The Bauls Of Bangladesh

In the popular imagination, Bauls in West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh are depicted as a sect of musical mendicants with flowing hair clad in ocher-colored clothes and carrying a one-stringed instrument. Their popularity stems from their mystical songs and their carefree, whimsical behavior. Somewhat less celebrated are Baul beliefs and practices: they are fiercely opposed to the caste system and sectarianism and, at least in the context of their sexo-yogic rituals and philosophy, extol women over men. Despite the importance of women among Bauls, scholarly and popular discourses on Bauls marginalize Baul women by depicting the ideal Baul as male and as unencumbered by social constraints and worldly concerns. For Baul women, these ideals pose distinct challenges to their position and reputation as women in rural Bengal, where gendered norms limit womens actions. However, as musical performers hoping for patronage, behaving as a Baul can ensure their livelihood. This book shows how Baul women interpret and respond to these various constructions of gender and Baul identity and suggests that Baul women are encumbered actors. It argues that Baul women negotiate their identity, position, and life choices in light of contradictory expectations of appropriate behavior for Bengali women and for Bauls. It demonstrates that Baul women draw on the very tools of their encumbering to create for themselves a meaningful life and a more just society. As they sing, wander, take renunciation, and raise a family, they expand ideas about both women and Bauls in Bengal. --Publisher description.

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Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh. As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a subject of scholarly debates which center on their esoteric practices, and middle class imaginaries of the category Baul. Adding to this literature, the intimate ethnography presented in this book recounts the life stories of members from a single family, shining light on their past and present tribulations bound up with being poor and of a lowly caste. It shows that taking up the Baul path is a means of softening the stigma of their lower caste identity in that religious practice, where women play a key role, renders the body pure. The path is also a source of monetary income in that begging is considered part of their vocation. For women, the Baul path has the added implication of lessening constraints of gender. While the book describes a family of singers, it also portrays the wider society in which they live, showing how their lives connect and interlace with other villagers, a theme not previously explored in literature on Bauls. A novel approach to the study of women, the body and religion, this book will be of interest to undergraduates and graduates in the field of the anthropology. In addition, it will appeal to students of everyday religious lives as experienced by the poor, through case studies in South Asia. The book provides further evidence that renunciation in South Asia is not a uniform path, despite claims to the contrary. There is also a special interest in Bauls among those familiar with the Bengali speaking region. While this book speaks to that interest, its wider appeal lies in the light it sheds on religion, the body, life histories, and poverty.

This updated guidebook, with a focus on responsible tourism, offers greater coverage than any other to the Chittagong Hill Tracts where 13 different ethnic groups live, and to the world's largest mangrove forest at the Sundarbans. Personal insights and anecdotes guide trailblazing travellers to those aspects of the country that are almost unknown to visitors - dolphin and whale watching, winter bird-watching in the northern wetlands and golden Bengal's silk and archaeological highlights.

This volume analyses Bangladesh’s human-nature/environment relationships in terms of development victimhood, environmental injustices, and resistance of the marginalized. It demonstrates how the popular GDP-based economic growth model helps governments undertake “development” projects, threatening the environment and livelihood of the poor while benefiting the affluent. It represents the extant environmentalism in the literary works in Bangla, and tales of pollution, depletion; and human-nature/environment symbiosis that shows ways to resist victimhood. Against current environmental challenges and other environmental issues, this volume presents the epitome of how politics, biodiversity, and technology meet in many cross-cutting pathways.

The author charts the rise of Bauls to their present iconic status as minstrels and mystics.

This book examines the performance of Bauls, ‘folk’ performers from Bengal, in the context of a rapidly globalizing Indian economy and against the backdrop of extreme nationalistic discourses. Recognizing their scope beyond the musical and cultural realm, Sukanya Chakrabarti engages in discussing the subversive and transformational potency of Bauls and their performances. In-Between Worlds argues that the Bauls through their musical, spiritual, and cultural performances offer ‘joy’ and ‘spirituality,’ thus making space for what Dr. Ambedkar in his famous 1942 speech had identified as ‘reclamation of human personality’. Chakrabarti destabilizes the category of ‘folk’ as a fixed classification or an origin point, and fractures homogeneous historical representations of the Baul as a ‘folk’ performer and a wandering mendicant exposing the complex heterogeneity that characterizes this group. Establishing ‘folk-ness’ as a performance category, and ‘folk festivals’ as sites of performing ‘folk-ness,’ contributing to a heritage industry that thrives on imagined and recreated nostalgia, Chakrabarti examines different sites that produce varied performative identities of Bauls, probing the limits of such categories while simultaneously advocating for polyvocality and multifocality. While this project has grounded itself firmly in performance studies, it has borrowed extensively from fields of postcolonial studies and subaltern histories, literature, ethnography and ethnomusicology, and cosmopolitan studies.