ABSTRACT
This chapter examines music through the lens of caste, emphasizing the role of music as a locus of knowledge and power and as a crucial determinant of (in)humanity and civility in India. Drawing on field research carried out between 2015 and 2018 with musicians, songwriters/poets, and activists in the western state of Maharashtra, the chapter explores vidrohi shahiri jalsa (‘rebellious music gathering’), which challenges the casteist state, society, family, as well as brahmanical or high-caste supremacist aesthetics. The jalsas of Satyashodhak Samaj were the first attempt in modern western India to use music performance for mass communication and critical education against caste, brahmanism, religious orthodoxy among Dalit and other oppressed caste communities. Focusing on the performance of VSJ in western India, the chapter has outlined music as a locus at once of caste apartheid and of resistance.
