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Abstract
Undoubtedly, one of the most popular singers of South Asia, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, individually, and as part of his Qawaali party has been neglected in the academic literature. Rectifying that situation, this article locates his biography and music in the context of another under-theorised area of scholarly work, that of Punjabiyat. In exploring Nusrat's biography, the connections between a non-essential notion of Punjabiyat and musical performativity are illustrated and examined. The various forces that operate to sustain musical and cultural continuity are presented in an oscillation between the normatively demarcated zones of East Punjab, West Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora.
Notes on contributor
Virinder S. Kalra teaches at Manchester University and his research interests are on diaspora, popular culture and racism. His latest book is Sacred and Secular Musics: A Postcolonial Approach (Continuum 2014) which looks at kirtan, Qawwali and dharmic geet in East and West Punjab. His previous books include, Diaspora and Hybridity and the co-edited, State of Race.
Notes
1. Transcribed and translated by article author.
2. Taken from, recording on, NFAK, Vol. 8, 1985, Oriental Star Agencies (VHS). This particular couplet has been performed by many other artists most notably Sain Zahoor.
3. 5/3/13 BBC Radio 2: Guru of peace: An introduction to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nitin Sawhney.
4. NFAK has a single video with over 10 million hits, for example, whilst Fareed Ayaaz Qawwal's most popular is just over 800 K (Youtube November 2012). In personal communication with Mohammed Ayub, director of Oriental Star Agencies, he stated that NFAK still remains one of their best-selling artists.
5. According to Mohammed Ayub, Nusrat's first album recorded in 1973 featured the track ‘Ni mai jana jogi de naal’.
6. Alternative sites might be sport (but this tends to be competitive in terms of national boundaries, i.e. India vs. Pakistan) or films (again these tend to be narrated within the frame of national competitiveness, such as Dil bole Hadeepa, though Waris Shah – Ishq da Waaris by Gurdas Maan is a notable exception) or even food (though issues of halal and jhatka again divide along religious lines).
7. It is also significant that formal musicological analysis is not included here though for those interested in this aspect, see Kalra (Citation2014).
8. Prominent examples are the books: Sikhs in Britain by Tatla and Singh, Salaam America by Mohammed-Arif and The Indian diaspora by Jayaram, though there are numerous other examples.
9. This is despite the fact that diaspora researchers do not suffer from the problems that researchers based in India and Pakistan have in terms of obtaining visas to carry out research in each other's countries.
10. The volume Sufism in Punjab is dedicated to the memory of Nusrat and contains this epithet: ‘Who stood as a bridge between West (Pakistani) Punjab and East (Indian) Punjab. Who emerged as the greatest cultural icon of the Punjabi diaspora that is spread in all continents of the world’.
11. Mostly, the role of West Punjab is completely ignored in Paksitani textbooks in favour of a national/religious combine. See Rosser (Citation2004).
12. There are of course notable exceptions. The work of the Advanced Centre for Punjabi has been a remarkable contribution to the advancement of cross-border communication; however, this institute is primarily interested in technological innovation rather than studies of diaspora. For tools that can transliterate between Shahmukhi, Gurmukhi and Devanagri, see http://s2g.learnpunjabi.org/login.aspx
13. Though the distinction between heterodox Sufi and Allama Iqbal is tendentious and relates solely to the description of this period in the literature on Qawwali.
14. There are perhaps only three or four live recordings of Mubarak and Fateh Ali, most notably ‘Naa Maar Naina De Teer’ features Mubarak Ali and the young voice of Nusrat can also be heard. Accessed 8/11/2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQx_4gyREg&list=FLVhAUacNAu-vGN0B2UosLdg
15. Mateela Films, 1997. Accessed 2/4/2013. http://vimeo.com/8202106
16. Sakata played an instrumental role in organising a residency at the University of Washington ethnomusicology department for Nusrat.
17. For those not familiar with the texts of Qawwali, those that do not explicitly refer to the Prophet (and would therefore be called naat) are in their best form focus on love which is ambiguously positioned between the sacred and the secular (see Gunninder-Singh for examples).
18. All interviews are either in Urdu or Punjabi and translated by myself.
20. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Last Prophet, Jerome Missolz Film, 2003. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_iIr51uyGhw
21. Baud partially captures the meaning of word Bazurgon in the translation, ‘saints’. But in an interview in the film the Last Prophet, NFAK used the word bazurgon, to refer to his father, uncles and other ancestors in the musical sense. It is those, who's footsteps Nusrat is following in.
22. Interviews conducted with five of the main Qawwal groups of Punjab; for more details, see Kalra (Citation2014).
23. The video to the track ‘Mera piya ghar aya’ worked on an anti-Indian nationalism through the figure of the lost soldier.
24. Though there are notable internet groups such as Asiapeace and the work of many small organisations such as the Institute for Peace and Development in Lahore. See Purewal (Citation2006).
25. The Pakistani Punjabi films Kartar Singh and Maula Jat are good examples of these caricatures.
26. This is based on general viewing of the channels PTV and QTV during 2008–2010 and then systematic analysis of three months of Qawwali programming on these channels in which (excluding live coverages of an Urs) there.
27. Like any cultural form, music can also be used to enhance and reinforce division. The use of music by the RSS and the burning of cassettes and CDs by the Taliban are cases in point.
28. Lok Virsa Institute, 1989.
29. Lok Virsa Interview, 1989.
30. The use of a Qawaali for a rape scene in the film Natural Born Killers takes place without Nusrat's knowledge as part of the generic selling and buying of music in Hollywood.
32. In certain Sufi poetry, the mehkhana, literally house of wine, is the place in which the devotee/lover drinks to replicate the intoxication of love.
33. Hai Raj Dulara Mata Da in OSA Vol. 8, Birmingham Video, 1985, performed in the Facroft Public House on Soho Road in Handsworth. See Koi boley Ram, Slough Gurdwara, OSA.
34. This was ultimately released as an audio CD by OSA in 1995 under the title Shabad Vol. 13, a youtube video of the event is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rDpONbOL8U, accessed 7/1/13.
35. Accessed 3/3/1013. http://www.desiblitz.com/content/muhammad-ayub-founder-oriental-star-agencies
36. Accessed 17/1/2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-EQecLSOcE&list=PL02C16C4815BEBF41
37. The idea of world music has been rightly critiqued in terms of musical exotica (Hutnyk Citation2000).
38. See http://www.nusratfan.com/an-exclusive-interview-with-the-legend-nusrat-fateh-ali-khan/, 1989.
39. Zee TV Interview. Accessed 9/1/2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7jJOfDlMQ
40. Zee TV Interview. Accessed 9/1/2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7jJOfDlMQ
41. Every major British city hosts an Asian mela with a formulaic combination of music, stalls and fun fair. These melas were initially funded by the state, but have increasingly become privatised. The BBC Asian network still funds a season of melas throughout the UK, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/events/melas/2012/ for example. Religious groups have also started to hold melas, with the Birmingham Vaisakhi mela and Eid mela being particularly large. These events also involve marching around the city, providing an interesting perspective on the geography of diaspora in the inner city.
42. Kitte Mil Ve Mahi (Where the Twain Shall Meet), 2005; Rabba Hun Kee Kariye (Thus Departed Our Neighbours), 2007; Milange Babey Ratan De Mele Te (Let's Meet at Baba Ratan's Fair), 2012.
43. Accessed 3/4/2013. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wasdaa-Rahay-Punjab/105165399647031
44. The English rendition of the group's aims is as follows. In this page, we try to highlight the beautiful punjabi culture, which is a soil of five rivers, we hope that you like our page and our posts, thanks for joining us,we belong to a punjab city, Mandi Burewala, Punjab, Pakistan.
45. Though the vast majority of the 1300 or so comments were complimentary and praising the child's voice rather than focusing on geographical location or religion.
46. Lok Virsa Interview, 1989.
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