Music, dance, and minorities

• Research topics on music and minorities as featured at the 12th symposium of the ICTMD study group

On account of the national and international significance of the above symposium held in Sri Lanka from 4 to 9 December, in Colombo, we continue in our serialised featuring of the academic sessions of the event.

https://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/Research-on-music-and-minorities/10523-756376

https://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/12th-Symposium-ofICTMD-Study-Group-on-Music-and-Minorities/10523-756109

Today we focus on session 6 of the event on 6 December, under the Theme: ‘Music, Dance, and Minorities across the Indian Ocean’ which included presentations made from scholars and music/dance practitioners from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Italy.

Mohammad Jahangir Hossain, an independent scholar from Dhaka, Bangladesh presented on music keeping up the hopes of the vulnerable focusing in the inspiring songs of Tagore, Nazrul, Atul Prasad, Dwijendralal, Salil Chowdhury, Hemanga Biswas and how they embodied love for the country with the lyricists emphasising the melody of Baul, Bhatiali, Sari-songs popular among working strata of society. 

The paper centred on how songs kept the morale of the masses in a challenging time period during the creation of the nation state Bangladesh.

K.M. Manoj Sanjeewa of the University of Visual and Performing Arts, in Colombo who is also conductor of the Muslim Choral Ensemble – Sri Lanka (founded by music focused social entrepreneur, Haadia Galely) presented on enhancing Music Education in Muslim Schools in Sri Lanka featuring a proposal for Action. The presentation was important for its practical nature and detailed ground research mainly in the East of Sri Lanka that looked at the complex link between music, culture and faith in the Islamic tradition as evolved and practiced by Sri Lankan Muslims.

R.M.C.S. Ranasinghe of the University of Visual and Performing Arts presented on the ‘Impact of K-Pop in Peace Building among Sri Lankan youth’, providing extremely useful insight into real life felt results on how modern music that youth gravitate towards could create a common ground that dissipates communal division. 

Eshantha Peiris from the Vancouver Community College in Vancouver, Canada presented his paper on ‘Vannama: A Sri Lankan Cultural Product with Roots in Majority Sinhala and Minority Tamil Cultural Practices’. This paper provided as a comparative study on infused culture that can act as a powerful peacebuilding tool to cement ties between the Sinhala and Tamil community in Sri Lanka. 

Chinthaka P. Meddegoda of the University of Visual and Performing Arts in Sri Lanka presented on the ‘Lost and/or Forgotten Cultural Root’s focusing on some of the issues on the Migration of Malays to Sri Lanka.

The presentation highlighted Malay music practices that made inroads to Sri Lanka along with Malay migrants and how they have been changed with and in the Sri Lankan cultural context. This presentation also included points on how Malays adopted immediate music cultures encountered in their living surroundings based on study of relevant scholarly literature and interviews with Sri Lankan Malays, and recording and analysing current musical practices on a micro level using transcriptions and spectrograms. One of the aims of the study was cited as to document and promote this endangered cultural practice. 

We conclude this segment of the above event for this week but we end by asking; what is the purpose of such academic events held in Sri Lanka for local policymakers? 

If we total the number of doctoral papers done in Sri Lanka it may run into millions and the number of Sri Lankan scholars who have received Sri Lankan presidential scholarships could run into another large number. But what do we have to show as a country by having such a large number of persons who have received purported academic excellence? Should not the country be in a better state than it is now if we have used such minds in a progressive manner?

We end with these questions which are meant for us to think. 

We will publish a set of detailed recommendations in our upcoming editions for policymakers to make use of deliberations made at such events. 

(SV)