Abstract
The Bauls of Bengal, a community of low-caste itinerant performers and esoteric practitioners, have received contrasting appreciations in the course of the last two centuries. Initially disregarded as the low tradition of an ‘immoral’, ‘degenerate’, ‘scatological’ sect, Baul songs were revived and promoted by the famous Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.
Tagore’s publications on Bauls contributed to the diffusion of their success among intellectuals and the urban élite, in a purified version that romanticised the Bauls’ esoteric aspect to make it socially acceptable.
With the growing impact of globalisation and the gentrification of the Bengali countryside, Bauls are now enjoying an increasing patronage by outsiders, middle-class amateurs and folklore tourists in search of an ‘authentic’ indigenous tradition.
What is the impact of cultural tourism, commercialisation and the commodification of culture on the oral literature of Bauls? How do Baul composers react to the encounter with the urban milieu? The recent strand of academic literature on Bauls shares a common fear of corruption and contamination by the invasion of modernity and show-business. Questioning this view, textual and contextual evidence shows that Bauls’ lyrics are responding with self-confidence and adaptability: keeping their tenets and literary devices unaltered, contemporary Baul songs are capable of preserving their peculiar identity vis-à-vis the demands of a modern audience. Bauls’ compositions are incorporating objects of contemporary reality, such as mobile phones, metro stations, motorbikes, etc., fitting them into their traditional structures of metaphorical songs that discuss, through the use of an enigmatic jargon known as sandhya-bhasha, their crucial sexo-yogic practices of self-realisation.
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