Jogi Jadugar- a tribute to Sufi Mystics by Mirs of Pugal: Cultures of Pastoralism In Thar

Notes from the Cellar of Memory:

These musicians?belong to the Mir community of Pugal, a village in the command area?of the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojna (IGNP), around 80 km north-west of Bikaner in Rajasthan. From early medieval times, the settlement of Pugal had been an important en-route destination on the trade route from northern India to Bahawulpur and Multan. The Mirs have been the proud bearers of a tradition of sufiana kalam for generations. Vast stretches of sandy plains and extensive grasslands interspersed with dunes merging into limitless horizons dotted with long lines of caravans constitute the geographical backdrop in which this musical tradition took shape. Centuries of contact along trade and pastoral routes, and marriage and kinship ties between different communities in these contiguous regions, have bequeathed to the Pugal?region the rich spiritual traditions of Sufi mystics of the erstwhile west Punjab, Bahawulpur and Multan.

Sufiyana kalam of the Sufi mystics of the north-western Indian subcontinent like those of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, Baba Bulle Shah, Hazrat Sultan Bahu and Ali Haider form an intrinsic part of the repertoire of the Mirs. According to a popular saying in Pugal, “The kalams of Sufi mystics are best heard when they are sung and if the singers do not know how to sing kalams their singing is berangi (devoid of colour)”. The Mirs also sing bhakti compositions of Mirabai, Kabir, Achalram, the regal Mand from Bikaner and Rajasthani folk songs.

Be it the urs or a gathering in a dargah or weddings, the ecstatic performances of the Mirs have served as a means for listeners to attain the heights of mystical experience. In its heyday, the Mirs were also called Mir-i-Alam with respect, a tribute to their spiritual status.

Ustad Basaye Khan, 73, has been a popular singer of his times. He fondly recalls that the?semi-nomadic Muslim pastoralists and the Rajputs of Pugal were their main patrons. The singers would often visit the pastoralists in their temporary settlements in nomadic encampments and sing during the evenings, getting a goat or sheep in return. These itinerant performances sometimes lasted for 15-20 days.

This once vibrant tradition of singing sufiana kalam in Pugal has been waning over the last half century. In the 1950s and 1960s, the thakurs of Pugal, the main patrons of Mirs, lost their position of pre-eminence in the social order. The dwindling of the patronage of the Muslim pastoralists and the displacement of traditional life patterns is largely due to the emergence of the command area of the Indira Gandhi Canal since the late 1970s.

Recently, the Mirs have been victims of bans, with several villages in the region boycotting them. These bans have been imposed by the orthodox maulvis, who regard singing of any sort as heretical to Islam. This has directly affected the livelihoods of?the Mirs as these ‘live’ performances were one of the main sources of their livelihood and survival.

Undeterred by adversity, the Mirs are full of passion and perseverance; they carry on with their ideological role of being Marfat singers, moving from the high moments of ecstasy to detached serenity, a beautiful and tangential medium for intense mystical experiences. The quest for revival is also a quest to survive in the desert against all odds — to preserve their forgotten heritage.

Mukthiyar and Abdul began this journey for revival of their traditions around two years back when they released a music album Jogi Jadugar as a tribute to Khwaja Ghulam Farid and Bulle Shah, the two prominent Sufi mystics of north-west Indian subcontinent. In December 2004, the Mir community organised a sufiyana kalam performance in Pugal. The programme called Rohi Rang was a great success and has motivated many old and young singers in the Mir community to sing sufyiana kalams. Mukhtiyar and Jabbar share a dream: they want to start a cultural resource center in Pugal to preserve their musical tradition and promote bhajans, sung by the dalits of the region. Over the last three months, Mukhtiyar and his team have given a number of live performances in Delhi that include intimate and soul stirring small gatherings (baithaks) at the Triveni auditorium organised by Deshkal Society in the last week of March2005.

As the story goes, when their songs drift like etherised music of harmony, love and compassion, all the colours of the desert float in the sky, and you can see the glitter of hope in their tired eyes.

THE WANING OF TRADITION

The process of decline seems to have begun with the cessation of free movement and the seasonal migrations of pastoralists to Bahawulpur after the Indo-Pak partition of 1947. A political border between two countries now separated regions that had grown together for centuries. This closure was further strengthened by increased vigilance on the International border, especially after the Indo-Pak war of 1971.

With the decline in the fortunes and authority of the Princely state of Bikaner in the 1950s and 1960s, the thakurs of Pugal lost their earlier pre eminence in the social order as well. These feudal lords had been one of the main patrons for the Mirs and their singing. At the same time, we see the decline of the patronage for Mir singers by the Muslim community, especially the rich, of the Pugal region--- part of the larger collapse of the older moral economy. In a pastoral society undergoing a transition to a more settled context, characterized by a different relationship with nature, there has been an increasing tendency to view the singing of Mirs as quaint and anachronistic.

The Pugal region itself has been undergoing a fairly radical transformation. The coming of the Indira Gandhi Canal in the mid-seventies, with its associated land and water use practices, radically altered the meaning of nature that these communities had nurtured over a long time. It has eroded the very basis of the life style of these desert communities--- one that was based on pastoralism, extensive land use, and an expanded sense of time in the wide-open desert. The canal brought with it the dominance of a new clock time, work discipline and a cash economy firmly regulated by the market. Successive waves of new settlers over the last quarter of a century have given way to the creation of a densely populated and a heterogeneous society. Vast areas of the pastoral landscape have now become the command area of a sprawling network of canals dividing the land into slices of agricultural fields. The making of this heterogeneous society has profoundly altered the meaning of social relations, kinship ties and led to the dissolution of a range of socio-cultural practices that were intimately linked to the pre canal human geography and ecology. The Sufina kalam of Pugal, being one such cultural practice.

REINVIGORATING THE TRADITION

This is an effort by some of the young singers of the Mir community of Pugal, facilitated by a handful of listeners and former colleagues from outside the community. Prominent among the Mirs is Mukhtiyaar Ali around whom there is a team of Mir singers. Mukhtiyaar, member of a prominent Mir family of Pugal, is a singer with a promising voice and a strong determination to carry on with this waning folk tradition.

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The audio cassette?Jogi Jadugar, is part of an ongoing initiative to reinvigorate the tradition of Sufi music of the Mirs of Pugal region in the north western interiors of the?Bikaner?district, located close to the international border between?India?and?Pakistan.

These compositions belong to Baba Bulleh Shah (1680-1758) and Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1841-1901), two prominent Sufi mystics of north- west?India. The theme is divine love – Ishqi Haqiqui. However the path to divine love lies through human love –Ishqi Mijazi - in all its phases and manifestations – the joy of falling in love, the defiance to fierce often murderous social and religious taboos, the yearning for the absent beloved, the pain of separation and waiting , the longing for union, the ecstasy of sighting the beloved, praise of the beauty of the beloved, complaints against an indifferent beloved and of course the absolute fidelity of the lover. This love finds expression predominantly through two symbols of earthly love- of Heer and Ranjha and?of the Mureed (disciple) for the Murshid (guru). In Bulleh Shah the force of orthodoxy in its rejection of the authority of the Mullah’s (the priest’s) prescriptions and Aalam Fazal’s (scholar’s) interpretations of the holy word is matched by a complete surrender at the altar of love, whether human or divine. Here love is supreme and nothing else matters, neither learning , nor wisdom, nor the observance of prescribed forms of worship – namaaz, shariat, or going to?Mecca?for Haj. Everything can be given up because ultimately God alone matters. The basis of all this is the Sufi’s direct mystical experience of God.

Jogi Jadugar was recorded in May 2005 at Nangal Studio in?Bikaner. The six compositions presented here embody this dualism in which the human and the divine appear sometimes distinct?and some times inseparable. Mir Mukhtiyar Ali, has sung these compositions ably accompanied by his nephew Mir Abdul Jabbar. Their distinctive voices, its regional accent and delivery lends freshness and lyrical intensity to these?kafis?without diluting their universal appeal. Ecstatic tabla by Ustad Ghulam Hussain from?Bikaner?city breathed new life into these age old compositions.

https://soundcloud.com/sachin-kabir hear these recordings, Sachin deserves accolades for having brought out this link....enjoy Jogi Jadugar

Acknowledgments:

Song Selection: Mukhtiyar, Abdul and Rahul,

Sound Recording: Vibodh Parthsarthi,, Rahul Ghai & Sachin Singh,

Financial Contribution: Various individuals & AMAN Trust, New Delhi Special Thanks to Jamal Kidwai, AMAN Trust

Special Thanks to Prof. T.C. Ghai for Jacket Cover Notes on Sufi Mystics