Bhand community clings to hope

Neha Saini

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 26

It been two years since Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Sangeet Natak Academi joined hands with UNESCO to push for the revival or the dying Bhand and Marasi community of folk artistes in Punjab. After the initial phase of documenting and recording their performances, the project seems to have fallen in limbo, just as the folk artiste community is on an edge of hanging their boots for ever.

Rajender Singh, theatre director and project coordinator, who has been working on the documentation process and the rehabilitation of the community, feels that the project needs full backing and support from Sangeet Natak Academi and the State if the community has to be revived. “Just like the Thatera community, which has benefitted through funding and development projects after being enlisted in UNESCO’s intangible heritage item list, the Bhands too require a serious approach and funding for their revival.”

He along with Amita Sharma, a theatre person and member of the Dastak theatre group, has managed to arrange live concerts with these artistes in collaboration with Sangeet Natak Academi.

“After the documentation process, the next phase comprised recording their live performances, which will be used as a multimedia tool for educating about them and their art form on a national and international scale, since not many people are aware about the art form today. So, with two successful concerts in Delhi and Azamgarh, UP, we had managed to get some audience for them. We are now planning to hold workshops with them, to train them about how to take their art and fit it into the commercial framework in the contemporary scenario. Since the Bhand community is mostly illiterate and is not familiar with the changed environment and globalisation impacts on folk-art forms, they have lagged behind and do not know how to project their art,” he says. The project had received funding of Rs 2 lakh by Sangeet Natak Academi but after two years, any further funding has not been received and the approval for the next phase will take a minimum time of one year.

“The problem is that commercial art forms have eaten away the folk art forms of Punjab and despite a natural flair and talent of these artistes from the Bhand community, they are forced to live in oblivion. We have applied for further funding and approval of the workshop-based programmes with the artists, but it could take some time. Till then, we hope to carry on with local support and our own limited resources,” says Singh.