Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology

Zoe C. Sherinian

Description

Fighting oppression through the power of music

View accompanying audiovisual materials for the book at Ethnomusicology Multimedia Watch the trailer for a related documentary produced by the author, This is A Music: Reclaiming an Untoucable Drum

Zoe C. Sherinian shows how Christian Dalits (once known as untouchables or outcastes) in southern India have employed music to protest social oppression and as a vehicle of liberation. Her focus is on the life and theology of a charismatic composer and leader, Reverend J. Theophilus Appavoo, who drew on Tamil folk music to create a distinctive form of indigenized Christian music. Appavoo composed songs and liturgy infused with messages linking Christian theology with critiques of social inequality. Sherinian traces the history of Christian music in India and introduces us to a community of Tamil Dalit Christian villagers, seminary students, activists, and theologians who have been inspired by Appavoo's music to work for social justice. Multimedia components available online include video and audio recordings of musical performances, religious services, and community rituals.

Preface
List of PURL Audio and Video files
Introduction: Singing The Lord's Prayer and Dalit Liberation in Tamil Nadu
1. Musical Style and Indigenization in Tamil Christian Music
2. Sharing the Meal: A Dalit Family's Dialogue with the History of Tamil Christian Music, 1850-1994
3. Parattai's Dalit Theology
4. Ethnography as Transformative Musical Dialogue
5. Reception and Transformation from the Seminary to the Village:
6. Performing Global Dalit Consciousness
Appendixes
Appendix 1: Music Transcriptions
Appendix 2: Song Lyrics By J. Theophilus Appavoo (Parattai)
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Asian Studies
• Christian Theology
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Religión
• MUSIC
• South Asia
• Multiple signal classification
• Liberation
• General officer
• Ethnomusicology
• South
• History of Asia
• Christianity
• Anthropology
• General
• Asia
• India

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 06 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9780253005854
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TAMIL FOLK MUSIC
AS DALIT LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Ethnomusicology Multimedia
Ethnomusicology Multimedia (EM) is an innovative, entrepreneurial, and cooperative effort to expand opportunities for emerging scholars in ethnomusicology by publishing first books accompanied by supplemental audiovisual materials online. Developed with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, EM is a collaboration of the presses at Indiana and Temple universities. These presses gratefully acknowledge the help of Indiana University s Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Digital Library Program, and Archives of Traditional Music for their contributions to EM s web-based components and archiving features.
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TAMIL FOLK MUSIC
AS
DALIT LIBERATION THEOLOGY
ZOE C. SHERINIAN
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th street
Bloomington, indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2014 by Zoe C. Sherinian
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sherinian, Zoe C.
Tamil folk music as Dalit liberation theology / Zoe C. Sherinian.
pages ; cm. - (Ethnomusicology multimedia)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00233-4 (cl : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00585-4 (ebook) 1. Church music-India-Tamil Nadu. 2. Folk music-India-Tamil Nadu-History and criticism. 3. Folk music-Religious aspects-Christianity. 4. Dalits-India-Tamil Nadu-Religious life. 5. Dalits-India-Tamil Nadu-Music-History and criticism. 6. Appavoo, James Theophilus. I. Title.
ML3151.I4S44 2012
781.71 7940095482-dc23
2012018988
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
To Para ai and Elyssa
Y r v lum, eppa i v lum
(Whoever wants to, can use [sing] it however they want)
Rev. J. T. Appavoo (Para ai)
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of PURL Audio and Video Files
Introduction: Context and Concepts: Singing The Lord s Prayer as Freedom in a Tamil Land
1 How Can The Subaltern Speak? Musical Style, Value, and the Historical Process of (Re)indigenization of Tamil Christian Music
2 Sharing the Meal: A Dalit Family s Dialogue with the History of Tamil Christian Music, 1850-1994
3 Para ai s Theology: Greeting God in the C ri
4 Ethnography as Transformative Musical Dialogue
5 Reception and Transformation from Seminary to Village
6 Performing Global Dalit Consciousness
A PPENDIXES
Appendix 1: Song Transcriptions
Transcription 1: Iy sus mi Kantuttanda Sebam (The Lord s Prayer)
Transcription 2: Kuttam U aru adu (Repentance of Sin)
Transcription 3: Virundu Parim u adu (Meal Sharing Song)
Transcription 4a-4d: S miya Va a gu adu (Greetings and Praise of God)
Appendix 2: Song Lyrics by Rev. J. Theophilus Appavoo (Para ai)
Amm i Ku i Po (My Little Girl)
Inikk da T numilla (Without Sweetness There Is No Honey)
All l y All l y (Alleluia)
Pudiya Pudiya Talaimu aikku, Pudiya Pudiya Siluva (For Every New Generation There Is A New Cross)
Bumiyil V u a (Living on Earth)
avan E ga i aiyan (The Lord Is Our Shepherd)
avan N E ga Ko ai (Lord, You Are Our Fortress)
A a a A a a (Elder Brother)
Tambi M ppi (Elder and Younger Brother, Son-in-law)
Otta Sa a, Re ai Sa a (One Braid, Two Braids)
Notes
References
Index
Preface
This book is an ethnomusicological ethnography of the creation, transmission, and recreation of Tamil folk music as Dalit liberation theology in India and beyond. The focus of its narrative is a heterogeneous community of poor Tamil Christian villagers, lay workers, seminary students, activists, theologians, and artists, inspired by the personality and music of a theologian/composer they call Para ai Annan ( big brother with messy hair ). This is an apt description and pen name for the Rev. Dr. James Theophilus Appavoo (1940-2005), 1 the central trickster figure in this story. Para ai and a network of other Dalit or anti-caste actors are essential nodes in the transmission process that make up the contemporary reform movement for liturgical and theological change within the mainline Protestant Church of South India (CSI) in the state of Tamil Nadu. This movement is a grass-roots manifestation of cultural and theological agency by Dalits (or former untouchables, those oppressed by caste hierarchy from birth). While it borrows ideas from Latin American liberation theology, this movement s indigenous roots lay in the Indian social gospel missions of the nineteenth century and the secular/social equality Dravidian language movement of the early twentieth century (Bate 2009, 44). Further, this Christian cultural movement takes a strong dose of intellectual inspiration from the leader of the modern Dalit movement, Dr. Bhimrao Ramjee Ambedkar, the foundational thinker who has influenced the contemporary Tamil Dalit Liberation Movement of the late twentieth century (Larbeer 2003).
This is a story about so called untouchable outcastes, those who are most socially, politically, culturally, and religiously marginalized in India through the hierarchy of caste in society and through its continued practice in the Tamil Christian churches over the last 500 years. In the last two centuries a significant number of lower- and outcastes were motivated to convert to Christianity as a means to escape at least the philosophical discourse of caste. Yet, it has only been in the last three decades that Christian outcastes, through the transformative power of Tamil folk music are changing the liturgical and political culture of the Tamil mainline churches and in the process transforming their identities to become Dalit. 2 The term Dalit comes from dal, in Marathi meaning to oppress or crush. It is a self-chosen term of political and cultural opposition used to unite those formerly called outcastes, harijans, untouchables, or in the modern period, scheduled castes. In this study I adopt Appavoo s praxis-oriented definition of Dalit as an identity of the oppressed people fighting for liberation. 3 This definition represents the practice of unity in resistance to oppression of all kinds including gender and class, but particularly the violent and all-pervasive system of caste hierarchy in India.
Two issues are particularly notable in Para ai s music and at the center of this Dalit musico-theology movement: 1) The indigenization of Christianity through musical style, theology, and language to direct the purpose of religious discourse back to the social emancipation of the poor and oppressed in this world and in this time period; 2) the process of social identity reformation for Dalit Christians through the transformative and recreative power of music in the performance context. Appavoo developed a theory that Dalit theology should be embodied in a medium accessible to poor Dalit villagers who need it the most. While many theologians at Indian Christian seminaries experimented with creating progressive theology in musical form, or making theology singable, as Rev. Thomas Thangaraj has written (1990), it was Appavoo who transformed this idea into an accessible Dalit theology-one th