Folk Music in Darjeeling & the Eastern Himalayas

Folk music in Darjeeling and the Eastern Himalayas is intrinsically intertwined with the history, geography and socio-economic realities of the region. Inhabited by a diverse range of social groups and ethnicities, the region of North Bengal and Sikkim is a melting pot of culture and traditions. This is reflected in the music produced by different groups of people like the Gorkhas, Lepchas, Tibetans, Bhutias, Adivasis and a number of tribes that call Darjeeling their home. Added to this, Darjeeling’s historical interactions with the neighbouring kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan and its brush with 18th-century European colonialism triggered a series of migrations that had an enormous impact on welding together these diverse groups of people and resulted in a number of music traditions that liberally borrowed from and lent to one another. This was further accentuated by the emergence of Darjeeling as a tourist destination which attracted musical talents and traditions from adjoining areas.

Ethnic Chords is particularly interested in exploring and understanding folk music traditions, delineating their relationship with history, geography, society and economy and supporting their preservation whenever possible, wherever necessary. Distinct temporal and spatial flavours of folk music are often created by the material realities in which it is produced, which in turn is shaped by historical forces that act upon individuals, communities, nations and indeed, the world at large. Much of Darjeeling's history has been shaped by the forces of the 19th-century global political economy, the impact of which eventually placed it on the map of the global tea industry and shaped it into the tourist destination that it is today. Needless to say, Darjeeling’s historical brush with global capitalism has largely ended up shaping its present as well.  

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Darjeeling has been a melting pot of different folk music traditions from adjoining regions. Because music, like other art forms, exists in the dynamics between the individual and the society and because the art forms of society are moulded by the sociological experience,  music in Darjeeling - both folk and popular - is reflective of the ethnically diverse society that exists in this part of the Eastern Himalayas. More than 25 ethnic groups live in and around the relatively small area of Darjeeling Hills, a factor that has contributed in good measure to the vibrant inter-cultural exchanges among diverse groups of people. This diversity has been brought into close contact by history, geography and the economic structure that came into existence as a result of the former two factors. Historically, the story of Darjeeling is intertwined with the history of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Bengal and Great Britain. Initially a part of the state of Sikkim, Darjeeling became a section of an important buffer state between Nepal and Bhutan. While the 1816 Treaty of Sugauli led to Nepal ceding its erstwhile captured foreign territories (which included the Darjeeling hills), the 1835 Deed of Grant resulted in Sikkim giving the territories of Darjeeling and its nearby regions to the British. The British, using the area as a sanitorium, found that the climate provided excellent tea-cultivating conditions and soon began to grow tea on the hills of Darjeeling. A series of migrations both before and after the British occupation of Darjeeling led to the mixed heritage that Darjeeling has now come to embrace. 

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The syncretic culture of the place, coupled with liberal exchanges between folk music traditions of different ethnic communities has resulted in heterogeneous folk music traditions in the region. It isn't surprising to see that parts of Dheusi tradition in Darjeeling have incorporated elements of Tamang Selo or the fact that musical instruments of specific tribal groups have established an enviable position in the entirety of Nepali folk music. One might even argue that the myth of a homogenous music tradition is challenged by the various musical traditions of the North Eastern Himalayas.  

The evolution of folk music is reflected in the development and evolution of different musical traditions that exist in the Darjeeling hills. Here, we take the example of Gandharbas who are often seen singing to the tune of the Sarangi. The impact of geography on musical forms is best reflected in the content and themes of folk singers. A case in point is the Gandharba,  a community of wandering minstrels who played an important role as communicators spreading news between far-flung hilly terrains of the Himalayan belt. Musicians belonging to the Gandharba (Gaine)  community flock to Darjeeling from neighbouring Nepal, brilliantly timed to catch the summer stream of tourists who visit Darjeeling to beat the summer heat, ever since the British established it as a sanatorium while corroborating their rule in India. Darjeeling’s evolution as a tourist destination has shaped the nature of musical forms insofar as their relationship with market economy is concerned. Originally,  the Gandharbas related news of incidents of battles, romances and happenings of different regions. The content of their songs also comprised adulations for their patrons - kings and chieftains of the region where they lived. This underwent a major change with the British occupation of Darjeeling, especially amongst the Gandharbas of Darjeeling. Further, the post-independence expansion of Bollywood significantly changed the character of the songs that the Gandharbas sang.  Additionally,  the change in the patronage system -  from that of regional rulers /  chieftains to that of the masses (tourists in this case) caused a shift in the theme of their songs as well. This can be particularly witnessed in the songs of Gandharbas who work and perform in Darjeeling and other such tourist areas.  

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With the turn of the 21st century, the world underwent a paradigm shift in terms of technological growth,  especially in the field of media and telecommunications. While the world had turned digital, the lived realities of the folk singers remained hopelessly analogue. Despite belonging to groups that rank very low in the social hierarchy, Gaine and other folk artists have managed to survive by adapting to the changing times. However, the adaptation of the marginalised communities of folk singers is hardly able to keep pace with the rate of unprecedented change that they are faced with. Folk music in rural areas of the developing world still struggles with several difficulties like the ravages of seasonal employment and strenuous economic pressures under which folk musicians play their instruments. Furthermore,  the rapid pace at which technology has advanced, and the corresponding and concomitant rapidity with which folk artists like Gandharbas are being left behind owing to the yawning digital divide that exists between them and the rest of the world has further marginalised their condition. Therefore, much remains to be done to bring them under the formal economy so as to ensure their socio-economic well being as well as acknowledge the cultural richness that they bring to the society at large. Interactions with the two Gandharba singers during the process of creating Ethnic Chords brought to light the urgent need to include them in the formal economy as Gandharbas traditionally come from some of the most marginalised castes in South Asia’s caste hierarchy. One of the singers with whom this researcher interacted expressed the need to be recognized as a “service provider instead of a street singer” and urged people to recognize his service as a profession,  and a respectable one at that.

The nature of a cultural superstructure is shaped by and in turn, has some effect on the nature of the economic base and a change in one often results in adjustments to the other -  a fact that is exemplified by the evolving nature of folk songs in the Darjeeling hills and the Eastern Himalayan region. It is this dynamism that has allowed folk music to survive in the face of changing economic systems. Folk music in Darjeeling,  as it is in many parts of the world,  is not and should not be concretized to the mould of “tradition” in the strictest sense of the term. Further, tradition should neither be equated to homogeneity nor be made to suffer the homogenising tendency that many seek to propagate in the name of preserving it. Music is a living entity that cannot be fossilised and any attempt at doing so is akin to clenching air in one's fist- the tighter one’s grip, the more one fails to hold. When it comes to folk music tradition, preservation lies in performance. And every performance creates an ongoing dialogue with the larger musical tradition of which it is a part. In the process, negotiations occur between “tradition” and change, new elements are given space as and rough edges are smoothened out. Because folk songs are often performed on a regular basis and are performed for and consumed by the general public, it has very much been in touch with the lived reality of the masses. Consequently, folk music has gradually evolved through the ages - with every new age comes new elements and with new elements, change. While Gaines have shifted from singing royal decrees to humming to the tunes of Bollywood, the Tamang Selo sung by the Tamang community has begun to voice dissent at the exile of the 14th Dalai Lama from Tibet. These dynamic responses to the evolving socio-cultural context in which folk music is created go on to show that they are a living form of artistic expression and not a pristine relic of a pristine past, a significant portion of which is creatively constructed, to put it mildly. So,  the least we can do as a society is to create conditions conducive to the evolution of such folk music traditions as they negotiate with and navigate around the changes occurring in ever-changing socio-economic and technological contexts. 

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Above all,  folk music or people’s music is a medium of untethered expression. And self-expression is an important part of the human condition.  Attempting to convert a medium of continuous expression to a museum of what had been expressed is not only detrimental to what is being expressed at present but is also fatal to all expression that is to come.

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