SIKH MUSIC AND EMPIRE: THE MORAL REPRESENTATION OF SELF IN MUSIC

Bob van der Linden

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Musicology and Musical Analysis Music History and Culture South Asian Studies and Diaspora

Abstract

For the first time in Sikh historiography, this article deals with the definition, institutionalization, canonization and commodification of modern Sikh music (kirtan) since the so-called Singh Sabha reformation. On the whole, it takes Sikh music as a suitable lens through which to examine societal and intellectual change, assuming that it is closely embedded in society and formative to its construction, negotiation and transformation in terms of (moral) consensus and conflict. Specifically, it discusses the influence of Western Orientalism (Max Arthur Macauliffe) and musicology, staff notation, Princely patronage (Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala), Christian missionaries and the introduction of new instruments (the harmonium, brass bands) to the making of modern Sikh music. Moreover, it investigates its relationship with what I have elsewhere labelled the Singh Sabha ‘moral language’ in terms of identity politics, for example in connection to popular culture (Punjabi bhangra), the notion of ‘authenticity’ and the British civilizing mission.

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References

2001The New Grove dictionary of music and musicians 2001Imperial Encounters 2003Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain 1994The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition 2007Beyond Exoticism 2007Singing the classical, voicing the modern: the postcolonial politics of music in South India 2005Two Men and Music 2006Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern

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2012GURBANI KIRTANRENAISSANCE: REVIVING MUSICAL MEMORY, REFORMING SIKH IDENTITY 2011SIKH SACRED MUSIC, EMPIRE AND WORLD MUSIC 2008Music, Theosophical spirituality, and empire: the British modernist composers Cyril Scott and John Foulds

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