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BHANGRA
AS AN ART IS FLOURISHING IN INDIA AND APPEARS TO BE ON
THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION IN PAKISTAN Harjap Singh Aujla “Bhangra” is
basically a folk dance form born out of happiness, ecstacy and bliss. What
could be a happier occasion for a peasant, who’s hard toil of six wintry
months is going to be rewarded? Wheat is sown generally in the month of
November. In Northern India and Pakistan it takes six months to ripen. But
once it is ripened, the surplus can easily be sold in the market and money
can be made. Wheat is the staple food in the Punjab and the other northern
provinces of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Wheat also needs a lot of hard work
from plantation to ripening. It needs extreme winter for several months,
periodic waterings and hot weather at the time of ripening. If the weather
does not cooperate during any stage of the crop, the yield can be
drastically reduced. Therefore, when the wheat ripens and is on the verge
of harvesting, the farmer goes ecstatic in happiness. Basically Bhangra
dance is performed at the time the wheat crop is harvested. As the time
has passed, Bhangra Dance has become a symbol of youth’s festivities. The birth place of
Bhangra is Sialkot district in Pakistan’s Punjab province. To the North
of Sialkot are the sub-mountainous areas of Jammu, which get very cold
during the winters and induce cold weather in Sialkot. As I have told
above, extreme cold weather is conducive to a bumper crop of wheat. To the
East of Sialkot is the Ravi, which keeps the water-table close to the
ground surface. Shallow water table is ideal for Persian Wheel irrigation
system. To the South of Sialkot is the premier city of Punjab Lahore,
which provides an ideal market for wheat. Thus Sialkot forms an ideal
place for the growth of wheat. From days immemorial wheat has been the
preferred crop of the Punjabi farmers. Bhangra in its crude form developed
in the vacant flat areas surrounded by wheat fields. In the original
format of Bhangra, the farmers were shown dancing with sickles in their
hands trying to harvest wheat. One drummer “Dholi” plays the drums
with a crude stick and the steps of the Bhangra dancers follow the drum
beat. In the early forms of Bhangra, the exuberance was there, but the
steps were rarely in unison. Some writers have
suggested that Bhangra Dance is as old as Alexander the Great’s Invasion
of India. But most writers seem to agree that the age of Bhangra Dance is
approximately between 500 years to 300 years before the start of present
millennium. The farming community of Sialkot district, some three hundred
years ago, consisted of the Muslims, Sikhs and the Hindus. The majority of
them were of course Muslims. As the history is told, it was the Muslim
farmers, who developed the original form of Bhangra, but later on it was
adopted by the Sikh farmers and the Sikhs have been in the vanguard of
efforts to popularize this folk dance form. Since the days of
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, although there was no official patronage for
Bhangra, but this dance form spread its wings into the areas forming the
districts of Sheikhupura, Gujrat, Gujjranwala, Lahore, Gurdaspur and
Amritsar. During the British rule, Bhangra spread to the educational
institutions in Lahore and Amritsar. The Khalsa College in Amritsar had
Bhangra teams dating back to 1920s. At Government College Lahore, Bhangra
was initiated even earlier. During the twentieth century, a lot of
importance has been given to the costumes worn by the Bhangra Dancers.
Generally very sharp and gaudy colors are chosen for the costumes of the
Bhangra Dancers. These colors impart a festive touch to the costumes of
the dancing groups. In 1947, the
Province of Punjab was bifurcated between East (Indian) and West
(Pakistani) Punjabs. Most of the Hindu and Sikh refugees from Sialkot
district migrated to Ajnala tehsil of Amritsar and Batala tehsil of
Gurdaspur district via Kartarpur Sahib and Dera Baba Nanak route. From
these places the refugees further dispersed to other tehsils of Amritsar
and Gurdaspur districts. Within a few months, the refugees from Sialkot
district further moved to Bholath and Kapurthala tehsils of Kapurthala
district and Dasuya tehsil of Hoshiarpur district. In Jalandhar city today
about 40% of the population owes its origin to Sialkot district. All these
areas during the nineteen fifties witnessed an explosion of Bhangra dance.
During the nineteen
fifties, Bhangra became officially acclaimed as the male folk dance of
East Punjab. The most commonly performed and extremely popular female
dance, of course has been “Giddha”, which has its origin in the Malwa
region, cis Sutlej areas, of the Punjab State. Within the Indian State of
Punjab, there was also a smaller union of territories consisting of the
former princely states. The name of this state was “Patiala and East
Punjab States Union” or in short PEPSU. Bhangra became the uncrowned
official male dance of PEPSU too. Film “Naya Daur”,
a mid fifties Chopra Production starring Dilip Kumar featured Bhangra
Dance very prominently. O.P. Nayyar, a very popular music director and
quite familiar with the beats of Bhangra Dance, scored the music for this
movie. This film became a big box office success, not only in Punjab, but
in other parts of India too. This movie gave a lot of name and fame to
Bhangra Dance. Later on Manohar Deepak, a leading exponent of Bhangra
Dance entered the film line of Bombay on the strength of his performance
in Bhangra Dance. Mukhtar Singh, then a college student in Jalandhar,
became very famous for his unique choreography for Bhangra Dance. The then
Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Partap Singh Kairon, first recruited him
as a block development and Panchayat officer and later on made him a
deputy director in the Punjab Department of Sports and Youth Services,
where he served the cause of Bhangra Dance with distinction. Here in
America, Navjot Singh, an information technologist and a resident of
Morris County, New Jersey, is known to be an impressive choreographer
Bhangra Dancer. During the nineteen
fifties, some of the colleges in East Punjab, which excelled in Bhangra
dance were the Khalsa College Amritsar, Baring Union Christian College
Batala, DAV College Amritsar, Government College Gurdaspur, Randhir
Government College Kapurthala, DAV College Jalandhar, Lyallpur Khalsa
College Jalandhar, Ramgharhia College Phagwara, Punjab University College
Hoshiarpur, Government College Ludhiana, Khalsa College Ludhiana, RSD
College Ferozepore and Mahindra College Patiala to name a few. Originally
basic colors like red, green, blue, white and yellow were used in the
costumes of Bhangra Dancers. These are the same colors, which were
earmarked by the chief architect and master planner of Chandigarh Le
Corbusier for the doors and windows in his designed buildings in
Punjab’s capital. But as the fashion bug has bitten India, it has
impacted the mindset of Bhangra Dancers also. As a result more and more
colors are showing up in the costumes of Bhangra Dancers. The Bhangra
Dancers are enjoying the ever changing and never ending color
combinations. During the nineteen
sixties Bhangra spread its wings to Delhi University to the South of
Punjab and the Jammu region to the North of the state. As the seventies
dawned, Bhangra extended its popularity oversees to the United Kingdom,
British Columbia in Canada and California State of the United States.
During the eighties, Ontario Province of Canada became the oversees hub of
Bhangra Dance. Of course, where ever Bhangra has spread “Giddha” has
been its elegant and refined female companion. Both have been marching
hand in hand. As the time is passing, the costumes of the “Giddha
Dancers” are also getting fancier and more expensive. By now the
burgeoning fashion industry of India has made deep inroads into the
“Giddha Dance” groups also. The Bhangra Dancers, as mentioned above,
also are not untouched by the fashion bug. On the Indian side
of the Radcliffe Line, Bhangra Dance has made rapid strides and the Indian
diaspora has embraced it in all sincerity. Bhangra Dance of today is no
longer the rustic dance of pre-1947 days. It is getting more and more
sophisticated. The movements are getting more rhythmic. Some of the
choreography associated with India’s classical dances like “Kathak”,
“Kathakali” “Odysee” and “Malwai Giddha” of Punjab is slowly
and steadily creeping into it. The number of beats “Taals” in Bhangra
Dance is also experiencing a marked diversification. Some pop music forms
of Punjab are getting a nick-name “Bhangra Music”. Bhangra has become
an important event during all kinds of festivities and official functions
in the Indian Punjab. Even at the national level in India, Bhangra has
come to be recognized as one of the prime dance forms. During the nineteen
eighties and nineties, a lot of Punjabi pop songs in the United Kingdom
were composed on beats resembling Bhangra Dance. The recordings of these
songs became not only popular within the United Kingdom, but they
proliferated also in Canada, the United States and India. Malkit Singh,
formerly of Jalandhar district and now settled in the Bermingham area of
England, came to be acknowledged as the Golden Star of Bhangra Music.
Recently Malkit Singh has been knighted by the Queen Elizabeth II as a
“Member of the British Empire”. On the Pakistani
side of Punjab, according to the reports reaching Amritsar, Bhangra Dance
was barely surviving during the decades of the fifties and the sixties.
But in the absence of some solid support from the government and from the
educational and cultural institutions, this dance form appears to be on
its last legs. Privately some people are still keeping it alive, in their
courtyards, but it is getting extinct in public functions. If no serious
efforts are made to revive this folk art form in Pakistan, the Bhangra
culture of its founding country will die an enwept, unhonored and unsung
death in its own place of birth. That will be a sad day for the lovers of
an exuberant Punjabi art. phone in the USA
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