Hindustani Classical Music Demonstrates our Indian Ethos of Unity in Diversity

 by Suranya Aiyar

20 April 2024, New Delhi

Suranya Aiyar speaks at "Khayal Gayaki pe Khayal"

“We talk of Skill India, but the truth is that we have the skills. You saw how the vistar, alaap, tans and lehkari were all developed by the artist on the spot. They were not pre-prepared. Imagine the level of creative and technical expertise needed for this. The absolute mastery of the ragas, swars and taals that these artists possess.

I appeal to the experts and scholars here to start studying Hindustani Classical Music not just as a type of music, but also as an epistemology. As a uniquely inventive and creative knowledge system. As a particular method of creating, storing and expressing information, that allows for infinite permutations and combinations, while maintaining its coherence and integrity within clearly defined parameters.

In this way each artist can produce an abundance of original expressions of the same raga, marking each performance with their own individual style, while still staying within its universally recognised borders.

This is a system that is rational in a logical sense, while being, at the same time, highly aesthetic. In fact, aesthetic beauty or sundarta, as Khan Saheb explained, is a central principle of this system.

I hope that today’s discussion will also dispel the notion, that Hindustani Classical Music is hidebound or excessively formalistic. If you remember the discussion with Khan Saheb on matbhed, matbhed or vivaad is part of the understanding of this system of music. I have never seen this in any other subject. But in Hindustani Classical Music, even if you look at the books that set out each raga, there is a subsection called matbhed or vivsad.

And artists can also develop new ragas. There is no limit to the ragas that can be developed with this approach to musical notes. Most great artists have added to the treasury of ragas with atleast one or two new ragas of their own.

So we are not looking at a doctrinaire system. We are looking at a system that manages to be highly diverse, and to contain sharp contradictions within it, while at the same time, remaining completely coherent and integrated. This is why I personally see Hindustani Classical Music as a symbol and validation of our Indian ethos of unity in diversity.

The most extraordinary thing is that this system of art, that has been sketched out for you here today, is repeated, in all our traditional classical and folk art forms, and in some of our tribal art forms as well. From the Madhubani painting of Bihar to the Warli art of the Warli tribes. From the Bharatnatyam of Tamil Nadu to the Kathak of Uttar Pradesh. From the Mehendi work of Rajasthan, to the pottery of Bankura - this is the same basic plan on which these all these diverse art forms, covering a vast subcontinent, have been elaborated over the centuries. And some people say that Bharat only came into existence in 2014.”

This is an excerpt from a programme “Khayal Gayaki pe Khayal”, a talk-cum-demonstration on Khayal music with Kairana Gharana maestro Ustad Arif Ali Khan. The video of the full programme is below.