Marwari folk songs now laud Jaswant Singh, the new hero

Jaswant Singh Jasol is contesting the last election of his life from hometown Barmer. Win or lose, his place in the folklore of Marwar is secure. The legend of his fight would last much longer than the winner of the election. Singh has become the muse of Marwar. Songs are being composed on him. Local bards are writing elegiac lines glorifying his struggle. Langas and Manganiyars are exhorting people with their mellifluous renditions to rise up and avenge the humiliation of the sapoot of Malani (son of Marwar). [caption id=“attachment_1469005” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  In Marwar, AFP[/caption] The sound of sarangis, the clash of cymbals and the tune of algojas used in the tunes of the dunes have turned Jasol’s last election into a high-pitch battle for pride. And the message is being conveyed door-to-door on the scales of the octave. ‘Jaswant Singh ji ri sena bhaari, saari Marwar mein sobha (glory) nyari (different); Gaon, gaon ro kehno hai, ab apman ro badlo leno hai,’ the Manganiyars sing to the rhythm of dhol, khartal and morchang, rousing a surreal war-like emotion in the stretches of the Thar Desert. (You can hear one of several such songs here .) Langas and Manganiyars are Muslims known for their folk music. Unlike eastern Rajasthan’s hela khayal singers, whose poetry is laced with political satire, the Langa-Manganiyars prefer Sufi qawallis and bhajans. This fusion of melody, harmony and spiritualism has turned them into mascots of the quintessential secular spirit of the Thar. The idea of a BJP leader inspiring folk songs on Hindu-Muslim harmony would have been great advertisement for Narendra Modi’s BJP, derided by critics as divisive and sectarian. Imagine the goodwill generated by Muslim bards and singers praising a BJP leader as a symbol of unity on the very border of India and Pakistan. But, somehow, the BJP contrived to throw out an accepted symbol of unity. Instead, now when the Manganiyars sing, ‘Jaswant Singh Jasol athe; Hindu-Muslim ro saath jathe (Jasol is there where Hindus and Muslims are together)’, it is seen as an indictment of the BJP’s inability to respect and honour one of its rare secular faces, and by inference, the values he represents. Marwar, music, Manganiyars, Rajputs, pride and valor are intertwined in a delectable mix of history and culture. No story about Barmer and Jaisalmer can be told without referring to each of them. Since every tale that has a wronged hero can’t be without a villain, in Barmer’s bardic tales, the BJP has automatically turned into the tormenting tyrant. The Manganiyars do not name either Vasundhara Raje or the Congress turncoat Sonaram in their songs. But words like humiliation, war, forces leave little to imagination. The blanks are filled in by listeners who have coined their own epithets for Jasol’s rivals. Sonaram, the Congress candidate whom Raje favoured over the BJP veteran, is a ‘gudkan lota’ (a utensil without a base that tilts in every direction.) And Raje is the Scindia Maharani who is carrying forward her ancestral legacy. According to legend, the last invader of Marwar was a Scindia, who not only defeated the local Rajput monarch but also imposed a heavy fine and took away the town and fort of Ajmer from him. Forts and palaces have passed into history. But the people of Barmer now see a conspiracy to control the oil fields of the Thar through a local stooge. There is speculation among locals that people with vested interests want Jasol out of the scene so that natural resources of Barmer could be plundered without any resistance. The BJP, on the other hand, argues that Jasol is the real villain of Marwar for having ditched a party that gave him ‘so much’ in the past two decades. Unfortunately, there are no Langa-Manganiyars to sing the BJP songs here and Sukhvinder Singh’s ‘Main Desh Nahin Jhukne Doonga’ has been rejected as jingoistic kitsch. So, the swords are out yet again for the pride and heritage of Marwar and to push back another Scindia. And in the classical tradition of the royal past, singers and poets are taking the message of the real war to every home. Who will win? It really doesn’t matter. Folk singers of the region have already immoratlised Jasol’s war and his opponents’ treachery. The result on 16 May will in no way diminish the hero’s halo or mitigate the chicanery of the villains in Marwar’s folk lore.