Arupjyoti Saikia

Bhupen Hazarika (1926-2011) emerged as a central figure in Assam giving voice to the aspirations and imagination of Assamese nationalism. Despite his deep-rootedness in his own cultural context, his music and ideas were universal and constantly engaged with the people in a dialogic process.

I too wanted to be a singer with the power to change society - Bhupen Hazarika

It is not often that a musician’s works become synonymous with the political and cultural aspirations of a nationality. Bhupen Hazarika, the versatile Assamese singer was that kind of rara avis. The world of Assamese imagination was associated, since Independence, with the songs and music of Bhupen Hazarika. His music was responsible for reinforcing the cultural aspirations of various communities during this time. That he was one of the central elements in the world of Assamese imagination was again proven when Hazarika died on 5 November. In a rare show of public mourning, more than a million people in Assam paid their tribute. They were joined by others across India.

Hazarika’s death and funeral turned out to be a memorable occasion, showcasing Assamese collectivity. The centrality of his songs to this region became even more obvious at this moment. This is partly because many now realised that there are very few Assamese singers who deserve to be considered in similar light. Tributes were paid by hundreds of thousands of people - poor as well as rich, nationalists and others - for all of whom, it seems, Hazarika had sung his songs.

The state, often under siege of political protests, saw something unusual. A tribal organisation, which earlier had announced a bandh, postponed its protest, while several unions deferred their strikes. A rickshaw-puller composed a poem written with care. As a mark of honour, he also offered his day’s earnings to an
orphanage. While similar public mourning is not unusual in India or elsewhere, the occasion was a unique experience for Assam.

What made Hazarika different? Probably two factors contributed to the expressions of such spectacular public grief. First, while his life in music was widely appreciated by a wide cross-section of people, his works had received extensive recognition amongst the diverse and often politically divided communities in the region. Ethnic mobilisation since the 1990s and the resultant political polarisation could not displace this wider recognition. This was so because his public life in music was drawn mostly from shared political and economic aspirations of the communities living in the region. Second, Hazarika’s public life was also seen, by the nationalities in the region, as an important instrument for substantiating their cause. His works acted as a medium for introducing the cultural landscape of the region to the wider national life.

Cultural Modernity and Assam

Bhupen Hazarika.s middle-class family origin had limited choices to offer him. His traditional Assamese family was trained in both Vaishnavite and nationalistic traditions. His father introduced him to the cultural ambience of the 1930s. The second quarter of the 20th century experienced several layers of intellectual and cultural experiments in Assam.

The Assamese nationalists, through experiments in language, literature, history and antiquity, had already laid out the scope for the institutions that they had struggled to build. In the last decades of the 19th century they had undertaken several experiments picking up from the experiences of Calcutta in the issues of language, literature, their past and heritage. By the 1930s, a tiny but educated and largely urban Assamese middle class began to speak confidently on behalf of their community.

This was the time when the liberal- humanists and communists, though small in number, made their mark in public life. In the 1930s Assam.s agrarian economy underwent rapid transformation. Indebtedness increased manifold and a majority of the Assamese peasantry were at the mercy of traders. This was soon to bring failure to the agrarian economy. Against this backdrop local resources were now being shared with migrants.

This was also the time when the Assamese youth learnt communism. Like eastern and northern India, this communist experiment took several forms: from organised party politics to radical experiments in existing cultural practices. This initiation into communism slowly resulted in a fresh look at varieties of social and literary institutions. As part of their struggles to mobilise the distressed peasantry, the communists also experimented with social and cultural practices. The communist impact continued to be deeply felt within Assam right up till the 1960s.

All these streams interacted with the larger political developments. The new Assamese nationalistic experiments created sufficient democratic space from the second quarter of the 20th century and drew in a wide array of tribal cultural practices which found engagement with liberal and communist politics. Most of these practices had imbibed the ideas of democracy and liberty but spelled them in different languages.

Changing social dynamics also meant challenges to the post-Vaishnavite institutional orthodoxies. Vaishnavite reforms had already created a cultural space for the larger public but institutional orthodoxies were still a drag on these democratic processes.

The 1930s was also when the first Assamese film was produced and new experiments in cultural life exposed the urban Assamese to a complex cultural experience. Along with this new cultural life there emerged new political ideas and nation alism. By now Assamese modernity was firmly rooted in local culture and its political landscape.

The modern experiment in Assamese music was rooted in this liberal . left as well as nationalist . social milieu and Hazarika learnt and performed his songs drawing from it. Several of his mentors in the middle decades of the 20th century were leading Assamese cultural icons located within this left liberal tradition. Amongst them Jyoti Prasad Agarwalla had strong sympathies towards communist political programmes. Similar was the stand of Bishnu Rabha, the Marxist. Hazarika was also inspired by the works of leading Assamese writer Lakshinath Bezbarua. Though he often composed his own songs, he also drew on the lyrics and songs of other poets and writers. Sensitive to the complex cultural mosaic and nationality question of the region, his mentors drew equally from the Vaishnavite as well as the complex tribal and folk traditions.

Becoming a Singer

Hazarika had boyhood encounters with this cultural world. While Hazarika never accepted the larger orthodoxies, he remained culturally indebted to Vaishnavite traditions and these inevitably got reflected in his songs and tone. He knew the Vaishnavite literature well and could recite most texts in full. It was in this context that he sang one of his first songs at the age of 10 and soon became part of the liberal-left-nationalist cultural world of Assam.

In the United States, as he pursued his masters and doctoral studies on mass communi cation at New York.s Columbia University, he came in close touch with the Afro-American political tradition. The civil rights movement, and the cultural mobilisation associated with it, surely would have impressed and influenced someone like him who had gone through years of engagement with Indian nationalist and communist politics. Later this experience led him to compose some of his most popular songs, freely drawn from Paul Robeson, the most acclaimed Afro-American singer.

His tenures with the All India Radio and Gauhati University were both shortlived. These early uncertainties were largely conditioned by his romance of being antiestablishment.

A political career with the Indian Peoples Theatre Association (IPTA), mostly during the 1950s and 1960s helped him engage with the left political programme. Hazarika with his fellow cultural workers converted the IPTA experiment into a truly mass movement in Assam. The IPTA, under their leadership, became a major platform for social and political dialogue, especially during times of political crisis like those emerging from the language debates in the 1960s. Further, his association with IPTA also led him to critique the elites and rich. He visualised emancipated social institutions in Assam free from extant feudal practices like when he immortalised the anger and frustration of the palanquin carrier in the iconic song “Dola”.

A life in left-wing cultural activism also resulted in trips to communist countries. Thus, in February 1972, he and his gifted singer brother Jayanta Hazarika (1943- 1977) sang at the Berlin International Festival of Political Songs . an annual event of radical songs that continued until 1990. This even gained more popularity amongst the communist workers from the middle of the 1970s. Leading political singers across the world began to attend. Hazarika carefully chose the songs for this festival, one recognised the newly born nation of Bangladesh and the other portrayed a confident Assam.

A brief spell in electoral politics did not interrupt his life in music. He became a member of the Assam assembly in 1967 as an independent candidate. He lost in 1971. Politically the most unsuccessful moment in Hazarika.s life came in 2004 when he contested the Guwahati parliamentary seat as a BJP candidate. The right-wing Hindutva party hoped to use his stature as a representative voice of Assamese nationalism to further its own support base but this was a failure. For many this proved once again that Assamese nationalism did not have a strong connection with right-wing Hindutva. It seems that Hazarika was passionate about any political .line., whether hard core left or Hindutva. His shift from cultural left to regional left to nationalist-rightist may be a mere reflection of this non-committal personality of his. Early in the 1980s, Hazarika succumbed to aggressive nationalism and showed a clear shift from his leftist leanings, which could not restrain him for long, and he moderated some of his lyrics to suit the needs of the Assamese ultra-nationalists. In this he was not alone. Several Assamese communist leaders had brief and sometimes prolonged careers in regionalism.

Rebuilding Nationality

Hazarika was adept at telling histories of the land, nature, landscape and contested political ambience through his lyrics and songs. Hazarika sang in standard Assamese and combined gravitas and passion. His attention to the careful use of words and correct pronunciation of the same was phenomenal. Many educated Assamese, trained in the urban Anglo-Assamese milieu, would turn to him for learning .the correct pronunciation. of an Assamese word. His songs would take an Assamese listener back and forth through her past, present and future, while his emphasis on space was crucial for the making of a collective sense of nationality. Despite his attention to nationalist values, he constantly reminded his Assamese listeners about the ideas of universalism.

His songs reflected the political dimensions of culture and Assam.s national narrative. He often reconfigured the lyrics of his songs to suit the demands of new political conditions and was successful in giving voice to the optimisms, ambitions and disillusionments of the Assamese in their tryst with the new Indian nation state. It is also unquestionable that his works emerged as contested resources for appropriation by a range of political experiments.

His songs often became tools of nationalist mobilisation. Motifs in his songs act powerfully in binding together the Assamese nationality and the Indian nation state. His songs are then essentially a reflection of the Assamese experience of modernity and embody the inherent complexities of this particular nationalist experience.

There was a life in journalism - through his association with Amar Pratinidhi which played a crucial role in directing the taste and sensibilities of the Assamese elites. Often political in nature, this cultural magazine tried to bridge the gap between the emerging taste of the Assamese elites and other forms of experiments elsewhere.

There will be little disagreement that the very constitution of Assamese beingness includes a substantial element of Hazarika.s songs. He responded to almost all major and small social and political events of Assam of the last 70 years by singing a memorable song. As a balladeer he was a raconteur par excellence.

His key role in the making of Assamese nationality did not go unnoticed. Towards the later stage of his life, the Indian government tried to appropriate his place within Assamese society by making him chairman of the Sangeet Natak Academy. The Sattriya dance form, associated with Srimanta Sankardeva, got national recognition during his tenure.

Reconfiguring Nationalism

Though most songs of Bhupen Hazarika were rooted in the Assamese landscape, they nonetheless transcended regional boundaries and often acquired a universal character. He could connect the regional to the larger national and international landscape. Often it was through this transcending landscape that an Assamese would associate with the political canvass of the nation. His association with Hindi films . for instance, his use of folk songs from Rajasthan . gave him an ability to strike a chord with an audience beyond eastern India. Equally, his songs had an audience amongst most communities in north-east India. His appreciation of emerging Bengali identity and praise for newly born Bangladesh gave him permanent recognition in eastern India.

He was sensitive to the complex tribal aspirations and tried to reinforce them through his engagement with the Assamese nationalism. On several occasions his songs dis agreed with Assamese nationalism.s stand on the tribal question, which viewed them as marginal to its location Hazarika.s songs often disagreed and recognised their distinct political independence.

Similarly, he went against the positions of Assamese nationalism in his portrayal of the social history of tea plantations, which was expressed through the voice and emotions of tea garden workers. The tea plantation had emerged, despite the travails of tea garden workers, as a soughtafter romantic space in the minds of the Assamese intelligentsia and his songs subverted this.

Music for the Poor

His songs became the “weapons of the weak”. His commitment to the cause of the plebeians were mostly reflected through his songs and public life. His songs gave dignity to the poor and downtrodden. His songs were carefully considered, deeply serious documents about people and their troubles. He reminds his listeners about the hungry daily wage labourers, the mighty Brahmaputra, the political potentiality of the poor, and the subaltern identity of the Assamese nationality. A common Assamese villager was introduced to the world of political ideals through his songs.

Not only his songs but his writings spoke on behalf of the poor. Some of them were responses to the contemporary crisis in the rural world. Several of his writings ridiculed the failures of the government to address peasant hardship.

Never a puritan in his private or public life, his fans and critics are both legion. His critics primarily came from amongst the nationalists. Hazarika sang in Bengali equally. He chose those songs to render in Bengali that had both universal appeal and were rooted in the Bengal landscape. Many Bengalis even claimed Hazarika as of Bengali origin resulting in unwarranted public controversies. The cultural contest between two linguistic communities had not disappeared when such claims and counterclaims began to surface. Die-hard Assamese nationalists condemned Hazarika for his failure to contest such claims made by his Bengali listeners. Thus it is difficult to categorise Hazarika. While deeply rooted in Assamese traditions and cultural milieus, he was equally at ease in other traditions and languages, particularly Bengali. While being often seen as close to Assamese nationalism, he still managed to bring a universalist tone to his music. His politics too varied across the spectrum. However, his travels enriched both his music as well as his listeners by making them see the world in new ways even when he reached a dead end and had to restart his journey. That was the genius of Hazarika.

Arupjyoti Saikia (arupjyotisaikia@gmail.com) is currently a fellow at the agrarian studies program of Yale University, USA.

Published @ COMMENTARY
December 17, 2011 vol xlvi no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 30

The house Bhupen called home

- Hazarika’s Calcutta address wallows in neglect, associates rue apathy

DIPANJAN SINHA

Calcutta, March 7: A three-storey house with shut windows, worn colour and a locked collapsible gate breaks the urgency of life brimming on Golf Club Road in Calcutta.

The trappings are usual, of nostalgia in a steadily reshaping city. The history, though, is of a remarkable lapse amid the rush of memorials for Bhupen Hazarika, who called this place home for decades.

The abandoned house, once a haunt of the luminaries of Indian culture like Lata Mangeshkar and Manna Dey, now symbolises the collective amnesia of a city from where the bard was first known to the world.

Cultural icons here lament the bard’s demise and hope for measures to preserve his memory.

Singer Haimanti Shukla fondly remembers the time when she had performed with Hazarika to packed galleries and is disturbed by the apathy and ignorance of the people now.

“The present generation here is deprived of his wonderful work. I think it is unfair to them. Efforts have to be taken to revive his work, his memory and what he meant to Calcutta,” she said.

Hazarika’s relation with Bengal began in 1956, when a chord of sensitivities was split between the names in Assam and the US-returned artiste.

He moved into a flat in the house at 77B Golf Club Road in 1956, where he initially resided as a tenant and later bought the place in the Eighties.

His stay in Bengal witnessed his climb to fame. In the Sixties and Seventies, the area was identified as the bard’s residence.

A witness to the music and glory at close quarters was singer Manisha Hazarika, wife of late Jayanta Hazarika, Bhupen’s younger brother, who was born and raised here.

“The Sixties and Seventies were Bhupenda’s period of success here. It is during his stay in this city that he got international recognition. His songs were translated into Bengali and Manush manusher jonye was hummed everywhere from rallies to the famed Calcutta Coffee House,” she recalls.

“Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Hemanta Mukherjee and several other luminaries have visited this house. It was a centre of vigorous cultural activity. This was the time when he built a unique cultural bridge between Assam and Bengal,” Manisha said.

Other than the luminaries, Hazarika is fondly remembered by those who gained by their time spent with the maestro in this city.

Ankur Deka, who in the Eighties was pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree at Rabindra Bharati University, recalls visiting Bhupenda after classes or on Sundays and being welcomed with warmth.

“I still remember his bed on the floor, scattered papers, pens, a harmonium and a mini-keyboard in the room. Calcutta deserves to be remembered in conjunction with Bhupen just as much or more than Guwahati. He inspired me and many others like me to pursue music,” he said.

The relationship, though, ended abruptly. In the mid-Nineties, Hazarika left for Mumbai, never to return.

The pain of this detachment haunts many who were captivated by the enigma.

Shukla, too, has this one complaint against her Bhupenda. “It was a great time when we all performed together in front of packed crowds. The people of Calcutta loved his music. So many singers then sang to his tune. We had great respect for him and his unique sense of humour. But after he left for Mumbai he never came back. He almost abandoned Bengali music for some reason unknown to me,” she said.

An officer in Assam House here rued that Calcutta seemed reluctant to pay homage to the Bard of the Brahmaputra.

“Calcutta deserves Bhupenda no less than Guwahati. It is sad but hardly anyone is willing to take any initiative. If the Assam government comes forward to talk to its counterpart here, a lot can be done,” he said.

During Hazarika’s prolonged illness in Mumbai, the house changed hands. Since then, neighbours say the house has remained locked.

However, Mintu Mukherjee who was associated with Hazarika ever since he came to the city, has launched a crusade to save the house.

“A few years ago when Bhupenda was ill in Mumbai, I heard that the house had been sold. Then Kalpana Lajmi told me there is some dispute in transaction and the house has not yet been legally handed over. I have asked so many people if something can be done about Bhupenda’s flat here. Whenever I meet any minister from Assam I push for the cause,” he said.

Sunil Nath, the chief executive officer of the Bhupen Hazarika cultural trust, agrees that there has been a slip.

He, however, added that the trust has limited means and an initiative like this would require government intervention.

Guwahati, Aug. 6: Bhupen Hazarika was taken on a round of the ICU in a wheelchair this afternoon as he showed “marked” signs of improvement, two days after he underwent a bypass surgery in Mumbai.

Surjya Hazarika, the biographer of the Dada Saheb Phalke Award recipient, told this correspondent over phone that the singer-composer “looked improved” and “is in very high spirits”.

Hazarika, 83, was operated upon by a team of surgeons at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The singer was taken off the ventilator yesterday morning and doctors attending on him described his condition as stable, Surjya Hazarika said, quoting the doctors.

“He is improving quite well. He was given a liquid diet in the morning and taken on a round of the ICU on a wheelchair around 2.30 in the afternoon,” he added.

The singer expressed his desire to listen to some of his own songs last evening.

“I played a few of his songs on my mobile phone. Bhupenda even sang along, humming the tunes and uttering a few words in between. It was a great sight,” Surjya Hazarika said.

Others who are keeping him company include the singer’s long time partner Kalpana Lajmi and Kamal Kotoky, his inseparable guitarist for all his stage shows .

“Bhupenda said that he felt like being able to sing better than he had in the last few years after coming out of hospital,” Surjya Hazarika said. He quoted doctors as saying that the singer would be kept in the ICU for “at least two more days” and was likely to be kept in the hospital for a week. “Since Bhupenda has said that he still feels a slight pain in the area where the incision was made, the doctors are monitoring him regularly. However, they said this was normal and there was nothing to worry about,” Surjya Hazarika said.

Bhupen Hazarika performed at a Bihu function this year at Rangia, his first since suffering a mild stroke a few years ago while performing at a Bihu function in Guwahati.

The surgery on Bhupen Hazarika — the most famous and popular modern-day personality in Assam — has generated statewide concern and people have offered prayers for his speedy recovery.

An overwhelmed Dr Hazarika looked in good health at the function. He thanked the huge gathering and people of Assam in general for showering their love on him. As he hummed a few lines from his epoch-making songs, including Manuhe Manuhar Babe, jodihe akanu nebhabe…, many in the crowd could not help singing along.

He was all praise for sculptor Sinha, who according to him, has portrayed his personality in a right way through the fibre glass statue.

“Dr Bhupen Hazarika is not only the beloved singer of Assam, but is also the flag bearer of Assamese society and culture. Through this initiative the AASU has just tried to thank him for his immense contributions,” said AASU advisor Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya. “It is for the first time that a living legend has unveiled his statue. The people of Assam are proud to have him and he will continue to inspire the younger generations,” he added.

It may be noted that the students’ body has established a statue of the legendary Goalpariya folk singer Pratima Barua Pandey at Chandmari earlier.

A sea of people, men and women, young and old waited by the sides of the road from Chandmari Nizarapar to Dighalipukhuri. Dr Hazarika was brought to the venue in a colourful cultural procession of traditionally attired youth and decorated elephants as thousands of students from various schools lined up on the road sprinkling flowers on Dr Hazarika’s caravan.

For Biren Sinha, it was an experience to cherish for lifetime. “He (Bhupen Hazarika) is my most revered artiste and his life and works has always inspired me. Bhupenda’s appreciation of my work has come as a blessing today, as I was very nervous doing this project,” he said.

The AASU has also organized a felicitation programme tomorrow at Latasil playground.

Congratulations,  and Thank you for your superb job  with the BH page.

A few years ago I happened to bump into an old article by Bhupen’da  himselfin the library of  Sudhakar Bhatt, a retired economist and a neighbor of ours  then in Naples.  Mr. Bhatt  went to school with BH at Columbia Univ, NYC in the early fifties, and reminisces him dearly. The article was in an issue of the Columbia Indian Student journal. My secretary Joyce was moved by the content of new-found piece, and agreed to provide her typing hand. I had it published in one of the issues of ‘Luitor Pora Mississippi’ in the nineties.  If you like, you can post it in the ‘articles’ column of your excellent page.

The second article, Melody Man by  Abhirook Sen, was sent to me by Amy (our daughter). It has also been collecting dust in my ‘My Docs’ folder. I don’t know the source of this piece, but, would like to share it too.

Please contact me if you have question.

Regards,

Ananta Nath

_________________________________

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Chief Engineer
South Florida Water Management District
Big Cypress Basin
2640 Golden Gate Parkway, Suite 205
Naples, FL 34105
239-263-7615 Ext 7607
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Melody Man

The Assamese poet’s repertoire of songs is firmly anchored in his environment.

By Avirook Sen

The structural engineer in Alaska turned the heat on full blast inside his car and hummed to the strains of Moi eti jajabor (I am a wanderer). The road was endless, he was cold, there was no one at home to talk to. But at least, on the music system, there was Bhupen Hazarika. And listening to him sing wasn’t very different from conversation. So the Assamese engineer picked up the phone and called the man in Dibrugarh: “Dada, your music is what keeps me going …”

Says Hazarika: “I never met the man, but I knew he was warm.”

From Alaska to Assam, to those who understand the several languages in which he sings — the Japanese don’t, but have their own version of his humanist ballad Manush manusheri jonyo — Hazarika’s songs could be any of several things. They could be letters from home. They could be promises of revolution.

They could soothe, exhort, excite or simply entertain. But whatever they do, there’s a face to it: benign, dreamy eyes under a lined brow, half covered by the trademark Nepali cap.

In the North-east, everyone knows that face (and that Rs 16 cap). More than that, they acknowledge he is the humane face of a disturbed region. In May, you will see him on television, travelling through the North-east and telling people elsewhere in the country that bad news isn’t all there is here. At 72, his wanderlust evidently hasn’t waned. The 13-episode series for Doordarshan,

Misty Lands of Seven Sisters — North-east India, has already taken more than a month’s gruelling travel to shoot. Hazarika is still on the move.

It’s been a long road. Hazarika wrote and performed the first of more than a thousand songs at the age of 10. At 13, he sang about building a new Assam and a new India. Precocious thoughts, but growing up in Tezpur, Assam, he would catch snatches of adult conversation. Eavesdropping on talk about Trotsky’s murder and the Indian freedom movement between grown-ups. These were filed away in a then unadorned head and used in lyrics.

Lyrics that promised change. And raised expectations in Assam. He found out during his recent travels that if he were a weaker man, the burden of that expectation would give him a stoop: “I met a man in Nagaon this time and he broke down in front of me, saying ‘You promised so much for us in your songs.

You made us hope. But life has been nothing like your songs’.”

It’s tough being Bhupen Hazarika in Assam. During the Assam Movement of the early ’80s, Hazarika was looked upon by an entire generation of agitating students as an inspiration. His music was their sustenance. He wrote and sang for them, drawing on the experience of singing with Paul Robeson in the US (he even went to jail briefly in America for his participation in civil rights’ rallies). As he had promised in his songs, change came. But not the kind of change he, or the people, wanted.

But we’re getting ahead in the story. He was trained in the arts at Banaras

Hindu University where he also got his first formal lessons in music. “I recall an incident after a college function where I sang. Ghanshyam Das Birla, one of the institute’s patrons, called me and gave me a Rs 50 note. He said,

‘Gana mat chodna (don’t stop singing)’.” Maybe he sensed Hazarika was about to become a lawyer and settle in Guwahati; after all music brought in just the odd 50 rupees. But things changed.

In 1948, after a stint as a producer at All India Radio, Guwahati, Hazarika left for the US on a scholarship to study Mass Communication at Columbia

University, New York. The main attraction, even then, wasn’t an Ivy League education. It was the chance to slake his thirst at Greenwich Village’s several watering holes for artists and performers. So he sang with American musicians, but most of all, he soaked in American folk music like a sponge.

Yes, there is evidence of American folk in his own work. But he mostly sings the folk tunes of his immediate environment. This is what makes him the consensus candidate, so to speak, for the post of emissary of the North-east.

There’s an amazing convergence of opinion about Hazarika all around the region: everybody likes and respects him. Something he is aware of: “If I wanted to be chief minister of this state, I could have ruled for 20 years without questions being asked.” He’s actually contested the assembly elections once (in 1967) and won comfortably as an Independent. Candidates in the recently concluded parliamentary elections went around canvassing, armed with

“certificates” from Hazarika (”I did it for people I liked personally, not for their party affiliations”). Even Paresh Barua, “commander-in-chief” of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been known to call him up.

Hazarika has offered to mediate between the banned group and the Government, provided the ULFA agrees to drop its secessionist demand. “Barua and I talked about stopping this madness, but their position is intransigent and I am too

Indian to discuss the secession of my own state,” says Hazarika.

But what is a man with these credentials doing in Bollywood? “It’s a crazy place,” says Hazarika, “but it is one way of reaching people.” (Remember Dil hum hum kare from Rudaali?) But even in films, he started pretty early: in

1939, he was a child artiste in the second talkie film to be made in India,

Indramalati. More than 50 years later, in 1993, the film industry conferred its highest honour on him: the Dada Saheb Phalke award.

Time to retire? Not for Hazarika. There’s a film to be completed. Songs to be sung. Centuries whiz past at a Stonehenge-like mausoleum of the Jaintia tribesmen of Meghalaya. He walks through them for the camera. A tune is hummed. Stone warriors stand proud and listen. Their women lie with their ears to the ground. Hazarika is in concert.

This Article received from
Ananta Nath, P.E, D.WRE
Chief Engineer
South Florida Water Management District
Big Cypress Basin
2640 Golden Gate Parkway, Suite 205
Naples, FL 34105

Bhupen Hazarika

The Question Mark

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty” -warned Thomas Jefferson.

Lallu, the laborer in a Bombay wheat mill often wonders at a paradox of his times; why the sweat of his brow is not offering enough bread for his own children. Ramu, the farmer in Bengal examines a handful of soil and wonders how he should fight against erosion in his rice field, which was once so green! Osman, the skilled craftsman of Benares, whose golden sari decorations are bringing showers of admiration to many a sophisticated Indian princess in Paris and New York night clubs, wonders why he is unable to present an ordinary sari to his own daughter. The common man of India wants to know why he should vote this time for a particular rich gentleman whom he has seen only talking.

What are people’s responsibilities in a democracy? What are their rights? Why cannot he read the document that informs him of the confiscation of his property? What should he know as a responsible citizen to lead a decent human life? He has heard about a coming famine ‑ what should he know in order to end famine for ever? Inquisitiveness is natural to rational human beings, even to the unlettered ones. Education is helped by this natural enquiry in human minds, that comes as a result of the impact of the environment. One of the greatest roles of education is to facilitate free flow of ideas and mean­ings within the community, so that all the members can think its betterment. Can adult education be one of the solutions? Undoubtedly yes ‑ but it depends on what is taught.

The Content of learning

New India has a duty to bring to the understanding of the rural adult that he is a living member of the community. He must be acquainted with the forms of all the social, political, cultural institutions of society. A knowledge of the fact that the citizen is in a social environment whose laws bind him for the good of all must be awakened. Adult education should continually point not only towards active civic duty but also towards his civic rights, snatched away by vested interests of his own society. Civic education must be able to show the contradictions within him and the contradictions around him which create a decision and a conflict. When these conflicts in turn force him into new decision and a new conflict, only then may education be regarded as dynamic. Mere literacy does not always help. The educationists in Tagore, and Gandhi realized it fully. India’s problem of mass education is largely a rural problem because less than fifteen per cent of the people of India live in towns and cities as compared to fifty one per cent in the United States of America. Eighty five percent of India’s vast population are devoid of letters. Adult suffrage recognized by the Constitution of India without proper scope for adult education may very well be called a symbol without any meaning.

The Unhappy Remnant

The existing system of education ‑ a remnant of the British imposed one makes a sad commentary on the heart of free India. It has very little relationship

with the hopes aspirations and needs of the people. Indigeneous culture of the people is still neglected by the curriculum planners. The environment is not yet regarded as resources of education. Rigid and centralized administration kill local initiative.

Active participation in learning is hardly encouraged. The learning process centers around the outdated textbook, the teacher, and the bookish examinations that make self‑evaluation of the learner impossible. An Englishman once commented on the education of British India only a few years ago.

“If education is the transmission of life from the living, we do not know how to describe the system of teaching that prevails here. It is carrying death from the dead, through the dead to the dead.” (1)

In other words, it is a tyranny of formality. How can we blame an unlettered adult farmer of India today if he is scared of a ” formal education” in his mid‑ forties?

Meanings and Media

Dr. Hallenbeck mentions four types of circumstances in which educational experiences of adults occur: as the independent activity of the individual; in groups in relation to organized activities; in the community; and through the use of the media of mass communication. Of these the second and the third are of pre‑eminent importance, while the first and fourth are supple­mentary, gaining their significance from their relationship to the other two. (2)

The writer would touch a few pertinent thoughts on the fourth one i.e. mass communication media, by which millions can be reached. Success of the educational activity depends on the skillful use of proper techniques of communicating meanings to the masses. Technique of communicating ideas has developed dur­ing this century as a corollary of progressive educational theory.

“Communication is a term that covers a vast and varied field of human action. The mere uttered sounds, the audible symbols that make some difference in the environment of a listener and thus, as we say, convey a meaning, are in themselves difficult phenomena.

When these audible symbols are represented by visual symbols such as the characters of a written language, complications arise. They are both psychological and sociological and they are bard to

understand. In spite of that, of course, we go on in naive self­ assurance doing what is necessary to live in community; we communicate.” (3) observes Dr. Lyman Bryson. The technological, scientific and psychological upsurge during our century has brought into everyday use a number of media the more significant of which are popular print, radio, recordings and motion picture. Motion picture perhaps is the most effective, because it is “able, more than any art to disclose the process that goes on microscopically in all other arts” (4) according to Sergei Eisenstein.

Maulana Azad observes that expansion of mind of the adult can be largely effected today through the use of scientific methods and machinery; he believes that there is experience of countries like Russia and the U.S.A. where open air drama, the film and the radio have been used to very great effect. Russia has in fact succeeded in carrying out her successive five‑year plans largely through the use of such scientific methods and machinery. We should benefit by the experience of these countries and draw upon the vast stores of educational films that have been built in Russia and the U.S.A. (5) Put what about our Indian film world which stands second to the U.S.A. in the field of production? The quality of some hardly rises to the minimum standard of the ridiculous. The producers of the so‑called “educational films” produce films without analyzing the maturity level of those for whom they are meant, or knowing the educational effect of it.

Bureaucracy and red tape in State‑controlled broadcasting system of India have snatched the initiative front the “programme planners”. The planners schedule programmes for rural listeners of the total population) without getting any scope to know and feel the people’s needs. Lay participation is neglected. In new China, the problem of scarcity of radio receiving sets has been greatly solved by “listening, societies” in worker and farmers’ organizations. This initiative from the masses comes only when they feel that the socio‑educational institutions belong to them and are used for them. In China, important news have been communicated to the rural masses by “living newspapers” in dramatic form. Because Mao‑Tse‑Tung is convinced that “those who cannot yet read want to see plays and look at pictures; they want to sing and hear music. They form the public for our literature and art”.(6) Bernard Shaw’s following remark can very well be used in the case of India ‑ “The number of people who can read is small, the number of people who can read to any purpose is much smaller, and the number who are too tired after a hard day’s work to read at all ‑ enormous. But all except the blind and deaf can see and hear.” (7) Experience, both vicarious and direct, makes learning permanent and fruitful. The problems of verbal symbols, radio, recordings, still pictures, motion pictures, exhibits, field trips, demonstrations, dramatic participation, role‑playing and contrived experiences on the one hand and direct purposeful experiences on the other meanings effectively to the adult learner. If India’s teeming millions are to learn and relearn while they work and hand, are in the domain of instructional materials and methods, which facilitate imparting of real meanings effectively to the adult learner. If India’s teeming millions are to learn and relearn while they work and rest, progressive theory of education for life must be practiced under a truly democratic administration. And for that, research workshops in administration, teaching technique, role of instructional materials and community projects for the bene­fit of rural adults are of utmost importance.

Considering the emphasis in Gandhi’s Basic Education Scheme and Tagore’s rural education on observation and first‑hand experience, the importance of the use of audio‑‑visual methods (a development of mass communication theory) is evident. Because of the lack of funds, bad transportation, and the need for reaching large groups in a quick way, it is essential to discover ways and means by which education can be carried on through the use of mass comnunication media. Press, radio, films and educational institutions should act Lit u coordinated way for adult education drives. Since occupations and their teaching have been of great importance for the economic reconstruction of rural masses, it is in this very area of technique that modem materials and methods can be of most value. Since such programmes depend mainly on educators to work in it, this seems to be a particularly appropriate time to give pre‑service and in‑service education in mass communication techniques in the teacher training institutions of India. It will help to make education informal and interesting ‑ and enable the adult educators to carry out their programme during both the working and leisure hours of the masses. Active participation in all life situations would lead to better understanding of their occupations and to a fuller life. Behind all these lies the theory that communication of ideas should have an unbroken flow. The masses have a right to know ‑ and education should transmit the information for a social change and rejuvenation.

A Step Forward

Every State wants to draw attention of the people by education through mass communication media. Media being neutral, the ruling power might use them for either good or evil purposes.

The attention structure within a state writes Dr. Laswell of Yale University “is a valuable index of the degree of state integration. When the ruling classes fear the masses, the Rulers do not share their picture of reality with the rank and file. When the reality picture of kings, presidents and cabinets is not permitted to circulate through the State as a whole, the degree of discrepancy shows the extent to which the ruling groups assume that their power depends on distortion,” In a static state, education may be only for preservation of reaction and not a step forward.

(1) As quoted by Minoo Masani. in “Picture of a Plan’;

(2) UNESCO Publication, 1949. Article by Dr. W. C. Hallenbeck

“Methods and Techniques in Adult Education”. p. 80

(3) Lyman Bryson 2 The Communication of Ideas”‘. p. 1

(4) Sergei Eisenstein, “Film Form”. p. 5

(5) Maulana AzIad `Verbatim record of the Educational conference” New Delhi, 1948. p. 4

(6) Mao‑Tse tung “Problems of Art and Literature”. p. 11

(7) As quoted in “Fundamental Education”‘. Report of a special committee to the preparatory commission of UNESCO. p. 279

(8) Harold D. Lasswell “The Structure and Function of Communication in Society“, Communication of Ideas (edited by Bryson). P. 50.

This Article received from
Ananta Nath, P.E, D.WRE
Chief Engineer
South Florida Water Management District
Big Cypress Basin
2640 Golden Gate Parkway, Suite 205
Naples, FL 34105