Folklore’s Contemporariness: Dynamics of Value Orientation in Bihu

Article Folklore’s Contemporariness: Dynamics of Value Orientation in Bihu Journal of Human Values 1–13 © 2019 Management Centre for Human Values Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/0971685819861220 journals.sagepub.com/home/jhv Dev Nath Pathak1 Moureen Kalita2 Abstract The folklore studies scholar, such as Dorson (1976, Folklore and fakelore: Essays toward the discipline of folk studies, Harvard: Harvard University Press), was emphatic about the distinction between folklore and ‘fake lore’, one being authentic and the other as invented by the popular industry; however, he paradoxically maintained interest in the contemporariness of folklore. This was a paradox since the contemporariness of folklore is largely, and usually, due to intersections of folk with popular and political. Nevertheless, the emphasis on contemporariness was a harbinger of discussion on the potential dynamics of folklore, and everything buried therein, including value orientation. This essay is guided by the observations emerging from folklore studies, socio-cultural anthropology and performance studies in order to get into a specific case of Bihu, a folk performance inclusive of songs, dance, attires and instruments inter alia in Assam, in the northeast of India. The curious case of Bihu in flux divulges dynamics of value orientation and intersections of identity politics, in the wake of the contemporariness of folklore. Keywords Bihu, national identity, value orientation, folklore One of the seven northeastern states in India, Assam encompasses numerous ethnic communities, each with its own distinct cultural folkloric distinction, and hence, negating the notion of a homogenous ‘Assamese identity’ (Choudhury, 2014, p. 61). However, a critical engagement with the Assamese folk festival, Bihu, delivers dynamic character to the otherwise rhetorical idea of heterogeneity. This essay 1 2 South Asian University, New Delhi, India. Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Corresponding author: Moureen Kalita, Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Journal of Human Values shall aim at exploring the meanings of the heterogeneity, in the wake of larger push for a homogenous identity. This shall aid in understanding the complex contemporariness of folklore in general and Bihu, an Assamese folk festival, a vehicle of folklore in Assam, in particular. The Assamese society is said to have Aryan and tribal origins (Sharma, 2006). Yet, the upper caste Hindus of the Brahmaputra Valley dominated the socio-cultural order. This situation led to ethnic identity assertion among social groups in Assam. For instance, the Bodos and Karbis in Assam are consciously involved in creating their own community identity, emphasizing the distinction of folk tradition. This complexity has a lineage to the colonial rule when the British transported labourers from different parts of India to work in their various enterprises in Assam. Along with this, also came in the Bengali-Hindu babus (trained and skilled Bengalis) from the neighbouring East Bengal to handle the administrative system in Assam. The British subsequently imposed Bengali all over Assam as the official language, putting the cultural identity of the Assamese at stake (Gogoi & Boro, 2016). As a mission to rediscover the lost identity, a few pioneering figures of Assam including Laksminath Bezbaruah along with Chandra Kumar Agarwala and Hem Chandra Goswami tried to emphasize the Assamese folklore. Laksminath Bezbaruah collected folktales from various parts of Assam and compiled them into three volumes: Burhi Aai’r Xadhu (Bezbaruah, 1950), Koka Deota aru Natilora (Bezbaruah, 1951) and Junuka (Bezbaruah, 1933). The tales in these collections underlined the distinctions of the Assamese folklore. And in the same breath, it ought to be noted that they forged a negotiation of Assamese culture and identity with the national identity. Laksminath Bezbaruah articulated inseparability of folktales and the history of a nation. There have been several attempts to compile and comment on the folklore in Assam. And likewise, many attempts to make Assamese folklore available for the popular consumptions. Among many singers and musicians who have contributed to the popularity of Assamese folklore, particularly songs, Pratima Barua Pandey and Bhupen Hazarika are prominent names. It underscores a lineage of the interface of folklore with values, identity and cultural politics, elaborated in the latter part of this essay. Suffice to say, located in the larger cultural–historical framework, a folk festival such as Bihu turns out to be a turf for larger value contestation. The folks may express lament about the contemporary unbecoming or nostalgia about the lost glory of Bihu, the festival with its folk content attracts attention at the cusp of folklore and popular culture. Thereby, it assumes a complex contemporariness that solicits a condensed contextualization visà-vis discursive framework. Hence, before we turn to Assam and Bihu headlong, we shall pay a little attention to the discursive framework in order to fathom complexity of folklore’s contemporariness. Complexity of Contemporariness in a South Asian Discursive Framework This is relevant to cruise through the hitherto prevalent intellectual approaches and understanding inherent in the discursive framework. Such a framework, with an inevitable presence of jargons, eventually enables to make a nuanced arrival at the core issue in this essay, the case of Bihu. The objective is not to merely indulge in the descriptive accumulation about Bihu but also analytical explorations leading to a critical comprehension of the phenomenon under discussion. In this regard, it is worth recounting that folklore studies in colonial South Asia offer a glimpse of archaeology of knowledge and a contestation of values. Informed by Foucauldian scheme inherent in Edward Said’s discussion on orientalism,1 this archaeology of knowledge shows the creation of folkloric ‘Orient’, evident in the documents of the missionaries, ethnologists and indologists. It gives birth to romance with traditional as well as aversion because it was deemed to be regressive. In agreement with Edward Said, Handoo suggests that the folk ‘Orient’ was seen as fixed texts (Handoo, 1999, p. 2). As a counter-argument to the pastness, exotica and monolith of folklore, Roma Chatterji (2003), in agreement with Allen Dundes, Pathak and Kalita 3 offers a novel perspective. Centralizing the sentimental-ideological mobilization of the masses, Chatterji posits that by frequent usages of folk categories in politics, ‘mythicization’ is accomplished; it means a construction of mythology-like charm and aura by employing folk idioms, motifs and content. This renders the leadership extraordinary and, in many cases, charismatic. Chatterji looks at the examples of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union to corroborate her point. The nationalistic movement in Bengal presents similar features. And one can go on adding similar phenomenon of the creation of extraordinariness for seemingly ordinary leadership in recent times in South Asia too. There is nevertheless an intrinsic ambivalence of folk culture and folklore; on the one hand, it generates legitimacy for a given regime, and on the other hand, it constructs an ideology to subvert another or the same regime.2 Furthermore, Ramanujan (1991) reflected on the problematic of archaic, authentic, original pristine in the folklore solicits a mention of Ramanujan, positing: The signifiers, whether they are images or characters or episodes; or even so called structures and archetypes, may be the same in different periods and regions, but the signification goes on changing … (Because) meaning of a sign is culturally and contextually assigned. (Ramanujan, 1991, p. xiv) Folklore, hence, possesses a transformative character of a significant kind, which can be best understood by an anecdote Ramanujan shared. A philosopher meets a village carpenter who had a beautiful antique knife. When asked by the philosopher as to how old the knife was, the carpenter says, ‘Oh! The knife has been in our family for generations. We have changed the handle a few times and the blade a few times, but it is (still) the same knife’ (Ramanujan, 1991, p. xx). Suffice to say, the study of folk expressions and performances has indeed come of age whereby it is no longer limited in terms of method, complexity of data and subtlety of interpretations. As Arjun Appadurai remarked, South Asian folkloric studies no longer occupy that strange semi periphery between the studies of folk phenomena in Europe and America on one hand and of native performances and practices in allegedly untouched small scale societies on the other… [t]here is a great deal of evidence to show that indigenous traditions have always been plastic and pluriform, that certain forms and texts were standardized over large spaces and long periods, and that individual ‘signatures’ and prestige are not wholly a product of the new mechanical age. (Appadurai, 1991, pp. 467–473) Folklore studies thus took a turn to the contexts of performance, broadening the framework in which not only ‘verbal art’ but also non-verbal aspects of performance assumed intellectual significance. Dundes therefore drew a long list of what can be called ‘lore’ including, ‘myth, legend, folktale, joke, proverb, riddle, superstition, charm, blessing, curse, oath, insult, retort, taunt, tease, tongue-twister, greeting or leave-taking formula, folk speech (e.g. slang), folk etymologies, folk similes (e.g. as white as snow), folk metaphors (e.g. jump from the frying pan into the fire), names (e.g. nick names or place names), folk poetry….epitaphs, latrinalia (graffiti)…practical jokes (or pranks), and gestures…the comments made after body emissions (e.g. after burps or sneezes), and sounds made to summon or command animals’. (Dundes, 1966, p. 238) The coming of age of folklore studies entails not only a recognition of diverse subject matter but also an acceptance of the folk in literate as well as non-literate society, the relation between the oral and the written, printed, or recorded, individual and communal authorship, survival as well as revival. In the contemporary condition, there is polyphony of folklore. It is aptly summed up as ‘folklore is everything’ (Bendix & Hasan-Rokem, 2012), and hence, it is seldom surprising that we have started exploring folk motifs in the modern cultural forms of expressions such as cinema, drama, music, and literature (Dalmia, 2012). 4 Journal of Human Values Informed by this discursive context, this essay shall unearth the details of the folk festival, Bihu, at the interface of folk and popular, cultural and political and so on. It would be evident that Assamese folklore sits well in the discursive framework on the complexity of contemporariness. Before the essay attends to the details of Bihu, it takes a look at the folklore as an assertive site of national values in the following section. This is an appendage to the discursive context drawn above and necessary since Bihu resonates a contested turf of national values and identity issue. Folklore in the Service of National Values Folklore has invariably been employed for the service of modern nation. The perpetuation of national values, qua enculturation of communities, ethnic groups and so on could be accomplished thereby. Nations are not thus mere abstract creation of power and the state; but it is an entity experienced and reproduced by people and their practices (Martinez, 2002, p. 257). Throughout the world, folklore has emerged as a symbol crystallizing the national identity. The cultural nationalists heavily depend on folk genres utilizing them as vehicles of nationalist and regionalist sentiments (Levin & Bohlman, 2015). Elsewhere, Bharucha aptly exemplified it by showing that it is not only a way in which a particular community sees itself but also how they view other communities (Bharucha, 2003, p. 33). The exclusion and inclusion in the national scheme of folklore tend to appear innocuous. Adding to the dynamics of nation building, Susan Reed (2002) underlined that relationships between the nation states and subaltern groups have become a cynosure for understanding the experiential meanings of nationalism in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focusing on the Berava community of Sri Lanka, Reed discussed the transformation of folk Kandyan Dance from low-caste Berava performance to one of the iconic expressions of Sinhala national identity. Traditionally, the performance served the community its ritual status; now, it brings them into the fold of Sinhala Nationalism. A similar stance has been taken by Syed Jamil Ahmed (2003), who discussed contemporary theatre in Bangladesh by explicating the ways in which the narration of the nation is entangled in contesting identities; it aids in understanding the ways in which it maintains, modifies or overturns the social order through performances as well as the subaltern resistance to the hegemony of the state. Processes of identity formation go way back to the roots of one’s particular culture. It can be exemplified by taking into account the Nepalese residing in India. Sewa argues that folklore shapes the perspectives, morals as well as values of this diasporic community. These folklores … surmount the otherwise differentiating factors of spatial distances between the groups of settlements by clearly etching and reinforcing their sense of sameness and identity , despite and beyond superficial differences due to variables of geographical, social and political factors. (Sewa, 2013, p. 211) Likewise, Dalmia (2012) hinted the dimensions of folklore as a window to the evolution of theatre in modern India. It was vivid in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore and Dineshchandra Sen. However, it was with Gurusaday Dutt that the ‘roots’ assumed spectacular forms, performed in public. Taking a jump cut, it is curious to note that in post-independence India, there were state-driven attempts to redress the threat of secessionist movements by fostering regional artistic expression by the way of political representation (Levin & Bohlman, 2015, p. 322). The roots were envisaged as props in the service of nation building, as it were. Hence, the cultural history of South Asia on the whole can be deemed as performative construction.3 This brief account enables us to underline the negotiation of regional and national values and contestation in the historical accounts on Assam. The various instances of interlinkages of value and Pathak and Kalita 5 folklore in South Asia help in contextualizing folklore in Assam. And informed by this, we turn to the specific case of Bihu. Bihu: A Value-Loaded Folk Festival The note at the outset of the essay suggested of the Assamese cultural heterogeneity. The ethnic diversity of Assam, nonetheless, has been subject to manifold assimilation; and, simultaneously, it ought to be noted, there have been instances of resistance. The interplay of homogeneity and heterogeneity, contestation of authenticity claims and values shall assume central significance in this section. And in ultimate analysis, this would lead us to take note of the location of Bihu in the discursive framework drawn above. Uniquely located in the framework of folklore, there are festivals, which perpetuate socio-religious and cultural notions. According to Goswami (1995), most pan-Indian festivals observed by people in Assam are religious in nature, function and setting; the manner in which they are celebrated serves religious sentiments (Barua, 2009, p. 213). However, the folk festival Bihu, neither pan-Indian in character nor observed with any explicit religious objective, assumes centrality in the Assamese cultural calendar. The folkloric constitution of Bihu connects it with the agricultural cycle, emphasizing the rituals and customs associated with agricultural prosperity, protection of crops and the transition of seasons. This is a ubiquitous feature of folklore across India, with folk songs associated with changing season as well as agricultural calendar of peasants.4 However, in the context of Assam, agricultural calendar marks Bihu as a special occasion celebrated with songs, dance and variety of cultural props. Folk aesthetics dominate the celebration of Bihu, which marks its beginning in the Assamese New Year with Bohag/Rongali Bihu (Spring Bihu), held in April (the month of Bohag in the Assamese calendar). There are two other occasions of Bihu that creates a complete annual cycle of this festival (Barua, 2009). Kati/Kongali Bihu is celebrated in the Assamese month of Kati (the period from midOctober to early November). It marks the completion of sowing and the plantation of paddy (Dutta, 2008, p. 16). Marked by austere celebration, it is characterized by the lighting of earthen lamps in the paddy fields and courtyards of homes as obeisance to the divine power for good harvest and the protection of crops. The third one known as Magh/Bhogali Bihu, held about mid-January, marks the successful harvesting of crops. Although primarily identified with the dominant, ‘Sanskritized’ Assamese society (qua literate cultural elites), parallel forms of Bihu are also found among the various ethnic communities living in Assam such as Bodos, Rabha, Mishings and Lalungs (Barua, 2009, pp. 213–214). Of the three types of Bihu, the Bohag Bihu and Magh Bihu consist of merriness, celebration and consumption of distinctive food items; food indeed acquires larger significance, as a metaphor for success, happiness and prosperity (Dutta, 2008, p. 16). Kati Bihu is however of little festive significance; and, hence, there are instances of sporadic celebrations, if any at all. In this section of the essay, the focus will primarily be on Bohag/Rongali Bihu, which is accompanied by the most pompous celebration amongst the people. Through this, an effort will be made to explicate the folklore, value orientations, customs and traditions as well the rapid political and cultural transformation of this festival. Most explanations of the origins of Bihu have stemmed from etymological investigations. Goswami (1996) locates the origin to the sacred Hindu texts, Atharva Veda (900 BCE) and the Aitareya Brahmana (c.600 BCE). The Sanskrit word Bisuvan in these texts refers to a day on which a fire sacrifice was performed in the hope of obtaining a better crop. This etymological line is concerned about the root of the present-day word Bihu and the festival’s attendant customs (Barua, 2009, p. 214). However, other texts, such as the Visnu Purana (c.400 CE), state that a festival called Bisuva took place between winter and spring when the sun changed its position from one particular sign of the zodiac to the other. 6 Journal of Human Values The Sanskritized conception of the roots, the origin of Bihu, may enamour literate masses. But there are several local myths, folktales associated with the festival that prevail upon the popular conscience. The most fascinating one associated with Bohag Bihu is the myth of Bordoisila. Bordoisila is believed to be the primeval daughter of Assam and is married to a groom from a distant land. She visits her maternal home once every year during spring. The folk legend narrates the impatience of the resplendent daughter to meet her mother. And in the hurly burly, she destroys everything that she comes across on her path. Interpretatively, the destructive hurry of the visiting daughter is metaphor to suggest the wild wind that eventually brings in the monsoon (the spell of rain). Though the narrative appears in different versions in different parts of Assam, Bordoisila is believed to have brought with her Bohag, the spring season for the commencement of a carnival (Bohag Bihu, 2017). There is also mythological folktale about the performative aspect of Bihu (Goswami, 1983). This entails an old Hindu myth narrating the story of Brahma and his incestuous relationship with his daughter. This tale is elaborately found among Sonowal Kacharis of Lakhimpur, located in the Eastern part of Assam, linking it with the origin of the institution named ‘Husori’, a variety of carol singing in the Spring Bihu. As the story goes, God Brahma set his eyes on his beautiful daughter for incest. Dharma, the king of death while weighing his scale of justice found the girl guilty and drove her out of heaven to earth. When spring came, there was an excitement of new life all over and the Gods remembered the girl who was pining away in misery. So they went to Vishnu and, on his advice, went to Bathou or Mahadev. Bathou gave them lessons in Husori dance and music. The Gods then went to each divine household and danced and sang thus collecting various articles. This helped in rehabilitating Brahma’s daughter who again got back her youthfulness and sense of joy. She started dancing while the Gods accompanied her on their instruments. Her bewitching dance softened the heart of King Dharma and she was taken back to heaven but the dance and music remained on earth which was performed every spring when the trees changed their leaves. (Goswami, 1983, p. 3) The narrative emphasizes the motif of sexual attraction, misery and redemption through performance. The divine act of redeeming, in sync with the arrival of spring, indeed serves the folklore of Bihu. This invariably gets interlinked with the peasant cultural context, primeval inclination to magical rites and rituals to appease the elementary forms of religious icons, including the five elements of life—earth/soil, forest, water, air and sky. Through such rites, they wished to attain longer days, continuation of summer and get rid of winters (Choudhury, 2014, p. 62). However, some of the explanation on Bihu also intersects with historical encounters. There is a conjecture that Bihu might have arrived in Assam with the Mongoloid people who migrated from Southeast Asia to this region (Choudhury, 2014; Goswami, 1983). Besides, spring is an occasion of festivals in other parts of the world too particularly with the motif of cultural–sexual intermingling. As a panorama of folk songs, Bihu makes persistent references to the season, spring, and many emotivecultural notions. The sonic surrounding created by these songs elucidates emotions and values with lived cultural experiences of people (Barua, 2009, p. 215). They underline love and courtship, emphasizing the value of freedom to romance. Indeed, usages of the varieties of flowers and wild orchids of the seasons like Nahor (Mesua ferra), Kopouphul (Rhynchostylis retusa) and Togorphul (Tabernaemontana divaricata) aid in the process. Furthermore, the songs elucidate larger cultural ecology, alluding to various plants, people’s daily lives and activities and their experiences of the environment, culture and history. In a way, it reflects different values encoded in the songs, duly performed with dance. As one Bihu song echoes, Eibeli bihuti ramoke jomoke; Nahor phul phulibor botor Nahor phular gondhe pai lahorir tatae nai; Gosokot bhangi jai zotor… Pathak and Kalita 7 Bihu is colourful this year It’s the season of the blooming Nahor flowers The scent of flowers is making my beloved so restless That she steps on the spinning wheel (Zotor) and breaks it… The song vividly merges emotion and environment, culture and nature, underlining the blooming of Nahor, a particular flower. The protagonist, a young lover, anticipates the restlessness of his beloved induced by the scent of the Nahor flowers. The strength of longing for the beloved eventuates into the breaking of spinning wheel, Zotor, a symbol of workmanship and production. This gets even more pronounced in Bohag Bihu. It entails the worshipping of cattle on the day of Goru Bihu (the day of the cattle), carried out on the Sankranti (the cusp between the months of Sot and Bohag), an important date of ritual bathing and tending to the cattle. This is supposedly a vestigial remain of a once vigorous practice of cattle worship (Barua, 2009). Moreover, in the larger panorama of Bihu, dance accompanies the songs, centralizing body. This further enriches the celebration of the life force, eros, venerating body as an object of beauty and celebration. A number of songs discuss the woman’s body, gaiety and abundance. Songs of Bihu also underscored revelling in desire, the essence of rural-agricultural societies, ungoverned by the dictates of cultural elite’s morals (Choudhury, 2014, p. 66). As this Bihu song goes, Haah hoi porimgoi tumar’e pukhurit Paaro hoi porimgoi saal’ot Ghaam hoi xumam goi tumarei xorir’ot Maakhi hoi suma dim gaal’ot… I will transfigure into a duck and swim in your pond I will also transfigure as a pigeon I will enter your body as sweat I will transfigure into a fly and place a kiss on your cheek… The song presents a telling case of amorous desire between a lover and the loved. The host of imageries in such songs, usually deemed ‘obscene’ in the new value orientation, emphasizes the socio-cultural significance of art-erotica. It places values of love, emotion and eroticism on the plane of folk significance. However, the overt expression of sexual desires, as Dutta (2008) points out, scandalized the Assamese elites under the influence of colonial and western paradigms in the Assamese society. This confrontation was evident in social history during this period, when Bihu songs and dances were disparaged for having sexual overtones, as lurid and immoral (Dutta, 2008, p. 16). The value of freedom about expressing sexual desire thus meets with yet another kind of value of regulated expressions. But with the rise of cultural nationalism during freedom struggle, the significance of Bihu was re-emphasized as a national festival of the state. The contributions of eminent public figures like Lakshminath Bezbaruah and Rajanikanta Bardoloi in this regard must be taken into account. Radha Gobinda Baruah, in the early 1950s, is credited for bringing Bihu to Guwahati (arguably, the first public celebration in Guwahati). Then on, Bohag/Rongali Bihu began to appear on various stages of urban and semi-urban locales in Assam. Consequently, the Bihu performances—for instance, Mukoli Bihu (open space Bihu) and Jeng Bihu (a Bihu dance performed only by women), popular earlier in the village settings—have faded away in the wake of the competition among artists to perform Bihu forms on stage (Bora, n.d.). It also entailed the toning down of the sexual overtness in these songs and dances; they are mostly polished in sync with the sexual-moral ethos of the society. With the increase in stage performances of Bihu and its commercialization, the festival has undergone complex changes in form and content. Many lament a loss 8 Journal of Human Values of its traditional essence, romance and fertility. These transformations also bring about a curious case of values emerging from the domain of folklore. Value Contestation: Authentic and Invented In the wake of rapid urbanization, coming in contact with commerce of culture, Bihu has transformed from a prerogative of folk to the occasion of mass consumption. More in the form of spectacle, not only in Assam but also in the national and international context, Bihu unfolds scripted, polished and wellrehearsed performances meant for the target audience-cum-consumers of culture. This entails manifold repackaging and reinventions of a folk festival. For instance, the songs and dance were exclusively performed by the agriculturalist rural society under a fig or mango tree. It somewhat moved to exclusive domain of the privileged elites, as Ahom5 King Rudra Singha brought it to the courtyard of Rang Ghar6 (Das, 2017). And in that continuum, it can be posited that Bihu has been shifted to the splendid stage in urban as well as semi-urban context. It gradually traversed the path of becoming a performance for audience, maintaining a divide between the performer and the audience, which was not the case when the performers and audience were the same. The transference of the Bihu performance from the agricultural landscape onto the urban stage is motivated by the need to make this festival accessible to the urban audiences whose social life may not be fully determined by the agricultural calendar but whose cultural heritage bears links to the farm-based folk practices of Assam (Sharma, 2013, p. 195). With the change of society and interventions of market economy, the festival-of-people became merely a festival-for-people in which decontextualized and misappropriated songs and dance was attraction. It is no longer the low-key affair of Bohag Bihu celebrated by a few; it instead has turned into a wholesome celebration accepted by different ethnic groups, tribes and communities in Assam (Choudhury, 2017) into a new symbol of Assamese identity (Das, 2017). And thereby Bihu, which was a folk domain of value orientation in ethnic communities, socializing them into the virtues of emotional relation with nature and culture, comes to become a site of the assertion of a universal-singular Assamese identity. Needless to say, the unification and singularity of identification have its own value appeal, as it were. However, in the larger trajectory, it is a replacement of a more complex domain of folklore-based value orientation. Elucidating this, Sharma (2017) argues that Bihu has been used as a symbol for the creation of national unity and collective consciousness of the people of the region. Starting with the Ahom rulers such as Rudra Singha, who used it as a means to bring together ethnic groups. The nationalist movement and the social reforms in Assam also used Bihu as a symbol to create an identity different from that of the Western colonizers as well as the hegemonic Indian culture. It was in 1952, with the staged performances of Bihu songs and dances in Latasil playground, Guwahati, that the festival began to get popularized and reckoned as the national festival of the Assamese community. The national recognition of the festival added a new spin to the assertion of Assamese identity. The co-option of the diverse ethnic value systems into a singular value system of Assamese identity, eventually becoming a subsidiary in the larger nationalcultural map of India, sealed the fate of the folk festival. Bringing folk arts, songs and dances included in the public domain entails many changes. Sharma (2017) elaborates on the manifestation of the changes in the way it is performed as well as through the values it embraces. Bihu performances became attractively standardized in terms of looks, stylistic presentations and usages of idioms inter alia. And most importantly, the songs and dances were adequately sanitized in order to be ‘suitable’ for ‘women of good households’. A clinical dissociation from erstwhile association with the emotional-sexual aspirations was vivid. Moreover, it had women coming to the stage to perform, which was not allowed traditionally. While this liberating aspect is evident, there are Pathak and Kalita 9 perpetual instances of selective appropriation and reinvention to safeguard the Assamese culture and identity. Sharma however balances his observation, Bihu as a cultural symbol has been used as the marker of the identity of the community time and again, very strategically in an ad hoc manner. While the idea of ‘Assamese culture’ lies at the centre, debates around its preservation and internationalization take place at several levels. While there are attempts to preserve the culture in its ‘traditional’ form, there is the attempt to give it a ‘modern and international’ feel by fusing it with other genres of performative art. Rather than existing in a binary, it exists in a continuum. (Sharma, 2017, p. 187) There have been attempts to safeguard Bihu by the state, non-state agencies as well as various student organizations. They have organized performances, claiming to be more traditional. It also entailed codification of attires, standards of ornamentation and beauty and various other things in order to sustain the claim of traditional Bihu. But, as it were, any response to invented tradition leads to yet another invention. Hence, all such endeavours to create pristine–traditional–authentic Bihu have led to further contestations on cultural–political trope. The various ethnic communities of Assam allege an act of erasure entailed in the reinvented authenticity claim because their attires, songs and dance do not figure in the so-called authentic Bihu. Instead, the ethnic diversity of Bihu is marginalized as tribal Bihu. This led some of the marginalized groups to gain acceptance by adhering to the hegemonic standards; for example, Bihu by the Tiwa community was dramatically modified in its form, attires, styles and idioms to get accepted in the mainstream. However, later, various ethnic groups including the Tiwas, Bodos and Mishings also asserted their rights to recognition. Consequently, the cultural elites posited the idea of ‘BorAxom’ or Pan Assam, inclusive of diverse ethnic groups. According to Sharma (2017), the idea of BorAxom was taken up by the student organizations like All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) at the time of Assam Andolan (1979– 1985), a student-led agitation against the Bangladeshi immigration. They used Bihu as a way to show the Government the unity of Assamese people. A similar account of unification of the Assamese society can be witnessed in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 in Guwahati. Setting all their political differences aside, BJP’s Queen Ojha and Congress’ Babita Sarma celebrated Rongali Bihu together. It was once again to reaffirm, despite politico-ideological difference, unified ethnicity qua Assamese identity (Prag News, 2019). The cultural politics of Bihu has shifted from that of an agro-civil society to a performative spectacle of contemporary Assam. Various political parties and Government bodies use Bihu as a symbolic key to the electoral gains. Before an election, it is likely to have political parties sponsoring a gala feast and provide other materials during the festival (Rahman, 2013). In order to bring in an atmosphere of belongingness, various student organizations like All Assam Student’s Union and student bodies in various parts of India All Assamese Student’s Association, which is an association formed by a section of Assamese students living in Delhi inter alia organize various Bihu (G Plus Guwahati’s own English Weekly, 2018; Staff Reporter, 2013). The contemporary nature and scope of Bihu receive more performative complexity if one acknowledges the intersection with mass media and culture industry. A popular category of Bihuxuria geet (Assamese songs with Bihu tunes) has been made accessible through video compact discs, cassettes and feature films on Bihu and also on various YouTube channels.7 The transformation of Bihu into a cultural commodity comes through these mediations. Amidst such transformation, various professional artists have taken to perform in front of live audience, and their popularity has taken Bihu along with them to larger platforms, national as well as international. Popular singers like Zubeen and Papon among others have used these songs, transforming what was erstwhile folklore of agricultural community (Radio Mirchi, 2017), taking them to the performative space such as television programmes and Coke Studio (Coke Studio India, 2011a, 2011b). Thus, Bihu has entered the realm of entertainment industry in fulsome. Phukan (2018) laments, 10 Journal of Human Values The performances, tailored now for the stage, are meticulously choreographed, often by professionals. They do look lovely, the nasonis (female dancers), as they bend and swirl, grace personified, and create complex patterns on the stage. And the intensive rehearsals that each troupe undertakes around the year in preparation for these stage shows are a far cry from the spontaneous assemblage in rural surroundings that are at the root of these dances. Not better not worse, but certainly different. So different that as things stand today, the two can be hardly called the same genre. (Phukan, 2018) There are also various workshops organized in different parts of the state where the ‘correct’ way to dance or play the dhol (a double-headed drum) in Bihu performance are taught (Saha, 2018). This is necessitated by the fierce competitions on various platforms of performance. The Bihu Kuori (The Princess of Bihu) and Bihu Rani (The Queen of Bihu) are the titles endowed in these competitive performances. Beyond good, bad and evil, pertaining to lament and celebration, Bihu has become a site of evidence for the changed value orientation. The authenticity claims are many and competing. From the more innocuous attempt of transforming Bihu into popular performance, such as Khagen Mahanta’s renditions with traditional instruments like dhol, taal (a pair of clash cymbals) and the pepa (a musical instrument usually made with the horn of a buffalo), to the contemporary versions, there are various spells of commerce of culture. Bihu may have lost, borrowing a term from Benjamin (1936), its aura of originality. There may be a liturgy of lament on the loss and concerted demarcation between ‘pure’ (authentic) and ‘polluted’ (allegedly, relatively, less authentic) Bihu among the Assamese elites. But there are perpetual attempts to construct new auras and novel authenticity claims, giving rise to the age of polyphonic Bihu. And, in implication, it brings about the plurivocal value orientation, hinged on the idea of authentic identity. Conclusion Against the monolithic understanding of static folklore, Bihu presents a curious case of an orchestra of changing value orientation. It is however haunted by the intersections of various kinds, including state and culture industry. Taking note of the liturgy of lament on the changes, this essay has gone beyond the fixed frameworks of comprehension, informed by the discursive framework about the complex contemporariness of folklore. It underlines national–political value superseding the values of an environmentally connected agriculturalist society. It also emphasizes the reduction of expressions of emotive-erotic contents in the songs in the wake of the cultural elitism qua unification of identity prevailing upon the folklore. In the midst, there is a realm of cultural enchantment that binds, no matter for good or bad, diverse ethnic groups. Of course, this is at the price of diversity and people’s worldview in which Bihu unfolded. But the politics of authenticity has a silver lining, even though the commentators perceive a grey horizon. This is about the polyphonic politics of authenticity. Despite the acts of erasures in collective socio-cultural history, diverse ethnic groups articulate their restlessness about the singularity of authenticity claims. Hence, it is safe to conclude that Bihu has multiplied in versions, and with that diversity of identity, politics survive despite the national values binding them into the singularity of Assamese identity. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Pathak and Kalita 11 Funding The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Notes 1. For more along this line, see Said (1978, 2016). This also informed an exploration of Maithili folklore elsewhere in Pathak (2018). 2 Elsewhere, Chatterji (2012) discussed the perpetuity of folklore in the wake of hybridity of cultural forms. The Chho dance of Purulia and the contemporary pata-painting in Medinapur are instances of continuity of the folk and their lore in the age of the mechanical reproduction of artwork. 3. Elsewhere, this is discussed in detail showing the interface of traditional and modern, local and global, in the cultural politics of South Asia, see Pathak (2017). 4 Pathak’s (2018) reading of Maithili folksongs, for example, which underlines the folkloric construction of a curious cosmogony. 5 The Ahom dynasty (1228–1826) ruled the Ahom kingdom in present day Assam, India for 600 years. The rule of this dynasty ended with the Burmese invasion of Assam and the subsequent annexation by the British East India Company following the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826. 6. Rang Ghar is a two-storied royal pavilion of Ahom kings with unique architectural features. It was constructed by the Ahoms in 1745 A.D. for the purpose of sports, animal fights etc. 7. 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