The diffused substance of Bhojpuri indigeneity

Abstract

With the introduction of audio cassettes, most of North India witnessed an explosion of musical content that transcended languages and their so-called dialects. Even as these cassettes graduated to VCDs and DVDs, ideas of ‘folk’ music, linguistic identity and indigeneity thrived in varied proportions across North India, blended generously with all sorts of ‘non-native’ idioms, whether lyrics, musical arrangement or visual design and content. This chapter explores media production in the Bhojpuri language over the last three decades, including music albums and videos, films and live concerts. Discussing aspects of vulgarity, gender, stardom and urban design, I discuss how different sites and modes of consumption wrestle for the Bhojpuri media content, and how people from varied demographic clusters access the films, music and concerts. In effect, the chapter highlights multiple fault lines in an easy celebration of ‘subaltern’ cultural output, while foregrounding the coalitional and strategic claims to indigeneity upheld by Bhojpuri media, tentative as they remain about the locus and substance of Bhojpuri identity – whether for market consolidation or a stable address from which to re-imagine a cultural solidarity. The diffused claims, however, introduce us to a realm thriving with possibilities in a rapidly changing media industry. © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Markus Schleiter and Erik de Maaker

individual chapters, the contributors.