Singing survival : the social world of classical musicians in Pakistan

By focusing on the misnomer of the Pakistani classical music/musician, this thesis explores the relationship between the classicized music(s) and nationalism in the postcolonial context of South Asia. Broadly, it considers the impact of Orientalist discourses on the processes of national identity formation, Muslim modernity and music, the classicization of music and the marginalisation of hereditary musicians. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the city of Lahore during 2019-2020, this thesis studies the surviving scene of classical music in relation to the dominant national cultural formation in postcolonial Pakistan. This research takes its inspiration from a Gramscian framework, and its adoption by Subaltern scholars in the South Asian context, for critiquing the existing expressions of the national popular culture. The deployed framework has shown that how the marginalisation of classical music is constitutive of the formation of national culture in Pakistan. The negative relationship between music and Pakistani nationalism reflects the impact of Orientalist discourses on the processes of national identity formation and classicisation of music, thereby, pointing to the problematic relationship between Muslim modernity and music in the postcolonial context of South Asia. Therefore, as the empirical evidence suggests, music’s legitimacy remains contested in the state-led social and cultural reproduction. How do the hereditary practitioners of classical music negotiate with such poignant conditions of neglect and marginality? To address this question, this study surveys the ecology of the surviving classical music scene which cuts across the themes of caste, class and religion. While ashrafi patronage provides some alternative avenues of support for the classical musicians, it is baithak culture of Lahore where the misnomered Pakistani classical musicians turn to find their best audience