Gramophone Industry in India: Historical, Social and Musical Perspectives.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology (2):31–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiol, Stefan. 2010. “Dual Framing: Locating Authenticities in the Music Videos of Himalayan Possession Rituals.” Ethnomusicology 54(1):28–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiol, Stefan. 2011. “From Folk to Popular and Back: Assessing Feedback between Studio Recordings and Festival Dance-Songs in Uttarakhand, North India.” Asian Music 42(1): 24–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galey, Jean-Claude. 1991. “Hindu Kingship and Its Ritual Realm: The Garhwali Configuration.” In Himalaya: Past and Present, eds. Fanger, Allen, Joshi, Maheshvar P., and Brown, Charles W., 173–237. Almora: Sree Almora Book Depot.Google Scholar
Ganguly, Vibou. 2008. “Biggest Musical Shop Inaugurated in Nagaland.” ANI, October 20.Google Scholar
Guha, Ramachandra. 2007. “Feeling Left Out.” India Together, June 16. http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/jan/rgh-regions.htm (accessed July 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Gusain, Raju. 2010. “Folk Song Thrives on Tiwari Sex Scandal.” India Today, January 4. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Folk+song+thrives+on+Tiwari+sex+scandal/1/77651.html (accessed November 6, 2010).Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1992. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, part 6, Canto Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Stephen P. 2002. “The ‘Music Boom’ in Tamil South India: Gramophone, Radio and the Making of Mass Culture.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, & Television 22(4):445–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Husain, Zakir. 1995. Uttarakhand Movement: The Politics of Identity and Frustration, A Psycho-Analytical Study of the Separate State Movement, 1815–1995. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot.Google Scholar
Jones, Andrew. 2001. Yellow Music: Media Culture and Cultural Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Juyal, Rakesh. 2006. “Tham Nahi Raha Awaz Ko Ruksat Karne Ka Silsila.” Samay Saakshya 1(3), November 22–28.Google Scholar
Kaushish, Poonam. 2007. “Stoking Separatist Tendencies.” Central Chronicle, July 31. http://www.infa.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=35 (accessed July 12, 2009).Google Scholar
Kazmi, S. M. A. 2006. “Garhwali Satire Breaks Sales Records, No Laughing Matter for Tiwari Govt.” Indian Express (Delhi), May 22. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/garhwali-satire-breaks-sales-records-no-lau/4894/ (accessed July 9, 2009).Google Scholar
Keenan, J. 2003. “Ethnicity, Regionalism and Political Stability in Algeria's Grand Sud.” Journal of African Studies 8(3–4):67–96.Google Scholar
Kinnear, Michael. 1994. The Gramophone Company's First Indian Recordings: 1899–1908. New Delhi: Popular Prakashan.Google Scholar
Kumar, Anup. 2011. The Making of a Small State: Populist Social Mobilisation and the Hindi Press in the Uttarakhand Movement. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.Google Scholar
Kumar, Pradeep. 2000. The Uttarakhand Movement: Construction of a Regional Identity. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers Distributors.Google Scholar
Kurien, Sangeeth. 2009. “Politics and Music.” The Hindu, January 13. http://www.hindu.com/yw/2009/01/13/stories/2009011350310400.htm (accessed November 6, 2010).Google Scholar
Laishram, Jyaneshwar. 2009. “Manipuri Rock Band Sings Protest for Social Cause.” http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15766238 (accessed July 15, 2009).Google Scholar
Lockard, Craig. 1998. Dance of Life: Popular Music and Politics in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Lutgendorf, Philip. 1990. “Ramayana: The Video.” TDR 34(2):127–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mankekar, Purnima. 1999. Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood, and Nation in Postcolonial India. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Manuel, Peter. 1993. Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Marcus, Scott L. 1993. “Recycling Indian Film-Songs: Popular Music as a Source of Melodies for North Indian Folk Musicians.” Asian Music 24(1):101–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawdsley, Emma. 2002. “Redrawing the Body Politic: Federalism, Regionalism and the Creation of New States in India.” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 40(3):34–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meintjes, Louise. 1990. “Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning.” Ethnomusicology 34(1):37–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meintjes, Louise. 2003. Sound of Africa! Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Moller, Joanne. 2003. “Insiders And Outsiders: Community and Identity in Kumaon, North India.” In Ethnic Revival and Religious Turmoil: Identities and Representations in the Himalayas, eds. Dollfus, Pascale and Lecomte-Tilouine, Marie, 240–76. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Robin. 2006. Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moorman, Marissa J. 2008. Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, From 1945 to Recent Times. Athens: Ohio University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oakes, Tim. 2000. “China's Provincial Identities: Reviving Regionalism and Reinventing ‘Chineseness’.” Journal of Asian Studies 59(3):667–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Michael. 1999. “On Observing the Quicksand.” The American Historical Review 104(4):1202–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paasi, Anssi. 2003. “Region and Place: Regional Identity in Question.” Progress in Human Geography 27(4):475–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Jong-Il. 2005. “Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism During the Democratization in South Korea.” Conference papers of the American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, 1–27.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Joyce. 1992. “Songs of the Sikh Resistance Movement.” Asian Music 23(1):85–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rafael, Vicente. 1999. “Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency.” The American Historical Review 104(4):1208–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajagopal, Arvind. 2001. Politics after Television: Religious Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rangan, Haripriya. 2000. Of Myths and Movements: Rewriting Chipko into Himalayan History. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Sax, William S. 2002. Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schade-Poulsen, Marc. 1999. Men and Popular Music in Algeria. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James W. 2009. De-Coding New Regionalism: Shifting Socio-Political Contexts in Central Europe and Latin America. Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Scruggs, T. M. 1999. “‘Let's Enjoy as Nicaraguans’: The Use of Music in the Construction of a Nicaraguan National Consciousness.” Ethnomusicology 43(2):297–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sivaramakrishnan, K. and Agrawal, Arun, eds. 2003. Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Shani, Ornit. 2007. Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Anthony. 1998. Nationalism and Modernism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, Meera. 2007. “Now Music Is the Food of Poll Campaign.” The Hindu, April 21. http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/21/stories/2009042158090200.htm (accessed December 13, 2010).Google Scholar
Stokes, Martin. 1993. The Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Peter. 2006. “T(R)Opologies of Rule (Raj): Ritual Sovereignty and Theistic Subjection.” European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (29–30):82–119.Google Scholar
Turino, Thomas. 1999. “Signs of Imagination, Identity, and Experience: A Peircian Semiotic Theory for Music.” Ethnomusicology 43(2):221–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turino, Thomas. 2000. Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music in Zimbabwe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Walters, William and Warner, Wendy. 2002. “The Political Rationality of ‘New Regionalism’: Toward a Genealogy of the Region.” Theory and Society 31(3):391–432.Google Scholar
Waterman, Christopher A. 1990. Jùjú: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wigen, Karen. 1999. “Culture, Power, and Place: The New Landscapes of East Asian Regionalism.” The American Historical Review 104(4):1183–1201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yano, Christine. 2002. Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Zoller, Claus Peter. 1985. “Mandan in Delhi.” Mundus 24:150–73.Google Scholar