Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system? By Asko Parpola

Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system? By Asko Parpola

Is the Indus script a writing system or not? I represent the traditional view
that it is, and more accurately, a logo-syllabic writing system of the
Sumerian type. This paper is an enlarged version of the criticism that I
presented two years earlier in Tokyo, where it was published soon
afterwards (Parpola 2005). What I am criticizing is "The collapse of the
Indus script thesis: The myth of a literate Harappan Civilization" by Steve
Farmer, Richard Sproat and Michael Witzel (2004), where the authors
categorically deny that the Indus script is a speech-encoding writing
system.
Farmer and his colleagues present ten main points or theses, which
according to them prove that the Indus script is not writing:
1. Statistics of Indus sign frequencies & repetitions
2. ―Texts‖too short to encode messages
3. Too many rare signs, especially ―singletons‖4. No sign repetition within any one text
5. ―Lost‖longer texts (manuscripts) never existed
6. No cursive variant of the script developed, hence no scribes
7. No writing equipment has been found
8. ―Script‖signs are non-linguistic symbols
9. Writing was known, but it was consciously not adopted
10. This new thesis helps to understand the Indus Civilization better than
the writing hypothesis.
I shall take these points up for discussion one by one.
Statistics of Indus sign frequencies & repetitions
Firstly, Farmer and his colleagues claim that comparison of the Indus sign
frequencies ―can show that the Indus system could not have been a
Chinese-style script, since symbol frequencies in the two systems differ
too widely, and the total numbers of Indus symbols are too few‖ (Farmer
& al. 2004: 29). They also point out that signs are repeated within a single
inscription much more often in Egyptian cartouches than in Indus seals of
a similar length.
112 Airāvati
There is no difficulty to agree with these observations. There is a vast
difference between the Chinese script with its theoretically nearly 50,000
signs (and even in practice about 5000 signs) and the Indus script with
only about 400 known graphemes.
―But [as Farmer and his colleagues themselves conclude,] studies of
general sign frequencies by themselves cannot determine whether the
Indus system was a ‗mixed‘ linguistic script [that is, a logo-syllabic script
of the Sumerian type]... or exclusively a system of nonlinguistic signs‖
(Farmer & al. 2004: 29).
As this is an important point, my colleague Dr Kimmo Koskenniemi, who
is Professor of Computer Linguistics at the University of Helsinki,
verified from Dr Richard Sproat by e-mail in April 2005 that they both
agree on the following: ―Plain statistical tests such as the distribution of
sign frequencies and plain reoccurrencies can (a) neither prove that the
signs represent writing, (b) nor prove that the signs do not represent
writing. Falsifying being equally impossible as proving.‖
Rebuses were used very much from the earliest examples of the Egyptian
writing. Around 3050 BC, the name of King Narmer was written with the
hieroglyphs depicting ‗catfish‘ (the Egyptian word for 'catfish is n'r) and
‗awl‘ (the Egyptian word for 'awl' is mr). (cf. Gardiner 1957: 7). Egyptian
rebus-punning ignored wovels altogether, but the consonants had to be
identical (cf. Gardiner 1957: 9). Other early logo-syllabic scripts too,
allowed moderate liberties, such as difference in vowel and consonant
length. The Egyptian words represented by the hieroglyphs could contain
three or two consonants or just one (cf. Gardiner 1957: 25). Eventually
only the one-consonant signs were selected by the Egyptian-trained
Semitic scribes for writing their own language, but they were used
copiously also in Egyptian-language texts, and not only for writing
foreign proper names. This easily explains the difference in the statistics
between Egyptian cartouches and Indus seal inscriptions.
―Texts‖ too short to encode messages
The second argument of Farmer and his colleagues is that ―Indus
inscriptions were neither able nor intended to encode detailed ‗essages‘,
not even in the approximate ways performed by formal mnemonic
systems in other nonliterate societies‖ (Farmer et al. 2004: 42). One of the
two reasons adduced in support of this thesis is that the Indus inscriptions
are too short.
Parpola, Asko 113
But although the Indus texts have as their average length five signs, this is
quite sufficient to express short noun phrases in a logo-syllabic script of
the Sumerian type. We cannot expect complete sentences in seals and
other types of objects preserved (cf. Parpola 1994: 87). But even written
noun phrases qualify as language-based script — I shall return to this
point later.
The Mesopotamian seal inscriptions typically contain: a proper name ±
descent ± occupation (cf. e.g. Edzard 1968). In the most elaborate seals of
the high officials, this information is couched in an invocation addressed
to the King or other dignitary. Here are two examples of Mesopotamian
seal inscriptions: ―Adda the Scribe‖ ―O Sharkali- sharri, King of Akkad:
Ibni-sharri the Scribe (is) your servant‖. These Akkadian seals are
contemporary with the heyday of the Indus Civilization, and the latter one
in fact attests to contacts with it. The water-buffalo depicted in it was
imported to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley during the rule of Sargon
the Great, King of Akkad (2334-2278 BC) and entered Mesopotamian
iconography towards the end of his 60 year long rule, to disappear from
the iconography and the faunal remains in the beginning of the second
millennium BC when the Indus Civilization collapsed (Cf. Boehmer
1975).
Not all Indus texts 2 are so short — for instance the one-line seal
inscription M-355 from Mohenjo-daro has 14 signs. But even a single
sign of a logo-syllabic script can convey a message. The single-sign seal
inscription H-94 from Harappa probably renders the occupational title of
the seal owner. Single-sign texts may consist of non-composite signs, but
here this single sign is a composite sign consisting of two component
signs. Many composite signs (like the one in the text H-94) have ‗man‘ as
the final component and may denote occupational titles such as ‗oliceman‘
or ‗ilk-man‘. Partially identical sequences show a functional
correspondence between compound signs and their component signs (cf.
Parpola 1994: 80-81 with fig. 5.3). The Egyptian script around 3000 BC
was used in a number of inscriptions, most of which were very short,
often consisting of just two or three signs. They recorded proper names
with a high percentage of rebus signs and thus qualify as writing.
Too many rare signs, especially ―singletons‖
The third argument of Farmer and his colleagues has been put into words
as follows: ―Further evidence that clashes with the Indus-script thesis
shows up in the large number of unique symbols (or ‗singletons‘) and
other rare signs that turn up in the inscriptions ... A number of inscriptions
114 Airāvati
also contain more than one singleton in addition to other rare signs,
making it difficult to imagine how those signs could have possibly
functioned in a widely disseminated ‗script‘‖(Farmer & al. 2004: 36).
It is true that around 25% of the about 400 graphemes of the Indus script
are attested only once (cf. Mahadevan 1977: 17; Parpola 1994: 78, table
5.1).
But if more texts are excavated, many of these ‗singletons‘ will occur
more than once; there will also be new rare signs. Many of the Indus
‗singletons‘ occur in the midst of more frequently occurring signs, which
helps their understanding. All logo-syllabic scripts had rarely occurring
signs, some of these scripts quite many. Chinese has very many rare signs,
and some of them do occasionally occur even in newspapers.
No "random-looking" sign repetitions within any one text
Although Farmer and his colleagues in passing refer to logosyllabic
writing systems of the Sumerian type and their functioning, their
argumentation implies that in order to represent a language-based script
the Indus signs should largely be phoneticized in the manner of the
Egyptian cartouches. However, in early logosyllabic scripts one sign
often stands for a complete word. Even a seal with a single sign can
express its owner, and there is mostly little reason for sign repetition in
short seal texts written in an early logosyllabic script of the Sumerian type.
The alleged lack of what they call random-looking type of sign repetition
is mentioned as the fourth and most important and critical evidence
against the thesis that the Indus script is a writing system: ―Most
importantly, nowhere in Indus inscriptions do we find convincing
evidence of the random-looking types of sign repetition expected in
contemporary phonetic or semi-phonetic scripts‖ (Farmer & al. 2004: 29-
30).
Farmer and his colleagues themselves admit that ―some Indus signs do
repeat in single inscriptions, sometimes including many repetions in a
row‖ (p. 31). However, they do not accept the evidence of such
duplications: ―Whatever the origins of these different types of
duplications, all that is critical for our purposes is to note again the lack of
any suggestions in them of the random-looking repetitions typical even of
monumental scripts like Luwian or Egyptian hieroglyphs‖ (p. 36).
The hieroglyphic signs drawn in black in fig. 1 mark the repetitions in the
cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra; they were crucial in the
Parpola, Asko 115
decipherment of the Egyptian script. But these are the repetitions when
both of the two cartouches are taken into consideration. Farmer and his
colleagues speak of sign repetitions limited to single cartouches, in which
case Ptolemy‘s cartouche has only one sign repetition, namely the
duplication of the sign E, one after the other in a row, which according to
Farmer & al. does not count as a "random-looking" repetition. Within
Cleopatra‘s cartouche, there is likewise only one sign repetition, namely
that of the eagle-shaped sign for A. This latter case would qualify as an
example of a ―random-looking‖ sign repetition.
Fig. 1 : Cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra: the Egyptian hieroglyphs and their
transliterations (with repetitions shown in bold). (After Parpola 1994: 41, fig. 3.1.)
But sign repetition within single Indus inscription DOES occur, also of
the ―random-looking type" completely missed by Farmer and his
colleagues. Such repetition occurs even in the ―bar-seals‖, which Farmer
and his colleagues (2004: 33) consider particularly crucial for the Indus
script thesis. The following counter examples by no means exhaust the
material.
In the 10-sign text M-682 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated three
times, two other signs are repeated twice, and all in different places, that
is, not in a row.
In M-634 from Mohenjo-daro one sign is repeated in three different
places. Farmer and his colleagues have noticed this case, but disqualify it
because in their opinion the ―sun symbol‖shows that non-linguistic
symbols are involved. Of course this sign can very well depict the solar
wheel with rays, as I have myself proposed on the basis of Near Eastern
and later Indian parallels (cf. Parpola 1994: 104, 106 fig. 7.5; 110; 116-
116 Airāvati
117). But, how do Farmer and his colleagues know that this sign has not
been used phonetically as a rebus sign: after all, it is precisely this type of
―random repetition‖that they consider as proof for phonetic usage!
In M-1792 (Marshall 1931: III, pl. 106 no. 93) from Mohenjo-daro one
sign (different from that of M-634) is also repeated in three different
places.
The seal K-10 from Kalibangan has ten signs. One and the same two-sign
sequence is repeated in two different places.
In the 11-sign text M-1169 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated in
two different places.
In the 8-sign "bar-seal" M-357 from Mohenjo-daro, one sign is repeated
in two different places.
I agree with Farmer and his colleagues that some of the sign duplications
in row imply quantification (cf. Farmer & al. 2004: 31). I shall come back
to the probable function of the small bifacial tablets later on. The
inscription on one side of them usually has just the U-shaped sign,
preceded by one to four vertical strokes for the numbers 1 to 4: UI, UII,
UIII, UIIII. In some tablets, such as H-764 from Harappa, the U-shaped
sign is repeated three times: UUU, obviously an alternative to UIII, where
III = number 3 is a numeral attribute (cf. Parpola 1994: 81). Farmer and
his colleagues want to deny the use of number signs as numeral attributes
of following signs; according to them they are independent symbols for
fixed conceptions: thus seven strokes should denote ―THE seven‖
However, different numbers clearly alternate before certain signs, among
them the U-shaped sign, clearly suggesting attributive use (cf. Parpola
1994: 81-82; 88; 120, fig. 7.21, I).
Farmer and his colleagues (2004: 31) surmise that the duplication of other
signs may emphasize their magical or political power. They do not
mention that such sign reduplications can reflect emphasizing linguistic
reduplications common in Dravidian (and other Indian languages)
especially in onomatopoeic words, or as grammatical markers, such as
Sumerian nominal plurals (cf. Parpola 1994: 82). There are also cases like
the reduplication of the sign ―dot-in-a-circle‘ that could depict the ‗ye‘.
Comparing the Dravidian words kaN ‗eye‘ and ka:N ‗to see‘, I have
proposed reading their reduplication as a compound word, namely kaNka:
Ni attested in Tamil in the meaning ‗overseer‘, a meaning that would
Parpola, Asko 117
suit very well for instance its occurrence on an ancient seal-impression on
a potsherd from Mohenjo-daro (M-1382) (cf. Parpola 1994: 215; 275).
"Lost" longer texts (manuscripts) never existed
All literary civilizations produced longer texts but there are none from the
Indus Valley — hence the Indus ―script‖is no writing system: Farmer and
his colleagues reject the much repeated early assumption that longer texts
may have been written on ―birch bark, palm leaves, parchment, wood, or
cotton cloth, any of which would have perished in the course of ages‖as
suggested by Sir John Marshall in 1931 (I, 39). Farmer and his colleagues
are ready to believe the ―Indus script thesis‖only if an Indus text at least
50 signs long is found.
But even though Farmer and his colleagues speak as if our present corpus
of texts was everything there ever existed, this is not the case. More than
2100 Indus texts come from Mohenjo-daro alone, and yet less than one
tenth of that single city has been excavated. Farmer and his colleagues do
not know what has existed and what may be found in the remaining parts
of the city, even if it is likely that only imperishable material of the kinds
already available continue to be found. The Rongo-Rongo tablets of
Easter Island are much longer than 50 signs. But does this make it certain
that they represent writing in the strict sense?
Seed evidence shows that cotton has been cultivated in Greater Indus
Valley since Chalcolithic times, and cotton cloth is supposed to have been
one of the main export item of the Harappans. Yet all the millions of
Harappan pieces of cotton cloth have disappeared for climatic reasons,
save four cases where a few microscopic fibers have been preserved in
association with metal (cf. Possehl 2002: table 3.2, with further
references). Alexander‘s admiral Nearchus mentions ―thickly woven
cloth‖used for writing letters in the Indus Valley c 325 BC. Sanskrit
sources such as the Ya:jñavalkya-Smrti (1,319) also mention cotton cloth,
(ka:rpa:sa-)paTa, as writing material around the beginning of the
Christian era. But the earliest preserved examples date from the 13th
century AD (cf. Shivaganesha Murthy 1996: 45-46; Salomon 1998: 132).
Emperor Asoka had long inscriptions carved on stone (pillars and rocks)
all around his wide realm in 260 to 250 BC. They have survived. But also
manuscripts on perishable materials must have existed in Asoka‘s times
and already since the Achaemenid rule started in the Indus Valley c 520
BC. This is suggested among other things by the mention of lipi ‗script‘
in Pa:Nini‘s Sanskrit Grammar (3,2,21) which is dated to around 400-350
118 Airāvati
BC. Sanskrit lipi comes from Old Persian dipi ‗script‘. The earliest
surviving manuscripts on birch bark, palm leaves and wooden blocks date
from the 2nd century AD and come from the dry climate of Central Asia
(cf. Shivaganesha Murthy 1996: 24-36; Salomon 1998: 131). We can
conclude that manuscripts on perishable materials have almost certainly
existed in South Asia during 600 years from the start of the Persian rule
onwards, but they have not been preserved; this period of 600 years with
no surviving manuscripts corresponds to the duration of the Indus
Civilization.
No cursive variant of the Indus script developed — hence no scribes
The sixth argument of Farmer and his colleagues is based on the
observation that everywhere scribes writing manuscripts tended to
develop a cursive style. From the fact that the Indus script changed very
little during its 600 years of existence they conclude that there were no
longer texts nor any scribes.
But the Egyptian hieroglyphs preserved their monumental pictographic
shapes for 3000 years.The Egyptian cursive hieratic style of papyrus
manuscripts does not differ so very much from the monumental
hieroglyphs. The difference between Maya manuscripts and monumental
inscriptions is not all that great, either.
Actually there is quite a lot of graphic variation in the Indus signs (see the
sign list in Parpola 1994: 70-78, fig. 5.1), and in my opinion this variation
provides also an important key to their pictorial or iconic understanding.
On the other hand, the Indus script emerges in the Mature Harappan
period already more or less fully standardized, and by this time a lot of
shape simplification or creation of a more cursive script had already taken
place.
No writing equipment has been found
No writing equipment has been found, hence Farmer and his colleagues
conclude that there were no scribes nor any manuscripts. Four
archaeologists specializing on the Indus Civilization have interpreted
some finds as writing equipment, but their suggestions ―are no longer
accepted by any active researchers‖(Farmer et al. 2004: 25).
But thin metal rods, such as used in South India to incise palm leaf
manuscripts, could have early on corroded away or beyond recognition.
From painted Indus texts on Harappan pots (e.g. Sktd-3 from Surkotada
Parpola, Asko 119
in CISI 1: p. 392) and bangles (cf. Blk-6 from Balakot in CISI 2: p. 432)
we know that Indus people used brushes to write, although such brushes
have not survived or have not been recognized — and in North India
palm leaf manuscripts have been painted with brushes. For the record,
some of the provisional identifications for Harappan writing equipment
(Mackay 1938; Dales 1967; Konishi 1987; Lal 2002) were published
fairly recently, and two of these scholars are still themselves "active
researchers".
The Indus "script" signs are actually non-linguistic symbols
Instead of a language-based writing system, Farmer and his colleagues
(2004: 45) see in the Indus signs ―a relatively simple system of religiouspolitical
signs that could be interpreted in any language‖ The nonlinguistic
symbols of Mesopotamian iconography are said to be a
particularly close and relevant parallel, as they may be arranged in regular
rows with a definite order like the Indus signs.
But in Mesopotamian seal iconography, the non-linguistic symbols
usually occur as isolated signs, for instance near the gods they belong to.
Arranged in longer rows and with a definite order they occur only in very
limited contexts: mainly on stelae and boundary stones (kudurru) between
1600 and 600 BC. Mesopotamia was a literate civilization, and the
symbols on the boundary stones followed the order of divinities in curse
formulae written down in cuneiform texts — the symbols represented
deities invoked to protect the boundary stone (cf. Black & Green 1992:
15-16; 113-114).
Writing was known to the Indus people from Mesopotamia, but it was
consciously not adopted
Finally, Farmer and his colleagues ask themselves: ―The critical question
remains of why the Harappans never adopted writing, since their trade
classes and presumably their ruling elite were undoubtedly aware of it
through their centuries of contact with the high-literate Mesopotamians‖
(Farmer et al. 2004: 44). Their answer is that the Harappans intentionally
rejected writing for some such reason as the Celtic priests of Roman
times: for the druids were averse to encode their ritual traditions in
writing like the Vedic Brahmins of India (ibid.).
But it is not likely that the Harappans would have rejected writing for
such a reason because: adopting writing did not oblige them to divulge
their secret texts, which could be guarded in an esoteric oral tradition. In
120 Airāvati
any case literacy must have been fairly restricted. Even in Mesopotamia
literary texts were written down only long after the invention of writing.
It is true that some complex societies did prosper without writing — the
Incan empire for example used instead a complex communication system
of knotted strings. But writing does offer advantages not easily discarded.
We can indeed ask a counter question: Why was the Indus script created?
In my opinion for economic and administrative reasons, like the Archaic
Sumerian script. This is strongly suggested by the fact that the majority of
the surviving texts are seal stamps and seal impressions quite clearly used
in trade and administration (cf. Parpola 1994: 113-116). But proper
judgement requires acquaintance with the evolution of the Indus
Civilization. (The following short overview is mainly based on Possehl
2002).
The Indus Civilization came into being as the culmination of a long
cultural evolution in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. From the very
beginning, this was the eastern frontier of a large cultural area which had
Mesopotamia as its core pulsating influence in all directions. In Western
Asia, the domestication of animals and plants started by 8000 BC. This
revolution in food production reached the mountain valleys of western
Pakistan by 7000 BC. From the Neolithic stage, about 7000-4300 BC,
some twenty relatively small villages are known, practically all in
highland valleys. People raised cattle, sheep and goats. They cultivated
wheat and barley, and stored it in granaries. Pottery was handmade, and
human and bovine figurines reflect fertility cults. Ornaments reflect
small-scale local trade.
During the Chalcolithic phase, about 4300-3200 BC, the village size grew
to dozens of hectares. Settlements spread eastwards beyond the Indus up
the ancient Sarasvati river in India, apparently with seasonal migrations.
Copper tools were made, and pottery became wheel-thrown and
beautifully painted. Ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and
northern Iran also suggest considerable mobility and trade.
In the Early Harappan period, about 3200-2500 BC, many new sites came
into existance, also in the Indus Valley, which was a challenging
environment on account of the yearly floods, while the silt made the
fields very fertile. Communal granaries disappeared, and large storage
jars appeared in house units. Potter‘s marks suggest private ownership,
and stamp seals bearing geometrical motifs point to development in
administration. Irrigation canals were constructed, and advances were
made in all crafts. Mastery of air reduction in burning enabled making
Parpola, Asko 121
high quality luxury ceramics. Similarities in pottery, seals, figurines,
ornaments etc. document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and
the Iranian plateau, including Shahr-i Sokhta in Seistan, where some
Proto-Elamite accounting tablets have been discovered. There were
already towns with walls and a grid pattern of streets, such as Rahman
Dheri. Terracotta models of bullock carts attest to improved transport in
the Indus Valley, which led to considerable cultural uniformity over a
wide area, especially where the Kot Diji style pottery was distributed.
The relatively short Kot Diji phase between 2800 and 2500 BC turned the
Early Harappan culture into the Mature Indus Civilization. During this
phase the Indus script came into being, as the recent American
excavations at Harappa have shown. Unfortunately we still have only few
specimens of the early Indus script from this formative phase (see CISI 3:
pp. 211-230). At the same time, many other developments took place. For
instance, the size of the burned brick, already standardized during the
Early Harappan period, was fixed in the ratio 1:2:4 most effective for
bonding.
During the Indus Civilization or Mature Harappan phase, from about
2500 to 1900 BC, the more or less fully standardized Indus script was in
use at all major sites. Even such a small site as Kanmer in Kutch, Gujarat,
measuring only 115 x 105 m, produced during the first season of
excavation in 2005-2006 one clay tag with a seal impression and three
carefully polished weights of agate (Kharakwal et al. 2006: figs. 11-12).
During the transition from Early to Mature Harappan, weights and
measures were standardized, another very important administrative
measure suggesting that economic transactions were effectively
controlled. Weights of carefully cut and polished stone cubes form a
combined binary and decimal system. The ratios are 1/16, 1/8, 1/6, 1/4,
1/2, 1 (= 13 g), 2, 4, 8, 16, ... 800.
By about 2500 BC, the Harappan society had become so effectively
organized that it was able to complete enormous projects, like building
the city of Mohenjo-daro. The lower city of at least 80 hectares had
streets oriented according to the cardinal directions and provided with a
network of covered drains. Many of the usually two-storied houses were
spacious and had bathrooms and wells. The water-engineering of
Mohenjo-daro is unparallelled in the ancient world: the city had some 700
wells constructed with tapering bricks so strong that they have not
collapsed in 5000 years. Development of water traffic made it possible to
transport heavy loads along the rivers, and to start direct trade with the
122 Airāvati
Gulf and Mesopotamia. Over thirty Indus seals and other materials of
Harappan origin, such as stained carnelian beads, have been found in
Western Asia.
That the numerous Indus seals were used to control trade and economy is
certified by the preservation of ancient seal impressions on clay tags that
were once attached to bales of goods and otherwise to safeguard property.
There are impressions of clothing and knotted strings on the reverse of
these clay tags, such as the one found at Umma in Mesopotamia (cf.
Parpola 1994: fig. 7.16). Almost one hundred such clay tags come from
the port town of Lothal on the coast of Gujarat (see CISI 1: pp. 268-289).
A warehouse had burned down and therewith baked and preserved these
tags. Many of them bear multiple seal impressions, some involving four
different seals, as does the clay tag K-89 from another site, Kalibangan.
The practice suggests the use of witnesses. Such bureaucratic procedures
imply keeping records comparable to the economic tablets of
Mesopotamia. Registers and other official documents — the kind of
longer texts that I miss — are likely to have been written on palm leaves,
cotton cloth or other perishable material that has not survived for climatic
reasons.
I spoke earlier of sign duplications that imply quantification. The small
bifacial tablets mainly known from Harappa had some economic and
ritual function. At the right end of the tablet M-478 from Mohenjo-daro
(cf. CISI 1: p. 115 & Parpola 1994: 109 fig. 7.12), we see a worshipper
kneeling in front of a tree, undoubtedly sacred, and extending towards the
tree what looks like a pot of offerings shown in profile. The
accompanying inscription, read from right to left, begins with a U-shaped
sign similar to the assumed pot of offerings, preceded by four strokes that
represent number four. One side of most tablets from Harappa usually has
nothing but this pot-sign, preceded by one to four vertical strokes for the
numbers 1 to 4. In some cases, as in the tablet H-247, the pot-sign is held
by a kneeling worshipper, as in the scene of the tablet M-478. In Harappa,
many identical tablets have been found in one and the same location.
They may have been distributed by priests to people who brought a given
amount of offerings, either as receipts that dues had been paid to the
temple, or as protective amulets in exchange of offerings. In either case,
the priests probably kept some kind of log of the transactions. In a South
Indian village where I have done field work (Panjal in Kerala), I have
witnessed how each house brings one or more vessels full of paddy to the
local shrine at festivals, to be managed for common good by temple
priests.
Parpola, Asko 123
Conclusion: Is the Indus script writing or not?
So is the Indus script writing or not? We have seen that all evidence
adduced by Farmer and his colleagues is inconclusive: none of it can
prove their thesis that the Indus script is not writing but only nonlinguistic
symbols, "a relatively simple system of religious-political signs
that could be interpreted in any language‖ (Farmer & al. 2004: 45).
The question requires the consideration of some further issues. One of
these is the fact that non-linguistic symbol systems (―potter‘s marks‖and
iconographic symbols) existed as early as since 3300 BC not only in
northern Indus Valley but also in Baluchistan, Seistan & Kerman on the
Iranian Plateau and in southern Turkmenistan, a circumstance not
mentioned by Farmer and his colleagues (cf. Vidale 2007).
In contrast to these relatively simple systems of non-linguistic pot-marks,
the Indus script has a great number of different signs, around 400, and
they have been highly standardized. Moreover, the signs are usually
neatly written in lines, as is usual in language-bound scripts. The normal
direction of writing is from right to left; this is the direction of the
impressions made with seal stamps, which were carved in mirror image.
Occasionally the seal-carver ran out of space, and in such cases he
cramped the signs at the end of the line to preserve the linear order. For
instance in the seal M-66 from Mohenjo-daro, the single sign of the
second line is placed immediately below the space which had proved too
small. The three last signs thus have the same sequence as the last three
signs in the seal M-12 from Mohenjo-daro.
But the most important characteristic of the Indus texts from the point of
view of speech-encoding becomes evident if we do not limit the
observation of sign repetition to single inscriptions as Farmer and his
colleagues do. The fact is that the Indus signs form a very large number
of regularly repeated sequences. The above discussed sequence of the
three last signs in the seals M-66 and M-12 occurs in Indus inscriptions
about 100 times, mostly at the end of the text. The order of these three
signs is always the same, and this sequence is recorded from nine
different sites, including two outside South Asia, one in Turkmenistan
and one in Iraq (see fig. 2). If the Indus signs are just non-linguistic
symbols as Farmer and his colleagues maintain, for what reason are they
always written in a definite order, and how did the Indus people in so
many different places know in which order the symbols had to be written?
Did they keep separate lists to check the order? And one should note that
there are hundreds of regular sequences that occur several times in the
124 Airāvati
texts. The text of eleven signs written on top of fig. 2 (attested in several
identical tablets from Harappa: H-279 through H-284, see CISI 1: p. 222-
223; and H-871 through H-873, see CISI 2: p. 335) can be broken into
smaller sequences all of which recur at several sites (see fig. 2). As this
small example shows, the texts even otherwise have a regular structure
similar to linguistic phrases. The Indus signs do not occur haphazardly
but follow strict rules. Some signs are usually limited to the end of the
text, and even when such a sign occurs in the middle of an inscription, it
usually ends a recurring sequence. Some other signs are limited to the
beginning of the text, but may under certain conditions appear also in
other positions. And so forth. (See Parpola 1994: 86-101).
Fig. 2 : Indus signs occur in strictly ordered sequences that recur at many different sites.
Table compiled by AP for this paper
The unrelated graffiti scratched on pots at the Megalithic site of Sanur in
South India (see fig. 3) offer a contrasting example. Three signs occur
many times together, but their order varies. It does not matter in which
order they are placed. This is what one normally expects from nonlinguistic
symbols. I do not believe that these Megalithic graffiti represent
real writing in the sense of speech-encoding, but are non-linguistic
symbols.
Parpola, Asko 125
The Indus sign sequences are uniform all over the Harappan realm in
South Asia, suggesting that a single language was used in writing. By
contrast, both native Harappan and non-Harappan sign sequences occur
on Indus seals from the Near East, the sequences usually being in
harmony with the shape of the seal: square seals are typical of South Asia,
round seals are typical of the Gulf and cylinder seals are typical of
Mesopotamia. One would expect that the most frequently attested Indus
sign would very often occur next to itself, but this is never the case in the
Indus Valley. The combination is however attested on a round Gulf-type
seal coming from the Near East, now in the British Museum (BM
120228). This seal contains five frequently occurring Indus signs but in
unique sequences (cf. Parpola 1994: Fig. 8.6). This suggests that
Harappan trade agents who resided in the Gulf and in Mesopotamia
became bilingual and adopted local names, but wrote their foreign names
in the Indus script for the Harappans to read. The cuneiform texts in fact
speak not only of a distant country called Meluhha which most scholars
equate with Greater Indus Valley, but also of a village in southern
Mesopotamia called Meluhha whose inhabitants had purely Sumerian
names.
Farmer and his colleagues claim that the Indus script is a system of nonlinguistic
symbols that can be understood in any language. They suggest
that it belongs to the category which Andrew Robinson (2002: 30)
proposes to call ―proto-writing‖, and to which he assigns ―Ice Agecave art,
Amerindian pictograms, many modern road signs, mathematical and
scientific symbols and musical notation‖. The speech-bound scripts or in
Robinson‘s terms ―full writing ― came into being with the phonetization
of written symbols by means of the rebus or picture puzzle principle.
Let us consider the rebus principle utilized in logo-syllabic scripts. Most
signs were originally pictures denoting the objects or ideas they
represented. But abstract concepts such as ‗life‘ would be difficult to
express pictorially. Therefore the meaning of a pictogram or ideogram
was extended from the word for the depicted object to comprise all its
homophones. For example, in the Sumerian script the drawing of an
arrow meant 'arrow', but in addition 'life' and 'rib', because all three words
were pronounced alike in the Sumerian language, namely ti. Homophony
must have played a role in folklore long before it was utilized in writing.
The pun between the Sumerian words ti 'rib' and ti 'life' figures in the
Sumerian paradise myth, in which the rib of the sick and dying water god
Enki is healed by the Mistress of Life, Nin-ti. But the Biblical myth of
Eve's creation out of Adam's rib no more makes sense because the
original pun has been lost in translation: ‗rib‘ in Hebrew is Sela:c and has
126 Airāvati
no connection with Eve's Hebrew name H‘awwa:, which is explained in
the Bible to mean ―mother of all living‖ (Cf. Parpola 1994: 102.) The
point is that homophony usually is very language-specific, and rebuses
therefore enable language identification and phonetic decipherment.
Fig. 3 : Pottery graffiti from the Megalithic site of Sanur in TamilNadu, South India. After
Banerjee & Soundara Rajan 1959: 32, fig. 8.
Since the appearance of my criticism in 2005, Farmer and his colleagues
have underlined that the rebus principle is occasionally used also in
symbol systems not so tightly bound to language3. As an example they
mention the use of rebus puns to express proper names in the otherwise
Parpola, Asko 127
clearly non-linguistic communication system of heraldry. But by
definition any ancient or modern symbol system which consciously uses
rebuses and which therefore at least partially can be read phonetically
counts as full writing.
Even short noun phrases and incomplete sentences qualify as full writing
if the script uses the rebus principle to phonetize some of its signs. (Cf.
Robinson 1995: 12.) Archaic Sumerian is considered a full writing system,
because it occasionally uses rebus puns, for instance on a tablet, where
the single word gi ‗reimburse‘ (expressed by the sign depicting 'reed' = gi
in Sumerian), constitutes the very incomplete phrase in its own
compartment that constitutes a text unit (cf. Robinson 2002: 26). Even in
later times, the Sumerian script had more logograms than syllabic signs,
although with time the number of phonetic signs increased. When the
cuneiform script was adapted for writing the Akkadian language, the
system could be improved upon, and the script became almost fully
phonetic.
The Egyptian script around 3100-3000 BC was used in a number of very
short inscriptions, often consisting of just two signs, which recorded
proper names but with a very high percentage of the signs used as rebuses
(see e.g. Schott 1951). The famous palette of King Narmer with an
inscription already quoted above is a good example. This is definitely
already a writing system, even if the texts are on average shorter than the
Indus texts! Here two rebus signs express the proper name of King
Narmer, whose feats are related in a non-linguistic way in the pictures
taking up the rest of the palette, yet with many formalized conventions.
This is fully parallel to the use of rebus symbols to express proper names
in the non-linguistic communication system of heraldry or coats of arms.
The new thesis helps to understand the Indus Civilization better than
the writing hypothesis
As to the very last point raised, and claim made, by Farmer and his
colleagues in their 2004 paper, I honestly cannot understand how the
hypothesis that the Indus signs are non-linguistic symbols helps us to
understand the Indus Civilization much better than the hypothesis that the
Indus script is a logo-syllabic writing system. In a logo-syllabic script the
signs may denote what they depict, or they may be used as rebuses.
Before we can even start pondering their use as rebuses, we must clear up
their iconic meaning. This necessary first step is identical with the efforts
of Farmer and others to understand the Indus symbols as pictograms.
128 Airāvati
As an example of my own efforts to understand the pictorial shapes of the
Indus signs, I would like to mention my interpretation of one particular
sign as depicting the palm squirrel (Parpola 1994: 103 with fig. 7.1): the
sign clearly represents an animal head downwards, tail raised up and four
legs attached to a vertical stroke representing tree trunk. The palm
squirrel spends long times in this pose, wherefore it is called in Sanskrit
‗tree-sleeper‘. In seal texts, the sign is more likely to have been used as a
rebus rather than in its iconic meaning (for my interpretation see Parpola
1994: 229-230). Could the non-linguistic approach of Farmer and his
colleagues offer a better explanation for the meaning of this sign?
References
Banerjee, N. R., and Soundara Rajan, K. V.
1959. Sanur 1950 & 1952: A Megalithic site in District
Chingleput. Ancient India 15: 4-42.
Black, Jeremy, and Green, Anthony
1992. Gods, demons and symbols of ancient Mesopotamia: An
illustrated dictionary. Illustrations by Tessa Rickards. London:
The British Museum Press.
Boehmer, R. M.
1975. Das Auftreten des Wasserbüffels in Mesopotamien in
historischer Zeit und seine sumerische Benennung. Zeitschrift
für Assyriologie un Vorderasiatische Archäologie 64: 1-19.
CISI = Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions.
1987. Vol. 1: Collections in India, edited by Jagat Pati Joshi and
Asko Parpola
1991. Vol. 2: Collections in Pakistan, edited by Sayid Ghulam
Mustafa Shah and Asko Parpola.
2008. Vol. 3: New material, untraced objects, and collections
outside India and Pakistan. Edited by Asko Parpola, B. M. Pande
and Petteri Koskikallio. Part 1: Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, in
collaboration with Richard H. Meadow and Jonathan Mark
Kenoyer. (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 239-
241.) Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.
Dales, George F., Jr.,
1967. South Asia's earliest writing - still undeciphered.
Expedition 9 (2): 30-37.
Parpola, Asko 129
Edzard, Dietz Otto,
1968. Die Inschriften der altakkadischen Rollsiegel. Archiv für
Orientforschung 22: 12-20.
Farmer, Steve, Richard Sproat & Michael Witzel
2004. The collapse of the Indus script thesis: The myth of a
literate Harappan Civilization. Electronic Journal of Vedic
Studies 11 (2): 19-57.
Gardiner, Alan
1957. Egyptian grammar, being an introduction to the study of
hieroglyphs. Third edition. London: Oxford University Press,
Kharakwal, J. S., Y. S. Rawat and Toshiki Osada
2007. Kanmer: A Harappan site in Kachchh, Gujarat, India. Pp.
21-137 in: Toshiki Osada (Ed.), Linguistics, archaeology and the
human past. (Occasional paper 2.) Kyoto: Indus Project,
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature.
Konishi, Masatoshi
1987. Writing materials during the Harappan period. Pp. 213-
217 in: B.M. Pande & B.D. Chattopadhyaya (eds.), Archaeology
and History: Essays in memory of Shri A. Ghosh. Delhi: Agam
Kala Prakashan.
Lal, B.B.
2002. The Sarasvati flows on: The continuity of Indian culture.
New Delhi: Aryan Books International.
Mackay, E.J.H.
1938. Further excavations at Mohenjo-daro, I-II. Delhi:
Manager of Publications, Government of India.
Mahadevan, Iravatham
1977. The Indus script: Texts, concordance and tables.
(Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, 77.) New
Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.
Marshall, John (Ed.)
1931. Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, I-III. London:
Arthur Probsthain.
130 Airāvati
Possehl, Gregory L.
2002. The Indus Civilization: A contemporary perspective.
Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press.
Parpola, Asko
1994. Deciphering the Indus script. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
2005. Study of the Indus script. Transactions of the International
Conference of Eastern Studies 50: 28-66.
Robinson, Andrew
1995. The story of writing. London: Thames and Hudson.
2002. Lost languages: The enigma of the world‘s undeciphered
scripts. New York: McGraw Hill.
Salomon, Richard
1998. Indian epigraphy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schott, Siegfried
1951. Hieroglyphen: Untersuchungen zum Ursprung der Schrift.
(Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur [in Mainz],
Abhandlungen der Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse,
Jahrgang 1950, Nr. 24.) Mainz: Verlag der Akademie der
Wissenschaften und der Literatur.
Shivaganesha Murthy, R. S.
1996. Introduction to Manuscriptology. Delhi: Sharada
Publishing House.
Vidale, Massimo
2007. The collapse melts down: A reply to Farmer, Sproat &
Witzel. East and West 57 (1-4): 333-366.
Parpola, Asko 131
Notes
1 This paper was written for, and presented at, the workshop on ―Scripts,
non-scripts and (pseudo-)decipherment‖ organized by Richard Sproat and
Steve Farmer at the Linguistic Society of America's Linguistics Institute
on the 11th of July 2007 at Stanford University
(http://serrano.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/). It was also read as a public
lecture at the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai, on the 16th of
February 2008. I thank the organizers of both events for this opportunity
to participate in the debate on the nature of the Indus script, and am glad
to publish the paper in honour of my old friend Iravatham Mahadevan, a
great epigraphist.
2 The Indus texts are cited in this paper with their labels in the CISI (see
references).
3 From the abstracts of the Stanford workshop papers
(http://serrano.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/abstracts.html), I got the
impression that at least one of the three authors wants to back out from
their original thesis and change it into something else. While Farmer
repeats the claim that ―the so-called Indus script was not a speechencoding
or writing system in the strict linguistic sense, as has been
assumed‖, Witzel writes as if he and his colleagues had only claimed that
the Indus script does not SYSTEMATICALLY encode language in the
sense that ―Indus signs do not encode FULL phrases or sentences‖(my
emphasis, AP). Witzel also admits that ―Indus symbols... may... contain
occasional puns‖ Or maybe, when speaking of recent studies which
suggest this, he is referring to me, since these have been my very
assumptions, namely that the Indus seals hardly contain complete
sentences and that they contain puns. In any case, I am happy if Witzel
has changed his previously more radical view and now agrees with me.
When I mentioned these impressions of mine at the Stanford workshop,
Michael Witzel assured me that he was not backing out from the original
claim but continues to maintain that the Indus script does not encode
language.

Indus script does encode a language

Indus script does encode a language: New study reported in Science shows it was no mere ‘chain of symbols’

Chennai: Computation science, information theory, and machine learning have now come to the vindication of Indus Valley scholars – providing a new type of “quantitative evidence for the existence of linguistic structure in the Indus script, complementing other arguments that have been made explicitly or implicitly in favour of the linguistic hypothesis.” This quantitative evidence comes from the results of a statistical study published online recently in the journal Science ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1170391v1).

(Excerpt from http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/27/stories/2009042756902000.htm)

Who are the Indian Jews

Who Are the Indian Jews? By Lavina Melwani

India has been a home and haven for generations of Jews whose ancestors fled from persecution centuries ago. At its peak there were about 37,000 Jews living in India.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Judaism/2009/04/Who-Are-the-Indian-Jews.aspx

Ancient Christianity in India (older than Europe)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/april-24-2009/ancient-christians-in-india/2754/

Some Excerpts:

"*DE SAM LAZARO: *Long before it reached many parts of Europe, Christianitycame across the Arabian Sea to Kerala along the thriving spice trade routes.Today about seven million people, a fifth of Kerala’s population, callthemselves St. Thomas Christians after Jesus’ apostle, who many here believearrived in India in 52 A.D. Even today, parts of some liturgies are sung inSyriac, close to the Aramaic language spoken by Christ."

"Rev. *PAYYAPILLY*: We are Christians in faith, and we are Indian incitizenship, and we are Hindus in culture."

Sixth Sense for humans at MIT

Pattie Maes demos the Sixth Sense Video on TED.com
Source: www.ted.com
TED Talks This demo -- from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry -- was the buzz of TED. It's a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine "Minority Report" and then somePattie Maes demos

Sanskrit, our crowning glory (By Dr. Karan Singh)

Sanskrit : our crowning glory (By Karan Singh, December 21, 1998, Hindustan Times, India)

THERE ARE at least four good reasons why Sanskrit studies need to be encouraged in this country and given an appropriate place in our educational system.

First, as a classical language, Sanskrit is recognised as being among the most remarkable to have emerged anywhere on this planet during the entire course of human history. Its grammatical structure is so exquisite, and its sonic quality so superb, that it is universally recognised as representing a high watermark of human linguistics. It is not necessary to quote numerous Indian and foreign scholars to support this view. Providing as it does the foundation for most of the other Indian languages, it is to them what Greek and Latin together are to most Western languages.

Secondly it, represents, as it were, the great Himalayas of our cultural life, towering as a magnificent testament to the creativity and genius of the Indian mind. It is rich with unbounded treasures —the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Yoga Shastras, which represent a cultural and spiritual tradition unique in its scope, depth and vitality, expressing the collective genius and richness of Indian civilisation. It also needs to be noted that Sanskrit has been enriched by people drawn from virtually all the linguistic and regional entities in India, from the mighty Himalayas down to Kerala and from Gujarat to Assam.
Though it was never the popular lingua franca, it quite clearly provided the basis of our civilisational unity which has survived incredible holocausts and vicissitudes, and without which there could well have been a dozen countries on the sub-continent in place of one India. In fact, it would be correct to say that Sanskrit is to Indian civilisation what Roman Catholicism is to the Latin American or Islam to the Arabic civilisations. In addition, the impact of Hindu and Buddhist cultures on South and Southeast Asia took place largely through Sanskrit texts which were later adapted to the languages of those areas.

Thirdly, in literature, Sanskrit has produced outstanding figures such as Kalidasa and Banabhatt, Bharavi and Jaideva, Bhartrihari and Kalhan who can be compared to any in the world. It is a misconception that Sanskrit is concerned only with spiritual wisdom. Sanskrit texts cover the entire gamut of human activity including politics, economics, aesthetics, law, grammar, prosody, psychology, mathematics, astrology, astronomy and medicine, to name only a few. Many of these disciplines are of immense importance in our contemporary situation. The discovery of the ‘zero’, which emerged from the concept of shunya (or void), was a defining event in the growth of human knowledge. The very numerals that the world uses today, known as Arabic numerals, flowed from Sanskrit numbers. This is not to take the narrowly chauvinistic attitude that seeks to trace all major concepts back to India, but to single out the incontrovertible contributions of Sanskrit to human culture and civilisation of which we can be rightly proud.

Fourthly, Sanskrit articulates significant global values. The Vedanta, which represents the apogee of Indian philosophy, is replete with concepts that are of tremendous contemporary significance. Such seminal ideas as the all-pervasiveness of the divine, the potential divinity immanent in each human being regardless of race, religion, caste or sex, the entire human race being an extended family; all religions representing different approaches to the same universal truth; the commitment to the welfare and happiness of the masses and so on are gaining increasing significance as our planet hurtles into an indeterminate future.

These values, which are very much in harmony with the values enshrined in our Constitution, need to be fully understood and interiorised, a process in which Sanskrit has a crucial role to play. The first two stanzas of our national song Vande Mataram are in Sanskrit, as is our national motto Satyameva Jayate. In the West, Latin and Greek are still taught, not to propagate Paganism but because they represent the very basis of Western civilisation. Why should we in India deny to millions of our citizens of their cultural heritage? Sanskrit should be an optional language for those who may wish to explore its many splendoured radiance; while alternate options for studying Arabic and Persian should also be provided, as these too are rich and powerful classical languages.

First Ever Online Sanskrit Course

Fall 2009 Course on Elementary Sanskrit
For the first time on the internet

FL 295 – 005 Tuesdays, Thursdays 6.00 to 7:15 pm, 202, Poe Hall and online at: http://delta.ncsu.edu/apps/coursedetail/index.php?id=FL:295::601:FALL:2009

Topics Covered

Alphabet, Grammar, Vocabulary and more…

" Sanskrit grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any civilization."

- A. L. Basham

For more info:

Dr. Pankaj Jain
Lecturer, Dept of Foreign Language & Literatures
pankajaindia at gmail dot com
http://www.indicuniversity.org/

Sanskrit is an Indo-European classical language of the Indian sub-continent, It is also a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India.
Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and Hebrew in Abrahmic Religions. It has evolved into, as well as influenced, many modern-day languages of the world. Dating back to as early as 1500 BCE, Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.

First Online Jainism Course

New Course on Jainism and Nonviolence
For the first time on the internet

From Mahavira to Mahatma Gandhi: The Nonviolent Jain Traditions of India
Rel 298-004105 Withers Hall and online http://delta.ncsu.edu/apps/coursedetail/index.php?id=REL:298::601:FALL:2009
Wednesdays 6 – 8.50pm
Fall 2009 (Aug - Dec 2009)

Topics Covered

· Origin of Jainism
· Jain History
· Jain Theology and Practices
· Karma and Jain Philosophy
· Contemporary Jains
· Gandhi and Martin Luther King
· Nonviolence Today…

And more…

For more info:

Dr. Pankaj Jain
Lecturer, Dept of Foreign Languages and Literatures,
NC State University
pankajaindia at gmail dot com
http://www.indicuniversity.org/

Jainism is one of the oldest surviving religions that originated in India. Jains believe that every soul is divine and has the potential to achieve God-consciousness. Jainism was revived by a lineage of 24 enlightened ascetics culminating with Mahavira (600 BCE).

In the modern world, it is a small but influential religious minority with as many as five million followers in India, and successful growing immigrant communities in North America, Western Europe, the Far East, Australia and elsewhere. Historically, Jains have influenced other religious, ethical, political and economic spheres in India and beyond.

The most renowned nonviolent figure of our times Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by nonviolence and other Jain practices. Gandhi in turn inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, and several other nonviolent movements globally.

To enroll: http://delta.ncsu.edu/apps/coursedetail/index.php?id=REL:298::601:FALL:2009

PBS Documentary on India on Jan 5th

The Story of India on PBS

In this landmark six-part series for PBS and the BBC, Michael Wood will embark on a dazzling and exciting journey through today's India, "seeking in the present for clues to her past, and in the past for clues to her future".

Indian caste system and traditions linked to its politics and economy

In his yet another excellent new article, Gurcharan Das links India's caste system and Rig Veda to Indian politics and economy:

New World Order by Gurcharan Das on NYTimes

More from Indian trip...(Dec 08)

After a brief stay in Rajasthan, I went back to Mumbai and then to Nagpur, Maharashtra. Almost at every place, my thoughts kept turning optimistic and pessimistic. Almost every field where government continues to play a role, continues to suffer, most notably the civic amenities, the environment, and security. Just read a news story in Economic Times that 2008 was perhaps the best year ever for Indian sports with spectacular success in cricket, olympics, and many other sports. Wherever and whenever Indians can perform with their skill without the red-tape of the government, they have outperformed their rivals.

However, one major disappointment continues to be the environment. During the wedding ceremony that I attended, I saw unbelievable amount of wastage of food and plastic. After 12 years of stay in the USA, I naively wanted to recycle the plastic water bottles, only to be disappointed not to find even a garbage can. Sometimes, the train platforms had blue trash cans which I mistook for recylcing bins! Of course, littering continues to be a birthright of every Indian. Another birthright is to break every law while driving. Coming back to garbage generation and disposal, in 1960s and 1970s, the Western countries also had extremely polluted cities and rivers, but with tougher laws and active civic participation, they successfully cleaned their cities and rivers. Alas, India and China are making the same mistakes of early Western countries which Infosys co-founder has also noted in his latest bestselling book "Imagining India" but what he has missed is the situation with the agriculture and farmers. He criticizes Indian farmers for using outdated practices. However, I think that the traditional farming practices of India will be the future for farmers not only in India but even in the West. Soon, both the top-soil quality and even the quality of the food grains will be judged by the kind of farming practices. I visited the Ashrams of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave, at Vardha and Pavnar, both near Nagpur. At both the places, there are dozens of NGOs inspired by their visions of Agriculture as the backbone of Indian life and economy. All these NGOs use traditional farming such as organic fertilizers and prohibition of chemical fertilizers. It is these traditional Indian ideas that the West is just waking upto. In November, Bill Moyers, the anchor at the PBS, the "national" TV channel in the USA aired a major interview on the evils of Industrial farming in the USA. Sadly, I also found that the Indian big farmers elsewhere also use the similar Western agricultural practices that were adopted by Indian "green revolution". It seems like the perfect time to take the U-turn to traditional farming...

Some of us in the West wonder whether India will be able to sustain itself during this global recession. But everywhere I went in India, the first question people asked me was about the American recession and its cause. My answer was simple, one of the reasons for American recession was the "Chaarvak" habit of misusing the money taken on loan/credit/debt. Since most Indians even today spread themselves only within the bounds of their limitations, India will be able to sustain itself much better than the USA where even government has broken all past records of blowing the budget with huge debt and deficit. And nobody is talking of changing the lifestyle of the people and the government of spending within the means. On the other hand, Obama has generated optimism about USA even among Indians acknowledging that he has no magic wand.

Coming to Indian economy and its ability to match the growth of China, I think, India should NOT join the rat race of rapid growth. Instead of going for the rapid Chinese growth model, which leads to butchering of the environment and growing discontent among the farmers and other neglected sectors, India would do better to develop its own indigenous growth model which must be sustainable (based on the green technologies) and inclusive (where every part of its population shares the fruits of the economy). Of course, it is easier said than done, but wasn't Gandhiji had such a vision for India once? Unfortunately, the ecological disaster and attacks on Indian elite locations, once again highlights the mistakes India has made in its urge to imitate the West. The sooner India realizes that it must not become a mini America of the 1960s and 1970s, better for itself...

I will soon post my answers to the questions from Banswara children under the comments to the previous posting...

In India, after 2.5 years

This time I felt a real change in even a small town like Banswara which now enjoys wireless broadband internet with international quality but unfortunately Mumbai has not changed even a bit in last 20 years or so that I have been observing, same pollution, traffic, negligible security even after the attack at the CST station.

Delhi, I have heard, has very aggresively improved its environmental situation with stringent pollution control, though I have not visited Delhi recently but Mumbai still lacks the political will. It is still very chaotic politically with Shiv Sena and other equally divisive organizations. Even congress has shown little interest to deal with the infrastructure or pollution or secutiry so far....may be that is why Sheela Dixit in Delhi keeps winning by working hard to improve Delhi.

Maybe the future is in towns like Banswara. I wish India sees its future in towns and villages like Banswara, the vision Gandhiji had once. After my Bachelor's degree, when I was working in Jodhpur and Udaipur, they seemed like a distant places compared to Mumbai. Now with internet and mobile phone revolution, every "sleepy village" of India has the same access to information as the big cities and that is a huge step forward...

The Gandhian vision could not be actualized while most of the villages were poor. So maybe it can happen now. Only if the people themselves were given more power to take their destiny in their own hands like the Panchayati Raj system that Gandhi had suggested...may be the information revolution will help further...

I went to a high school here in Banswara and about 2000 kids came to interact with me in their auditorium for two hours. I was astonished to see the intellectual energy of boys and girls. They had really challenging questions about India, USA, NRIs, their career, the dominance of English, importance of studying history, etc...
This is one of the biggest change at the grass root of India: a new energy unleashed because of the information revolution. The kids challenged me with the questions about Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri! Hopefully this young empowered generation will prevent idiots from assuming too much political control - although in the US that never happened. The promise of democracy at least allows the people to kick the idiots out every 5 years.

Fortunately, the liberalized economy keeps the govenment and politicians out which was not possible 20 yrs back, unfortunately the pollution contol and the action against terrorism still needs government intervention hence no hope in the near future for India's security and pollution control: thanks to the politicians.

Also visited couple of ancient temples in Chittorgadh, amazing Shiva Lingam
with scars of the sword of Ghazani, according to the local legends...

The questions from the students of New Look High School:

1. Is brain drain good for India? Shouldn't all Indians return to India and help India?
2. What is the need of studying history which is all about old forgotten people and places?
3. What is so glorious about Indian heritage which is full of child marriage, caste problems and sati (widow burning)?
4. Aren't NRIs like Sulman Rushdie and Arundharti Roy only after their personal gains? How are they helping India when they have even left their Indian citizenship.
5. How to deal with poverty and corruption of India?
6. What and how do you teach Indian films?
7. How to deal with huge population of India? Is there any hope?
8. How to think of Indian culture when we all want to focus on our career? Our parents also have limited info about both our future and about Indian culture.
9. Why dont you come back and teach all these cultural subjects right here in India?
10. Why should English be given importance in India?
11. Aren't foreign MNCs are all about profit? Why dont they invest in Indian villages?

Muslim Ethos In Indian Cinema

Saturday, October 04, 2008 Indian Express

Muslim Ethos In Indian Cinema
—Iqbal Masud

In term of quantitative output - more than 800 films a year - the Indian cinema industry is the largest in the world. A major portion of the films constitute ‘popular’ of ‘commercial’ cinema. This term is not to be understood in any derogatory sense. Cinema is the main entertainment of the Indian masses and has been so since the 1930s. It has created archetypes, myths, icons which have dominated the Indian consciousness - and the Indian unconscious for the last 50 years. It’s a major source of collective fantasy.


There is another important aspect of Indian cinema. It caters to the needs of a population dazzlingly diverse in language, religion and culture. Today what is called the ‘regional’ cinema is as important as Hindi cinema. But Hindi cinema (with which this article will be concerned) was the primary source of themes and styles at least till the late 70s. It was in the domain of popular cinema that the diverse cultures of India met and negotiated their differences. They did not merge but they worked in harmony. In fact ‘harmony’ is the key world in India cinema. It is the one Indian cultural-industrial structure which has resisted separatism. It’s because of this element that Indian cinema has become over the past 50 years - despite its many distortions and contractions - a major instrument of national consolidation - a true unity in diversity. MIDBANNER
To this ‘unity diversity’ the Muslim ethos in India has made a notable contribution.

What is the ‘Muslim ethos’ in India? Very briefly, one can answer this question at two levels:

a) ‘Classical’ or high culture - a mix of Arabic-Perso-Turkish elements in historical work, fiction, music and painting such as in the work of poets and novelists like Ghalib, (or today Ms Qurratulain Hyder), artists like Abdur Rahman Chughtai, or the Ustads in the field of music.

b) At a popular or folk level, the work of Urdu dramatists like Aga Hashr Kashmiri used in popular theatre of the 1930s; the Nautanki Folk-theatre culture of Uttar Pradesh, compounded of mythological and folk tales rendered in song-dance and rustic revues in a mix of ornate Urdu and dialect Hindi of north India; and the rich Qawwali musical tradition, sufic in origin and retaining traces of devotional and ecstatic singing today.

As far as cinema is concerned, both these influences are important. The Muslim ethos in Indian cinema was not represented by ‘Muslim’ artists alone. A host of non-Muslims like Sohrab Modi, Guru Dutt or Shyam Benegal can well claim to be part of the ‘Muslim’ ethos of north India. There was, and is, certainly a ‘Muslim’ ethos of Bengal and South India which is equally important. But that deserves fuller treatment elsewhere.

The point is that in the popular entertainment genre par excellence - cinema - the ‘Muslim ethos’ was an important element since the 1930s - the coming of sound. It diminished after 1947 but remains an important element today. In fact the persistence of the ‘Muslim ethos’ in Indian cinema today is one of the most hopeful signs of Indian secularism. Manmohan Desai, prolific maker of film hits and part creator of the Amitabh Bachchan legend (the superstar of the 70s who signified the new angry hero culture) has said in a recorded discussion: If the Muslims don’t like a film it flops’.

One of the most important elements of the Indian film is music. A great music director, Naushad, brought both the vigour of Uttar Pradesh’s folk music and the grace of the old UP Nawab Courts to his immortal music of the 40s and 50s. The dialogue of the 30s and 40s ‘Muslim socials’ was in Persianised Urdu but even in ‘Hindi’ films today the dialogue is in Hindustani - perhaps the only place where this ‘language’ is practiced with ease and confidence.

In this matrix of music and dialogue, ‘high’ and ‘popular’ Muslim cultures come together. As late as the 60s, a film villain traps a heroine by using a disguise and quoting Ghalib: ‘Badal kar faqiron ka hum bhes ...’ Ghalib/‘Tamashai-I-abl-I-karam dekhte hain ...’ (we put on the garb of a beggar to test the generosity of the rich). The audience understood and applauded the quote.

Today this delicate irony may not be understood. But in the ’80s this last couplet of Sahir Ludhianvi sung in a film called Laxmi went to the heart of the audience: ‘Halat se ladna mushkil tha balat se rishta jod liya/ Jis raat ki koi subha nahin us raat se rishta jod liya...’. (I could not fight circumstances I compromised/I made a pact with endless night). The couplet lit up the films; it also seemed like an epitaph on Sahir.

I take these two examples to illustrate the Muslim ‘ethos’ which E.M. Forster once described as an ‘attitude towards life both exquisite and durable’. This attitude is denoted by a cultural elegance, irony, stoicism, a throw away humour, and what is called ‘grace under pressure’. Certainly such an attitude could be trivialised. But supreme artists like Dilip Kumar, Meena Kumari, Nargis and Shabana Azmi brought to this attitude a meaning and individuality of their own.



It would be appropriate at this stage to look at the Muslim ethos in a chronological fashion modified by the need to pursue specific trends back and forth across decades.

Devdas - Entry of the Laila - Majnu Myth

The first dominant note of the Muslim ethos was struck not in any specific Muslim film or by a Muslim director but in the film Devdas directed by PC Barua (1935) based on a novel by Sarat Chandra Chatterji (1917). This tale of two small town lovers torn apart by caste and class has haunted Indian cinema down the decades up to date. There are two elements in Indian cinema well analysed in another context by psychiatrists Sudhir Kakar and John M Ross in Tales of Love, Sex and Danger (OUP 1986) as the Radha-Krishna and Laila-Majnu traditions. Radha and Krishna are the divine lovers in human form in Hindu mythology, and Laila and Majnu are passionate but doomed lovers in Arabic and Persian folklore and literature.

The Radha-Krishna tradition, say the authors, is an evocation and elaboration of here-and-now passion, an attempt to catch the exciting fleeting moment of the senses, not tragic but tender and ultimately cheerful. In the Laila-Majnu tradition, love is the ‘essential desire of God; earthly love is but a preparation for the heavenly acme; the challenge to rights of older and powerful men to dispose of and control female sexuality; the utter devotion of the women lovers to the man unto death; loving in secrecy and concealment, yet without shame or guilt’.

Both the elements are fused in Devdas. The Radha-Krishna element dominates the first half; the Laila-Majnu element the second. There are two features common to both traditions. The love is not ‘spiritual’ love but sexual love raised to a spiritual plane. Secondly, to quote the 13th Century Persian mystic poet, Rumi: ‘The house of love has doors and roofs made of music, melody and poetry’. This is the distinctive contribution of the Muslim ethos to Indian cinema - the mix of Rumi’s three elements. You can go from Devdas to Barsaat in the ’40s or Pyaasa in the ’50s; Chaudvin Ka Chand in the ’60s; Pakeezah in the ’70s; Sagar (with Kamal Hasan, Dimple Kapadia, and Rishi Kapoor) in the ’80s. There is the same hunting mix of the two great religious-cultural traditions of our land.

Pukar - The Rise of the Shahenshah film

Pukar (1939) directed by Sohrab Modi with dialogues by Kamal Amrohi was the first notable ‘Muslim social film’. It was cast, no doubt in the Shahenshah (King of Kings) framework. Mughal emperor Jehangir, whose queen Noor Jehan has accidentally killed a washerman with an arrow, is faced with a demand for retributive justice by the widow. The emperor himself should be killed so that the queen be widowed.

Today Pukar looks dated and rhetorical. Yet it is important to isolate some elements which continue to surface in one form or another in the coming decades, from the 40s to the present. One was the idealisation of ‘Muslim’ rulership as one based on equal partnership with non-Muslims (even of the lesser castes) and a rough-and-ready Rule of Law. The roots of the archetype of task a ‘rough diamond’ were created - though in the film the Muslims and their ‘partners’ the Rajputs were anything but rough. The basic ideal was one of directness of approach of life.

A second element was the elegance of speech and surroundings which became a marked feature of Muslim social’ - meaning films dealing with Muslim families and social problems which will be dealt with later.

A third element was the stress laid on Hindu-Muslim ‘harmony’. Jehangir’s Prime Minister is a Rajput who fiercely guards his independence.

Another Shahenshah film was K Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (The Grand Mughal). In a sense it’s an extension of the Pukar syndrome. The legendary love of court dancer Anarkali for Prince Jehangir, the great Emperor Akbar’s son, has elements of mystical passion in it. Akbar, played with rhetorical flourish by Prithviraj Kapoor, represents the ‘needs of the State’ which triumphs over love. The film is not a ‘classical’ work but a massive cultural artefact made unforgettable by the splendiferous sets and the majestic singing of the classical maestro Bade Gulam Ali Khan.

Mehboob - The Rise of Radicalism

Filmmaker Mehboob Khan sprang from the soil of Gujarat and his early work possessed both the rawness and the strength of Mother Earth. The evocation of the cycle of seasons, the beauty of the long bullock cart caravans, the sensuality of the women and the depiction of the brutal strength both of nature and human oppression came spontaneously to him.

Mehboob made a large number of films on diverse subjects - social, romance etc. But, in my opinion, his major contribution to films rests on three films - Aurat (1940) later remade as Mother India (1957) and Roti (1942).

Aurat/Mother India, is, of course, the seminal film of India cinema. It is reckoned that Mother India runs every day in some theatre in some part of India. What accounts for its success?

There are elements in the films which go deep into the Indian psyche and touch a chord which no one has ever touched before or since. It would be simplistic to call it ‘patriotism’. It is the summoning up of an entire ambience - the ambience of the ‘lost’ India for millions of urbanites, a call to Indians from their past - not a noble past but a credible and genuine past.

Mehboob gave the archetypal ‘Mother’ myth to India cinema. She is not an a sexual but a full blooded woman and equal partner in her husband’s labours (a point acutely noted by J Geetha, research scholar, Calicut University, in a paper read at a recent Women’s Films Seminar at Bangalore). The Mother upholds the dharma which the good son follows. When the ‘bad’ son transgresses it, he is killed.

But the bad son Birju (brilliantly played by Yacub in Aurat) has another and equally important side. He does not suffer patiently the landlord’s extortionism - as the Mother and the ‘good’ son do at least to some extent Birju is not merely a ‘rebel’. He is an ‘outsider’, no respecter of rules. There is a great scene in Aurat. Birju now grown into an illiterate dacoit, raids the moneylender’s house and destroys his account books saying, ‘This is the knowledge that has destroyed us’. That insight anticipates the French philosopher, Foucault by nearly two decades. Foucault remarked how ‘power’ is built around ‘knowledge’and how those outside the charmed circle will always be oppressed. That scene in Aurat has been duplicated in hundreds of films since then. Birju speaks for those who cannot speak - the deprived millions. He is the immortal ‘black’ hero.

Mehboob’s insight in Mother India profoundly affected the style and content of popular cinema. Ganga Jamuna in the 60s, Deewar (with Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s) and Ram Lakhan in the 80s (all hit films) are but inferior variations on Aurat’s theme. To quote Geetha, the Mother’s role is ‘mutated’ in the last two films and she becomes a domestic creature. All the same the basic patterns of Mother India persist today and will do so for a long time.

Roti hammers in Mehboob’s radicalism with even greater force. It analyses the ravages of urban capitalism and contrasts it with a rather idealised tribal life. But the point regarding the dehumanisation of industrialisation with consequent loss of sensuality - even humanity - is well brought out.

Mehboob’s contribution to cinema is so vast that one cannot even begin to do justice to it. He was an untutored genius. Therefore, he saw India with a clear - even ruthless - vision. In that respect he was like the great Urdu fiction writer, Saadat Hasan Manto.

Writers, Poets, Directors

From the 40s onwards a gradual and fruitful collaboration between film writers, poets, and directors emerged in Hindi cinema. The collaboration between Sohrab Modi and Kamal Amrohi was very successful. Modi had a rhetorical, regal approach to history and Amrohi complemented this by his flowery, ornate Urdu dialogue.

A digression is necessary here about the use of language in Hindi cinema. As mentioned earlier, till 1947 even ornate and ornamental Urdu was understood by a section of the masses. Their number gradually declined. In the 1980’s the Persianised dialogue of Amrohi’s Razia Sultan was understood by very few.

All the same the language of the popular ‘Hindi’ cinema has remained robustly Hindustani. From Mother India to Pyaasa to Deewar to the recent hit Maine Pyar Kiya, the dialogue writers have drawn expertly both from Urdu and Hindi. Saleem and Javed, high power film writers, working as a pair, started in the 70s a whole new trend in dialogue in Amitabh Bachchan hits like Sholay. It was macho, it was tough, but it was the pathos of the streets, and at a basic level (stripping away the bravado) also the language of the middle class.

The contribution of cinematic ‘Hindustani’ to national integration has yet to be recognised. The problem is, popular cinema is generally condemned as ‘trash’ without serious analysis.

After Amrohi, came a band of writers, a large number of whom were Muslims and also leftist progressives. They included very different kinds of personalities like KA Abbas, Zia Sarhadi, Abrar Alvi, poets Kaifi Azmi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Jan Nisar Akhtar and many others. There were two characteristics of this group. Firstly they all came from middle class north Indian Muslim families and were steeped in both Hindi and Urdu cultures and secondly from the early 40s on they were committed leftists - some of them Party members, others active sympathisers.

The achievements of this group which disintegrated by the 70s have not been adequately assessed. As a group the writers brought genuine secularism - a feeling of active togetherness to popular cinema which in those years before TV and video held near complete sway over the collective unconscious. Let’s take a few of them. It was Zia Sarhadi’s spirited dialogue that lent the edge to Mehboob’s radicalism. KA Abbas brought the mix of revlt and romanticism which marks all of Raj Kapoor’s films from Awaara to Bobby. Abrar Alvi created the screen plays which allowed Guru Dutt to shift gradually from the high spirits of Aar Paar to the poetry of defeat of Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool. Alvi also directed Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam.

Sahir - the incomparable Sahir, who can ever forget him? His name will live as long as Hindi cinema lives. A complete master of the technique of the classical ghazal and of the film lyric of Hindi greets and bhajans he captured the whole gamut of what Mathew Arnold called ‘the pain of living and the drug of dreams’. He was a visionary and also a caustic observer. See the ‘spread’ of his art in just three songs picked up at random:

‘Yeh takhton ye tajon yeh mehlon ki duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai ...’ (This world of thrones, crowns and palaces What avails its gain?)

‘Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo janam saphal ho jaye ...’ (Embrace me, my love make life triumph)

‘Jab amar jhoom ke nachega jab dharti naghme gayegi who subah kabhi to ayegi ...’ (The sky will swing and dance, the earth swing Some day that day will come).

There is one name that is as glorious as Sahir’s in Indian cinema - the name of Guru Dutt. It was he who brought one side of the ‘eth’ - its grace, its stoicism, its lyricism, also its self-indulgence - to fine flower in Indian cinema though only one of his films Chaudvin Ka Chand dealt ostensibly with a Muslim family. It was his art, that brought fame and recognition to Alvi and Sahir. In a sense Guru Dutt was the true sangam (confluence) of Hindu and Muslim cultures in cinema.

Actors and performers

Indian cinema is a performance-based cinema. The ‘New Cinema’ in the 60s began a shift towards film as cinematic image/language, but it has not reached out to the masses or even to substantial numbers of the urban middle class. So the actors/performers continue to rule the roast. Here the Muslim contribution has been substantial: Sardar Akhtar (Mother in Aurat), Nargis (Mother in Mother India), Dilip Kumar, Suraiya, Madhubala, Waheeda Rehman, Meena Kumari, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan.

Of these, Nargis is unquestionably the greatest actress of our cinema. Her range from the sensuous girl of Aag to the mature role in Mother India is astonishing. The contribution of India’s two greatest director - Raj Kapoor and Mehboob to the shaping of her classic performances should not be forgotten. At the same time, Raj Kapoor’s work is unthinkable without Nargis as is Mother India. In sheer versatility, Dilip Kumar ranks with Nargis. Tragic hero (Andaaz, Devdas) swashbuckler (Azaad) clown (Ram Aur Shyam), none else except Raj Kapoor equals him. Even today in a character role in Kanoon Apna Apna, he brings a thorough professionalism to his performance. Waheeda Rehman broke new ground for women’s roles in Hindi cinema in Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool.

Under Guru Dutt’s sensitive guidance, she travelled from street woman to comforter to ‘A Star is Born’ role. To see her and Meena Kumari perform in Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam, to become aware of two great but different styles. Meena Kumari was the epitome of the grace of a dying culture which she lit up in a moment of final glory in Pakeezah.

Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi are the icons of New Cinema - of a new age, which demands understatement, self parody, ironic posture. Aamir and Salman Khan are icons of a still newer age - the age of post-modernism, all dazzle and glossy surface.

At a different level, comedians Johnny Walker and Mehmood are part of the legend of cinema. A clown has been a ‘must’ in Indian performance arts reaching back to Sanskritic antiquity. Walker and Mehmood brought the Modern Age to an ancient art: Walker in films like Pyaasa not only mimed a semi-inebriate but was the master of throwaway verbal humour. Mehmood had greater variety. He was a ‘body’ comedian who played - sometimes self indulgently - a variety of roles from a lumpen to a South Indian musician.

The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Social

The genre of the ‘Muslim Social’ is an important contribution to Indian cinema. The stylisation started with Pukar. Later it became less legal in films like Dard (of the 40s), Palkhi and numerous other films down to the 70s. Such films dealt with the Muslim North Indian middle class and its social problems spiced with ghazals and qawwalis. The most meaningful of them was Mehboob’s Elan (1947). This became a critique of the ghetto-like quality of certain segments of the Muslim middle class and emphasised the need for education of Muslim youth. The film had another striking feature. It gave a sympathetic portrait of a ‘Western’ wife introduced into a Muslim household. Elan was refreshingly novel here because even today a westernised woman is generally treated as a vamp in Indian cinema.

After Elan the Muslim Social declined into a sentimental, mushy affair. But it remained a popular genre. Guru Dutt made Chaudhvin Ka Chand (about the travails of lovers caught in the trap of ‘mistaken identity’ due to purdah) almost disdainfully to ‘make-up’, as he said, for the losses of Kaagaz ke Phool. But the typical Dutt obsession with frustrated passion raised the film to a notable level. vIn fact the Muslim Social charted the decline of the Muslim ashraf (the gentry) - a feature which comes through movingly despite the hackneyed trappings. In this sense Pakeezah (1971) was the ‘farewell’ film of the Muslim Social. Kamal Amrohi made this story of the tragedy of a courtesan with loving care. He got the period details right (the ashraf or landed gentry culture of Uttar Pradesh in the first half of the century) and the music and lyrics had both the nostalgia for a lost Eden and a lyricism all their own. But what really raised Pakeezah above the normal rut was Meena Kumari’s portrayal of a once gracious culture slowly disintegrating. The performance as well as the film were marvelous swan songs.

After the 70s, the Muslim Social gradually petered out because it no longer met the urgent need of harsher times.

The one film which drove home this message was MS Sathyu’s Garm Hawa released in the early 70s. Though it dealt ostensibly with the travails of a Muslim family in UP at the time of partition, it was really a reflection on the tragedy inflicted on Indian Muslims by the partition. The reflection was a product of bitter post-partition introspection. But it was touched by compassion and humanity.

From Shahenshah to Coolie

In the 70s, a new stereotype began to emerge. This was the common or garden Muslim. He would be a model of loyalty and discipline and when he died it would be with the Kalma (or Proclamation of Faith) on his lips. He no longer talked the flowery Urdu of the Shahenshah and the Nawabs but the patois of the street.

As mentioned earlier, Salim and Javed contributed to the toughening of the language. But Kader Khan as writer and Amjad Khan as the archetypal villain carried it further.

Kader Khan in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and later on in Coolie introduced a note of religious mysticism. In Muqaddar ..., Amitabh Bachchan does not play a ‘Muslim’ role but he evokes the nuances to build up the portrait of a Dervish fulfilling an exalted mission. In Coolie, he portrays a Muslim coolie who becomes a revolutionary. The old Mehboob syndrome of Muslim radicalism is reproduced in Coolie. Amitabh carries a hawk named Allah Rakha on his wrist. This is a direct reference to poet Iqbal’s hawk (Shaheen) a central symbol in his poetry. Shaheen for Iqbal represented the aspiring, soaring spirit of man as in the line. ‘Tu Shaheen hai parwaz hai kaam tera...’ (you are a hawk, your destiny is flight).

Amitabh similarly soared in that film despite its formula trappings. The emotionally charged scene of departing Hajis, the pilgrims sailing to Mecca for the major Muslim festival of Id-ul-Baqr, at Bombay docks is played with a genuine empathy which enfolds the viewer. Coolie represents the rise and integration of the Common Muslim in the working masses of the country rebelling for change.

Facing the harsh 90s

Saeed Akhtar Mirza was part of the New Movement in cinema which rose to prominence from the late 60s onwards. His work has always been marked by an ‘adversary element’, meaning a critique of the status from a radical point of view. Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan was a look at the frustrations of an idealistic youth caught in the trap of a feudal money culture, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai was a look both at the problem of class and ethnic identifications. Then followed tele-serials, the most notable being Nukkad (street corner). Here Mirza looked at the rising industrial urban culture from the worm’s point of view - the lower middle class of various communities buffeted by changes in the world above clinging to lost vestiges of dignity and meaning in life. It was one of the two or three outstanding tele-serials of the last decade. In fact, it was a cultural phenomenon.

In his Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro he examines the problems of Muslim lumpens in central Bombay. The film won the best Hindi film National Award for 1990.

What is impressive about the film is the multi-layered approach to the subject. It rises beyond its specific city and class and becomes a probing into the condition of Indian Muslims. The gradual economic and educational decline of urban Muslims is portrayed. Also the shift of the young to crime, a flight from a society which they feel rejects them. The problems of communalism, ghetto mentality, and search for an ethnic identity which does not clash with a national identity are also explored.

Salim reminds one of the French director Maurice Pialat’s film Police which deals with the problems of Algerians in Paris. Salim is a complex and reflective work which in itself is a search for identity. Indian Muslims have find a place in the increasingly metropolitan culture of India.

Salim is an extremely sensitive and intelligent attempt to depict this cultural process. It says there are no easy answers but it also opens up ways of resolving the crisis.

Muslim Contribution to Cinema - An Attempt at Harmony

To sum up: It’s a long journey from Pukar, to Salim Langde .... But it’s a splendid, coruscating one providing spectacle, beauty, wit, tragedy, high spirits - and a clear sighted introspection. It’s a rich mosaic of meaning, song and dance without which Indian cinema - in fact Indian culture - would be incomplete.

In one word the Muslim contribution to cinema is: Harmony.


In arrangement with Seminar on ‘Pluralism and Democracy in Bollywood’ organised by Teesta Setalvad



—Iqbal Masud


URL: http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=9980

Expanding Our Musical Horizons

Who doesn’t like melody? Whose heart doesn’t beat for Kishore Kumar’s yodeling? Whose ears don’t reverberate with Lata Mangeshkar’s eternal songs? Who doesn’t want to dance with Asha Bhosle’s scintillating numbers? Music is already in every heartbeat and yet in the humdrum and cacophony of hundreds of singers and thousands of albums among us, we still tend to miss the true music in its more intense and sublime melody. We seem to be content with the tip of the iceberg which floats on top of the water but that is only one tenth of the real content. Our fleeting lives just get spent listening to few repeated singers over and over again, be it Kishore Da of sixties or Udit Narayan of nineties or Sonu Nigam of 21st century. We never transcend the popular songs such as, Mere sapno ki rani (Aradhna), Papa kehte hain bada (QSQT), Mehdi laga ke rakhna (DDLJ), and of course, the recent hits from Veer Zaara, Lagaan, Chalte Chalte, Kal Ho Na Ho…..the list is endless. But, you get the point. We have virtually surrounded ourselves with popular film music and that seems to work for us. To some more ambitious folks, this boundary also encompasses few popular ghazals of Jagjit Singh, Pankaj Udhas and in rare cases some Bhajans of Anup Jalota.

To be sure, there is no need to advocate any boundary between popular and classical music. This dichotomy unnecessarily creates boundaries between melodies. Instead, all that is needed is to explore, experiment and expand our boundaries of melodies. If we have been listening mainly to Kishore Kumar, let us now try to immerse ourselves into Mohammad Rafi and see how this new musical wave refreshes us all over again. If we are already listening to Rafi Sahab, let’s get an album in which he has sung songs which are closer to a classical raga. Again, not to be frightened or overwhelmed with the word “classical”, but the idea is to expose ourselves to little different and melodious mood of music. There are actually several albums available in music stores and of course on internet websites which have collection of classical songs of several singers. As I am typing this, I have just now started playing Begum Akhtar’s album with her songs based on some classical ragas. This is the first time in my life that I am listening to her. I may not appreciate it for the first time, but as is often the case, true melody always “grows in” us. Even the Rahman music is often characterized in this fashion. We rarely appreciate Rahman music in our first attempt, but give it some time and something catches our attention and we fall in love with it. Who can forget, O Paalanhaare from Lagaan or some of his other songs? Simple reason that it “grows in” us is that his music has a background basis of some classical raga, either Hindustani or Karnatak style.

Similar is the case with several other songs which are based on classical ragas. We get overwhelmed with music which is shot at us from TV or Radio commercials but if we proactively discover true melody we will be surprised by what we have been missing all these years. A simple definition or criterion to judge true melody is that which is evergreen unlike a passing phase.

Let me refresh your memory with some such true gems of Manna Dey now. When was the last time you listened to poochho naa kaise maine rain bitaayee (Meri Surat Teri Aankhen), I assure you that this song can never become stale in your ears, again the simple reason is that it is based on Raga Ahir Bhairav. Similar is the case with another Manna Dey gem Laaga chunari main daag chhupaaoo kaise (Dil hi toh hai), this song is based on Raga Bhairavi. Both Bhairavi and Ahir Bhairav are morning ragas so as you listen to these two numbers, imagine yourself watching sun rise and you will be amazed by the power of these ragas, they actually take you to the time of dawn! While, we are on the topic of morning ragas, let me throw in another masterpiece from Lata Mangeshkar. This is a song from the film Amar Prem, Raina biti jaye shyam na aaye and is based on another pre-dawn raga called Raga Lalit. Once again, be prepared to be fascinated by the power of music and melody. And who can forget Mohe bhul gaye sanvariya in Lataji’s voice from the film Baiju Bawara. Again, reason for its eternal appeal is that it is based on Raga Bhairav. Another gem from this film in Rafi Sahab’s voice based on Raga Bhairavi is Tu gangaki mauj main jamna ka dhaara. These are just a few gems based on morning ragas.

Now, let’s see some masterpieces from afternoon raga. Khiltey Hain Gul Yaha (Sharmilee)and Panthi hoon main us path kaa (Door ka rahi) both based on Raga Bhimpalasi, sung by Kishore Kumar. And now the evening ragas. Again, while you listen to these songs, imagine watching a sunset somewhere on a small hill. How about Umraav Jaan’s ghazal sung by Ashaji in ankhonki mastike mastane hazaron hai, based on Raga Bhupali. Even if you have never heard of Mehdi Hassan’s ghazals, try these two of his most popular ones, both based on evening ragas. Ranjish hee sahi (Raga Yaman) and Duniya kisike pyaar main (Raga Bhupali). I am convinced that if you develop the taste for Mehdi Sahab’s ghazals, you may never fall back to any other singer who is not classically trained. It would be a quantum leap from a narrow well into a vast and deep ocean of music in which you will be beckoned by such great titans as Bhimsen Joshi, Pt Jasraj and so on. Obviously, this takes little investment of time and patience. But, from my own experience, I guarantee you that it is worth the effort and the returns are priceless and lifelong. It is indeed a nashaa, with traces of meditative spiritual mood.

Now, let’s move little more forward in our time of the day towards night. Two of the more popular ragas of this time of the day are Raga Malkauns and Raga Darbari. To start with, fall in love all over again with Rafi Sahab’s eternal voice in Man tarpat hari darshanko aaj (Baiju Bawara) based on Raga Malkauns. How about these Raga Darbari numbers Hangama hai kyon barpa, a Ghulam Ali ghazal and O Duniyake rakhwale (Baiju Bawara) by Rafi Sahab. Even Mukesh has sung a Raga Darbari song, Dil jalta hai to jalne de (Pahli Nazar). And who can forget mere naina saavan bhaado (Mehbooba) by Kishore Da and Lataji which was based on Raga Shivranjani, another night raga. Again, try imagining yourself in nightly mood to enjoy these songs better. As is the case with serious and true melodies, most of the songs based on ragas either have matching lyrics with the words of that time of the day or a mood matching with that of raga. Morning ragas are usually identified with intense mood of separation and of meditation. Evening ragas evoke lighter mood of love and romance. Night ragas evoke the moods of passion and heroic courage. You can find hundreds of songs and the classical ragas that they are based on at http://www.asavari.org/songs.html. Listening and appreciating music armed with the information of raga would relish both your heart and your mind.

I recently had heated debate with few friends whose argument was that a criterion for good music is simply what appeals to masses. According to them, “classical” singers do not have enough popularity or prestige. Also that, only that music is great which survives the test of “market value”. One can respond to such criticism by just stating few examples from above masterpieces. Granted that some great artists end up in a life of paucity but how can that be a judge of true music? Gangotri, the origin of Ganga, can never be compared with small streams in every village or town. A true explorer will reach the Gangotri sooner or later even though every stream is also a reflection of the same river. Idea is just to expand, explore, experiment and finally to experience yourself to different genres of music and to appreciate the entire iceberg instead of just being content with its tip afloat.

Some say, “don’t sell yourself short”; I think we can apply this to our topic. Let’s not settle for mediocre music, let’s try to explore and expand our musical horizons. And the good news is many different kinds of music are now available on several good websites. www.Raaga.com and www.MusicIndiaOnline.com are two excellent sources. I would even go one step further and say that the way T-Series liberated old film songs from the clutches of HMV with hundreds of cover version pirated tapes; internet is doing the same to rare genres of music. If not for online albums, I would have never experienced the heavenly voice of Mehdi Hassan. Now, I know why he can be called as the “Everest”, the highest point of ghazal singing. So, unlike pirated tapes, we have original music now available to us, all that is needed is little effort from our side and then we will be ready for….



Sangeet Hai Shakti Ishwar Ki, Har Swar Main Base Hain Raam

Raagi Jo Sunaye Raagini, Rogi Ko Mile Aaraam.







References:



1. Alaap, a set of 20 CDs exploring Indian Classical Music produced by Sri Aurobindo Society http://www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/saspub/sasaudvis.htm#audiocds

2. http://www.AIMArts.org

3. http://www.MusicIndiaOnline.com

4. http://www.Raaga.com

5. http://www.Asavari.org

6. http://www.MusicalNirvana.com

Did Modern Values Enrich Cultural values?

We are living in a modern society today. At least, we prefer to believe that we are! We shun anything non-modern or so called orthodox. We would like to stay in touch with the contemporary rather than the traditional, be it home furniture or our way of thinking or our way of dressing or the way we perceive spirituality. If we are modern, we practice Yoga or meditation or at least claim to do so but reject any traditional custom or ritual, which does not fit in with our accepted definition of modernity.

In this essay, let us explore what exactly is modernity and how does it affect our way of thinking. Does modernity achieve what it sets out to do? And how do Indian culture and traditions fit into this. Where do Indian traditions stop and modern values begin? The main argument presented here is that the so-called modern values were already imbibed in our culture.

What is Modernity?

Modernity can be defined as connecting to the new and the contemporary, rejecting the old. According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: the word modern was first recorded in 1585 in the sense `of present or recent times'. In Latin, modernus is derived from modo, meaning `just now'. The English word modern was not originally concerned with anything that could later be considered old-fashioned. Obviously, modernity often is used to reject old-fashioned ideas and traditions. In the cultural and social contexts, modernity is also interlinked with the values of equality, freedom, feminism and democracy. It is generally assumed that the modernity in 19th and 20th century unleashed the power of scientific and industrial progress, which led to social equality, freedom of downtrodden sections of the society, freedom to women. Democracy is also thought to be a modern concept of governance as against rulers and kings of ancient times. Modernity is also thought of as increasing the role of rationality in the public sphere and reducing the role of religion. Let us take these modern values one by one and explore them more.

Modern Values

Social Equality: One of the popular assumptions is that modernity provided equal status to downtrodden sections of the masses. Before the advent of modernity, people in the weaker sections of the society were controlled and oppressed by the landlords and the religious leaders. With modernity, all the sections of the society have equal rights. However, according to Professor Arvind Sharma, equality before law did exist in ancient India, especially in the sphere of criminal law. The Pali texts clearly allude to it, and the Nibandhas – legal digests of the twelfth century onwards – specifically eliminate unequal punishments. King Ashoka also tried to enforce it. The Nepala-Mahatmya (13.46) of the Skanhapurana also seems to recommend such egalitarianism. Moreover, even today in the 21st century, global spiritual movement Swadhyaya rooted in Indian cultural values has devised many innovative experiments and projects to ensure social equality in thousands of Indian villages. One of the novel Swadhyaya concepts is Amrutalayam, meaning house of immortality. This is similar to a village temple but its priests come from different castes of the village and every evening the entire village gathers here as a social/economical/spiritual family. Just a small example to show how social equality can be achieved by cultural values.

Democracy: Another popular assumption is that modernity gave rise to democracy, ending centuries of autocracy, and therefore governments for the masses, of the masses and by the masses were installed in many parts of the world. This gave tremendous power to the masses in choosing their own rulers and removing the ones they didn't like in the elections. But, contrary to this assumption, India in ancient times did have its own form of democracy and republics. The inscriptions on the walls of the Sundaravarada temple in Uttiramerur near Kanchipuram show how democracy was practiced 1000 years ago. History Professor Steve Muhlberger at Nipissing University has painstakingly shown several evidences of republic forms of government in ancient India. And, according to Hinduism Professor Arvind Sharma at McGill University, republicanism was as prominent a form of government as monarchy in the sixth century B.C. in India.

It is true that the Magadha empire rose at the expense of such republics, but when Alexander invaded India in the fourth century B.C., he had to fight against as many republics as kingdoms on his way to Punjab. Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra republics are attested to by Panini, the famous grammarian assigned to the fourth century B.C., if not earlier, and Alexander had to defeat both a Brahmana and a Shudra republic in the course of his conquest. Republicanism, in the form of the operation of guild-laws, common law, regional practices, etc. survived throughout, countenanced by the kings. The Rajatarangini, a historical narrative of Kashmir, informs us of cases in which the king's decisions were blocked and even reversed by the king's council. Rudradaman (c.150 C.E.) had to spend money from his privy purse to carry out repairs at Lake Sudarshana in Saurashtra because his council would not let him use public funds for the purpose. In addition, it is also often believed that modernity ended centuries of theocracy. But, at least within the Indian culture, theocracy was shunned millennia ago when Brahmans and Kshatriyas were assigned separate roles as religious and political leaders. We don't have a single incidence from Indian political history where a religious leader was made the king or vice versa.

Feminism: In the modern society, women are seen more liberated with their earning capacities and their role as career women rather than housewives or homemakers. It is believed that majority of Indian women committed sati in ancient times and widow-remarriage was not allowed. How far is this true? Most of the literature on the subject creates the impression of a general ban on widow-remarriage in Hinduism. According to the 1901 census, however, only 10 percent of the Hindu communities observed it. Professor Veena Oldenburg powerfully challenges even the usual portrayal of women being killed for dowry, which is linked with Indian culture. The British resolve to rationalize and modernize the revenue was particularly hard on women. From being co-partners in pre-colonial landholding arrangement, they found themselves denied all access to economic resources, turning them into dependents. In the event, they faced marital problems, and they were left with no legal entitlements whatsoever.

It is true that Indian society always has been a patriarchic society with males being the head of the family, but so is the case with all the other cultures -- eastern or western. But, it is the Indian culture that has the concept of Devi, goddess, which treats females also as divinely as the male gods, or Devas. Devi exists in various forms and powers. Laxmi is worshipped as the power of wealth. Shakti or Durga is worshipped as the power to be invoked in war. Saraswati is worshipped as the power of knowledge. Even the power of illusion is given a female identity in the form of Maya. Also, it is only South Asian countries that have no problem accepting women as the head of their states in the form of presidents or prime ministers. There are other dozens of social and religious female leaders in India.

Women who were given the sole responsibility to run a home are now being over-loaded to earn money also. In the modern world of judging everything by financial and materialistic rewards, are we reducing our mothers and wives also into moneymaking machines? And is that the only criteria for their freedom?

Science/Technology and Rationality: Modernity has negated the role of philosophical thinking and glorified reason-based thinking. Modernity also launched the era of science and technology with thousands of new inventions and discoveries about the outer world and the human body. This popular notion is already challenged by the scholarly work of Joseph Needham, which highlights the ancient Chinese contribution in science and technology. Similarly, many Arabic/Islamic scientific inventions are now accepted. Within India, we know that many scientific notions in the fields of Astronomy, Medicine, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Maritime and Linguistics were known to Indians thousands of years ago. There is a huge set of evidence about traditional knowledge systems as late as 18th century just before the advent of the British.

It is true that modern science has added tremendous inventions for human society but to claim that tradition or culture was non-scientific will again be misleading.

Environment protection: It is a popular notion that modernity also led to the awareness about environment protection and animal rights. However, it is also true that modernity has reduced the natural resources due to exploitation by human beings. Whereas Indian culture has the reverential concepts to worship natural powers and animals, modernity, while ridiculing such notions, claims to champion the cause of ecology. It is sad that the cultural values to regard the rivers as mothers, land as mother, cow as mother and trees as divine are ridiculed or rejected today in the name of modernity. Didn't these notions already combine eco-friendliness with popular culture?

Freedom: Modernity also is seen to be liberating dozens of nations from centuries of colonial rule. However, it can be argued that we have certainly achieved political freedom from colonial powers but how free are we intellectually and culturally from those powers? Did modernity free us or has it bounded us in new ways?

Conclusion

In this essay, we have seen that the so-called modern values were already present in ancient Indian culture. It is just that, in the medieval period of the last few centuries, they were corrupted under colonial pressures. With the advent of modernity, the same ancient cultural values are being presented to the human society in new western forms. We just need to apply our cultural contexts to them. Modernity devoid of cultural values will always be incomplete progress.

Saawariya and the great amalgam of traditions...

A great tradition is like a mighty river, different streams come to join it and in the process the tradition enriches without losing its soul. Like other ancient traditions, Indic traditions also have continued to evolve from its origins in Indus Valley, to Vedic Era, to Jain/Buddhist influence, to Islamic encounters, to modern times. In the process, it has put on new garbs and forms without losing its core values. Indian music can tell a similar story from its ancient classical ragas to medieval influences to modern medley that is sometimes seen in the Indian films and other "Indipop" music. This continuation of underlying themes in Indian music and culture with a continuous evolution of new external forms is what seems to me as one of the visible signs of a successful film and a successful music director in the Indian film industry. The Indian film music directors have continued to experiment with new instruments and rhythms since the times of C. Ramachandra, S D Barman, and O. P. Nayyar and yet some of their melodies have stood the test of times because of an essential quality that captured the Indian imagination. In the late 80s, 90s, and present times, we have had Laxmikant Pyarelal, R D Barman and now A R Rahman who have followed suit in terms of combining Western music with a healthy mix of Indian classical ragas in their songs. It is this innovative experimentation genre, that I would like to situate the films of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, especially his last two films Black and now Saawariya. Here are two films brimming with Shakespearean pathos and tragic turns. They also have other Western influences such as no songs (in Black) and Venetian city space (in the art direction of Saawariya) and yet they succeed in preserving some of the Indianness. Although Bhansali's other "masala" films such as Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdaas had elaborate sets, songs, and huge star cast, Black and Saawariya turn even the established stars into experimental roles of physically challenged such as in Black. In Saawariya, Bhansali goes one step further by picking fresh faces for his lead hero and heroine.

The success of Saawariya lies in its international appeal. The titles in the beginning of the film declare that it is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 novella (short story) White Nights. And yet, after watching the film, I felt the film was also inspired by Raj Kapoor's films. While Raj Kapoor's Anari had the mother-like figure of Ms. Disuja who is the only sympathizer of the protagonist facing all kinds of hardship, Saawariya has "Lilipop" acted by Zohra Sehgal with great elan! Several of the scenes in the film proudly display the "RK" banner in the background and even the hero works as a lead-singer in an "RK" bar! The influence of Devdaas and Muqaddar ka Sikander is apparent when the heart-broken lover seeks shelter at a dancer's residence, although he is rejected there also. The entire role of Ranbir Kapoor is heavily inspired by his own grandfather's similar roles in which the character downplays the sad and harsh realities of life by having a jubilant attitude with a simmering pathos underneath. Ranbir Kapoor is definitely one of the finest actors to have recently emerged in Hindi films. In a moment, he can show us different kinds of rasas of sadness, happiness, comedy, and others, sprinkled with a light dose of dance and song sequence! The other hallmarks of the film is its art direction. Here again, the entire film is shot as a dream sequence with dark and bright colors and huge images in the backdrop. The song picturizations are good, especially the Id Qawwali one. However, the music needed more appeal although Monty Sharma seemed to have worked hard for his debut film. The heroine Sonam Kapoor also pales in comparison with Ranbir's spirited performance. Rani Mukherjee excels in her diegetic role as a narrator and a constant companion of Ranbir throughout the film. She seems to have matured as an actress with Black and now Saawariya.

The DVD cover of this film says, "Hurrah for Bollywood" and I agree! This film is in the emerging series of Hindi films constantly knocking at the international stage starting with Lagaan. The "Bollywood" has finally arrived with a host of recent films with a global appeal. It is to this interesting mix of Western and Indian elements in this typical Bollywood film that one can look forward to in the coming years!