Listening to female voices in Sikhkirtan

Abstract

This paper examines sound recordings by female kirtaniye in an effort to redress the absence of women in historical narratives about Punjab. A sustained discussion of listening and performance practices in the Sikh tradition sheds light on the kirtan of Bibi Jaswant Kaur, Khushi Bai, Ajit Kaur, Surinder Kaur, and Tilly Bai, among others. An acousmatic approach calls attention to the expressive voices and disciplined bodies of female kirtaniye as they negotiated the changing terrain of female vocality in and outside of India. Biases against the commercial dissemination of Sikh kirtan are explored in relation to a pervasive cultural anxiety over the intervention of technology and its impact on issues of liveness as it re-configures the unity of the sangat. The myriad ways in which female kirtaniye evoke rasa in their kirtan also raise the contentious issue of whether raag is one of several techniques through which the words of the Sikh Gurus might conjoin with music.

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