Radha Kapuria will deliver a lecture on ‘Mirasis, Music and Modernity in Colonial Punjab’. It will be chaired by Naresh Kumar.
Focusing on the mirāsīs, a lineage-based, nomadic, hereditary caste group of genealogists and musicians traditionally endowed with low social status in Punjab, the speaker will discuss the colonial era Punjabi qissā text, the Mirasinamah (1891), written by Muhammaduddin, a police constable. An analysis of his writing foregrounding his social proximity to the mirāsīs, and of his dual anxieties permeating from the text’s unique position surrounding the group forms the key highlight of the lecture. This also links it to the contemporary wave of musical reform in bigger cities like Lahore, Amritsar and Jalandhar, offering a more nuanced narrative of musicians in late nineteenth century Punjab.
Radha Kapuria is Assistant Professor in South Asian History at Durham University in the UK. She is the author of Music in Colonial Punjab: Courtesans, Bards, and Connoisseurs (OUP 2023).
Naresh Kumar is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi.
Friday, 2 February 2024, 4 pm, Seminar Room and Zoom https://bit.ly/47IRSKj
