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Journalism of Courage
At the Sufi Kathak Foundation’s Qawwali Photo Project, one is greeted by evocative photographs of qawwals performing at various shrines across the country. From the Nizami Brothers at the Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi, Qawwal Ustad Ranjhan Ali at Dargah Hazrat Bannay Shah in Amritsar, to Qawwal Sarvjeet Tamta at the Shaheen Bagh protest — these pictures document the lives of the ‘faceless’ practitioners of this 700-year-old artform.
Curated by the founder of Sufi Kathak Foundation, Manjari Chaturvedi, the exhibition attempts to underscore the importance of remembering these artists who have been largely forgotten. “Had it not been for famous qawwals such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bollywood movies and Coke Studio, the artform might have gone largely unrecognised,” says Chaturvedi. “This is because qawwali is considered to be a casual artform. Even though it is popular, nobody knows what qawwalis are, who are qawwals, what they sing about; there were no academics related to it. There’s only one book on qawwali written by Regula Qureshi,” she adds.
It is a first-of-its-kind effort to document the qawwals’ intoxicating performances, their lives and association with the Sufi shrines where they perform. Chaturvedi has been working with qawwals for 25 years and documenting their lives since then. “While documenting their personal history, they would mention their grandfathers who were also great qawwals. When I would ask them for a photograph, they would produce a little passport-size picture used in ration cards. I would think that a legend of a man is forgotten because he wasn’t documented. I realised we are not even documenting the qawwals of today. Then we started the Qawwali Photo Project to document qawwals,” said Chaturvedi.
The exhibition, which will go on till Sunday at the India International Centre, features photographs by Dinesh Khanna, Leena Kejriwal and Mustafa Quraish. Khanna documents the important shrines of Delhi, Amritsar, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Ajmer, while Quraishi’s pictures tell stories of Dewa Sharif and Safipur and explores the Shaheen Bagh resistance at Delhi. Kejriwal captures the women qawwali performers such as Chancal Bharti who break the barriers of a largely androcentric tradition.
“The images are of practitioners with their families, in their everyday lives and in their interaction with audiences and the pulsating connection of energy between them. The qawwals become the voice of the prayers of the hundreds of devotees that throng the shrine, seeking grace. With this project, we seek to bring forth interesting perspectives as captured through the mind and lens, with respect to the cultural and social dimensions of the art form that unfold like pages from a visual story,” Chaturvedi.
Staying true to its spirit, the exhibition also features a mesmerising qawwali performance every evening from practitioners who are from Delhi and also outside the city. The ‘I am a Qawwal’ photo-documentation project at the exhibition brings together a series of pictures of qawwali practitioners that are either selfies, or captured by their family and friends. “We believe this provides a perspective in which we see them comfortable, in their element, not posing woodenly for a professional shoot. Despite the fact that Qawwali as an art form has captured the attention of the Hindi film industry, hundreds of its practitioners in smalltown India go unnoticed, unrecorded, unrecognised for their brilliance and their stewardship of our rich heritage,” she says.
“These musicians come from families where artistic knowledge and practice has been passed down for generations like a precious heirloom. Art is how they connect with themselves, their communities, and their sense of spiritual purpose. The technology at times dehumanises the music form, removes the human and only the sound becomes a memory. This project gives the image to the sounds, the identity to the people who give us incredible music,” she says.
The Qawwali Capsules, where the practitioners speak, is another initiative by Chaturvedi wherein the practitioners speak about their performance art, their lives, and their association with the spiritual art. This is focussed on smaller town musicians who practice their art amidst the people in an organic, non commercial set up.
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