Festivals of Bengali Muslims in Evolution

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Friday, 03 February 2012

Author / Source : Shamsuzzaman Khan

A critical study of the social and cultural history of Bengali Muslims in East Bengal would illustrate that there was hardly any evidence of festivity and merriment in their lives. The Muslim society extended in this region was somber and gloomy which does not yet suggest that the Bengali Muslims were uninterested in festivity or apathetic to merriment. It is rather a fact that they had to undergo a massive adversity out of the sensitivity attached to scriptural religion and the orthodox resistance of the mollas and the moulovees who had scanty educational standard. In the existed reality, the people did not venture to restructure their religious festivals in accordance with liberal frameworks of culture. It also came about that no such enlightened and governing middle class society sprang up as could improvise religious festivals by uniting the components of merriment with them.
That was why festivals could not attain any creative and inventive design and such rudiments of festivity as music or the art of dancing could not get access to their homes for religious commandments and prohibitions. Festivals were beyond imagination in the social infrastructure that disregarded music as prohibited and declared the art of dancing as haaram. As such, the Bengali Muslim society did not experience festivals to any commendable extent. However, it is a basic instinct of man to mix with others and share merriments through interactions with them, which is a natural instinct, basic to all human beings. If one in the internment of certain obstacles deprives himself of joining festivals, society cannot advance for that it is then transformed into an unprogressive institution. The Bengali Muslim society too had long been a labyrinth of stagnant thoughts in which scopes for creativity at both individual and collective levels were not apparent at all. As a result, probability of social progress and cultural promotion became quite faint.
One
Rabindranath states, "Everyday man is naive, miserably alone but on the occasion of festivals he is grand; that day he is grand with the solidarity of all souls; that day he is great as he comprehends the whole power of humanity." In the previously mentioned note, the world poet justifies a festival as the day when man discovers in him the elevation of all-conquering human venture. That day he is not aggrieved with the typical load, not confined in the four walls only. Being grand and great, man can get his own share of a festive delight only when he feels in him the strengths of humanism, attaching himself with others in liberalism, brilliance and delightfulness. Hence, the occasion of a festival is the day of the full-bloomed humanism, of bumping up a liberal, humanistic sense above brutality.
Moreover, on a festival, an individual congregates once again with another or more and he thus gets better aware of the universe in its profound splendor, in the intimate feelings of delight from the interaction of a man with another and in the strength of mental attachment. These festivals transfigure man into a fresher form; from time to time, it distils his mind liberating him from fatigue, humiliation and meanness, sometimes it stocks up his mind with renewed passion and vitality. Moreover, if all these things are up to the mark, festivals restore triumph to the stock of a man; festivals not only elevate an individual to an agreeable height but also it supplements a nation with innovation, creativity and with the influx of fresher talents. That is why, any life-loving individual preserves cravings for festivals with a view to surviving in a fresher delight, opening the avenue of creativity at the national level and discovering the source of better potency. A nation bereft of festivals is dead and infertile; it is bloodless and unpromising as well.
Two
In Bengali Muslim society, festivals originated from only two sourcesfirstly, with the exception of a few outsiders, most Muslims of Bengal are the ones converted from the local population, who altered their religion but not their culture. Thus, they did not give up the existed pala-parban or events and festivals practiced and celebrated by them ever since the beginning, which rather persisted as the inseparable part of their life and culture. Static with the archetype, these festivals have carried the scratch of time and the impact of social progression. Some festival or other has achieved the mixed or synchronized characteristics keeping intact some contexts of Muslim lifestyles and behavioral patterns. The synchronization of local components and the Muslim myths and legends also launched colorful festivals. For an instance, we may refer to the famous Muslim festival beravasan of Murshidabad, which is observed in honor of khoaz khizir, known as the God of Water or the God of the sea in the river Vagirathi adjacent to Murshidabad town on the last brihospotibar  or thursday of the Bangla month of vadra.  It is popularly said that Murshid Kuli Khan, a nawab of Bengal or Nabab Alibardi khan introduced this festival, which is observed also in greater Dhaka zone. On the other hand, the regional festivals celebrated from time immemorial and later on accepted by Bengali Muslims as their own through a process of adoption and elimination conclude navanna uthsob or the festival of harvest, amani, poush-parban, soyla and garsi. In the midst of economic exploitations and aggressions against national identity as imposed by the Pakistan Government, Shilpacharja Joynul Abedin significantly reintroduced navanna uthsab in a wider outline and in context with social sentiment. From that time on, the festival introduced by the North Bengal farmers is now celebrated nationally in Dhaka and other places in agrahayon, the eighth month of the Bengali calendar and exceptionally in the month of poush when it takes a different shape with poush-uthsob.  In the former days, people observed amani festival in agro-based rural Bangladesh on the first of boishakh. While a renewed version of pahela boishakh or Bangla navabarsho is now largely observed in a befitting manner throughout the country as national festival, the rural farmers' propitious family festival amani is on the verge of extinction.
Soyla and garsi are womanly festivals. In marriage ceremonies of the Hindu, the Muslim and the Buddhist in Chittagong, soyla or hola was a popular line up of dance, music, fun and frolic. An excerpt from the collection of verses laili-majnu by Doulat Uzir Bahadur Khan, a Bengali poet of the 16th century follows: ‘Kumarike charidike korila matala / Keho keho sohela gayonto monoronge.’ (The maiden is beside herself by ones around/ Some sing out soheli in the cheers of mind.)
In the agro-based Bengal society, garsi also is a propitious folk festival for women held in the Bengali month of ashwin, which is about to be extinct now. In Chittagong and some other places of Bangladesh, two other festivalsbaronkula and mangalshat-were in existence. There were also the gaye holud (a ceremony of ritual besmearing of the bride and the bridegroom with turmeric paste held before marriage) in some areas, which is now a part and parcel of any marriage ceremony even in towns, cities and ports of Bangladesh. Influenced by technology, the ritualistic event has taken a colossal shape and become an eye-catching one. It has even been an accepted fashion to shoot the events of gaye holud as well as the main rituals of marriage in video format.

Three
It is said that Bangladesh celebrates thirteen festivals in the duration of twelve months, which covers truth in more than one sense. From time immemorial, Bengal had been introducing varieties of pala-parbans or events and festivals; most of them are folk festivals. At times, these festivals are regional; sometimes, they are confined in small anthropological groups and the rest of the times, they are the festivals for certain religious community. These festivals are not wide-ranged, national or universal. In reactionary Muslim society, there were hardly any festivals of the previously mentioned type and standard. For the historical development of coordinated culture, although some of the said festivals are celebrated even in Muslim society, not even a single one other than Eid, mohorom and navabarsho was considered as one of the mainstream festivals. Even sixty to seventy years back, these mainstream festivals too could not be universal to diverse population. Therefore, the lower class Muslim quenched their thirst for recreation joining the open-to-all festivals celebrated by the neighboring Hindu community.
There is no scope to assume that the scriptural strictness of Islam is liable for that one cannot come across in Bengal any grand, colorful and universal festivals for the Muslims even as early as the first stage of the 20th century. In fact, the elements and foregrounds urgent for organizing grand festivals were absent in the Bengali Muslim society that was encircled in the scarcity of cash money in the agro-economic infrastructure. The festivals could not achieve extensive and multifarious dimensions for the absence of an extended and enlightened middle class society, for want of standardization of lifestyle, for inability of the consumer class and for the lack of institutional structure supporting to arrange festivals as well. For that reason, no glaze or grandeur was there even in Eid, which is the fundamental religious festival for the poverty-stricken, agro-dependent Bengali Muslim afflicted in want of cash money. In the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, such was the scenario of the average Bengali Muslims. Among those who played pioneering role in the development of festivals of the Bengali Muslims were Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Haque, Rebel Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, musical artists k. Mollik, and Abbasuddin Ahmed, poet Jasim Uddin, dance artist Bulbul Chowdhury, Mohammad Nasiruddin, editor of the sawgat and Shilpacharja Joynul Abedin.
Sher-e-Bangla got involved in politics as a representative of newly enlightened and economically influential Muslim middle class who were promoted from rural agricultural society. Unlike the nababs, the knights and the zaminders of the preceding generation, they had no propensity for abusing religion as a tool for exploiting political advantage. They were not even gripped in religious bigotry, as were the mollas, the moulovies and the kathmollas. The cultural and psychological atmosphere with new sentiments out of the comparatively good financial condition and modern learning of the new generation Bengali Muslim society was suitable for rejoicing festivals. The advent of Kazi Nazrul Islam on this backdrop in the 1920's enthralled in greater fervor the urban working class as well as the newly enlightened and well-off Middle class of the Bengal Muslim society. Nazrul ceaselessly satisfied their demand of culture and recreation with the creative flow of his music and literature filled with new sentiments of Muslim contexts and guiding inspirations.
Offering his recorded songs of newer sentiment, specially the songs of Islamic flavor by Nazrul, Abbasuddin connected to unrestricted cultural flow, the superstitious Muslims gripped in cultural infertility as an outcome of uneven economic developments. As a context of renaissance, these sons of Nazrul entered the homes of Bengali Muslims as an element of festivals and ceremonies. Slightly prior to this, the songs of K. Mollik, especially the vayaia and the polligiti as well the Islamic Songs of Abbasuddin paved the way for Bengali Muslims to create greater provisions for festivals and ceremonies utilizing their own cultural components. The introduction of the art of dancing by Bulbul Chowdhury and Afroza Bulbul removed another great obstacle to merriments and festivals Bengali Muslim society.
From the later part of the 19th century, newly enlightened middle class society began to flourish and kept the trend on in Bengal. After the formation of Bengal Government under the leadership of A. K. Fazlul Haque, the society got further expansion and was shaped into an organized power. In this newly enlightened, middle-class-Muslim-civil-society and even in the influential rural farmers' family and Zothder family, such elements as kaler gaan or gramophone, daily and monthly newspapers along with their Eid Supplements and the tradition of shopping dresses on the occasion of Eid came into existence. This was how Eid, the greatest religious festival for the Bengali Muslims, was introduced; during the Pakistan Period, this trend was a little stronger than before.
FOUR
Because of the activities against the ever-flowing cultural convention of the Bengalis and the heinous exploitation of their economic sector by the Western part of the Pakistan State which had communal and aggressive characteristics, Bangladesh achieved independence through the Liberation War after long struggle for self-rights, autonomy, cultural plurality and economic salvation. As this new state declared nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism as its state principles, it took a turn to an unprecedented and felicitated people's republic in south Asia. Thus, in this type of a modern state, the explosion of festivals under the impact of economic power and availability of cash money allowed by democracy is quite customary. The multifarious extension of festivals in liberated Bangladesh is a decent illustration of the fact that independence fosters a new trend in every sphere of a nation's life. In Bangladesh, Bangla Navabarsha or the Bengali New Year has already turned into her main national festival, which is characteristic to secularism. The festival is much signified by the participation of all religious communities of the country; it is identified as an incident symbolic to cultural activation. At the same time, such New Year Festivals of the indigenous people as boisu, sangri, bizu and boisaki have been in practice in renewed spirit; the interactive participation of the Bengali and the Paharee in the New Year celebrations of both people is on the rise. In Bengali’s navabarsha festivals over the years, the inventive use of some elements in the rallies of traditional folk festivals by students of the Institute of Fine Arts is very significant for varieties of reasons. Specially, the use of masks in the rally strives to connect us to traditions. On the other hand, it similarly becomes razor-sharp in mocking at society and the communal cultural principles of the state.
The 21st of February was primarily a national day of condolence to the Bengalis. Bengali students and youths clarified the Bengali national identity through the incident of bloody sacrifice in the national struggle for salvation. Despite the fact this is the main significance, 21 February has rather been changed into a day of festival, as a day of victorious action and national vigilance, not a day of condolence. Based on this occasion, grand cultural festivals, book fairs and so many intellectual activities throughout the month have been introduced, which contains vitality and vigor and thus bears the testimony of self-development and self-expression.
As lovers of tradition, the Bengalis arrange various festivals every year  such as navabarsha uthsab, pastry festivals of the poush-parban and spring festivals. As a result, anthropological solidarity and the recycling process of tradition are reinforced; this has multifarious significance. Angels the Great went on to note, "Any sound cultural endeavor strengthens freedom." Therefore, the enhancement of these festivals and sound cultural activities in any country indicate that the independence of that country is further reinforced. Moreover, those who blast bombs and charge granades against the cultural functions are plainly the enemies of independence, humanistic beauty, plurality and the inventive self-revelation of the national power; they are fascist, anti-humanist and enemies to the state and the mass people.
In independent People's Republic of Bangladesh, Eid Festival is no more a religious occasion; nor is it a ritual in the covering of sanctity. Now, it is rather a grand religious, socio-economic and cultural course of actions performed annually in multi dimensional significances. Nowadays, it has attachment to the livelihood, association, correlation, recreation and occupation of not only the Muslim of religious mindset but also of the millions, irrespective of group, sect and religion.  Although Eid is an ingredient of religious identity and scriptural dictums, demand of sociality, recreation and aesthetics has been irresistible as it has ushered the domain of economy and been connected with massive population in context with luxurious arrangements. In that connection, fresher trade and commerce related to Eid and different set-ups of arts and institutes are being formulated.
Various modern elements such as Fashion design, fashion parade, various discoveries of cloths and dresses, Eid supplements in the newspapers, release of musical cassettes, CD's and DVD's, special Eid events and programs on TV and Eid Rallies arranged in old Dhaka have made Eid a nationwide festival of free access.   
This pervasion of Eid festivals in Bangladesh and its attachment with mainstream socio-economic basis are the indicators of cultural advancement of the people living in this region.
It is to be noticed that on the basis of the irrefutable religious dictums and rituals of the scriptural convention of Eid, the peripheral affairs with the amalgamation of modern understanding of life has been more significant than the central matters.
An observation of the Ekushe Festival also presents the same pattern of reality. Ekushe or 21 February is a day of condolence and the feelings of pain. In truth, it is a national day of condolence; feelings of condolence were earlier at the core of it.  Marked as the main events of this festival are such as participating the provat feri or  the morning procession on bare foot, visiting the graveyard of the martyrs and prayers in the temples, mosques and churches. Painting alpana in the areas adjacent to the shahid minar is also adopted from brotanusthan by the Bengali Hindu women as a symbol of godly piety. Being restructured in context with national hopes and aspirations and struggle for purity, creativity and rectification, this day of condolence has been a grand festival indeed. With some exception, this is what generally happens; a specialist on folklore comes on to comment:
"...festivals happen in the present and for the present, directed toward the future. Thus the new and different are legitimate dimensions of festival, contributing to its vitality. (Festival: Beverly. Stoeltje)
From the previously mentioned statement, it is comprehensive that Ekhushe has been a festival of cultural vigilance and reconstruction by synchronizing different new subjects and elements. The scrutinization of the three festivals navabarsha, Eid and Ekushe, will let one see a good amount of unity and resemblance among them. The main cause of it lies in the cited extract. Even festivals of the distant past may be renewed through the continuous experiences of man, because festivals happen in the present and for the present and these are directed to the future.
Therefore, the impulse of the present and the progression time directed to the future restructure festivals with newer forms and components. The New Year and Eid are indeed festivals of cheers and merriments. Ekushe or 21 February, a congregation of condolence,  has now been changed into a cheerful festival.
The next resemblance of the three of our festivals is in the perspective of fashion and dress pattern. In Eid, New Year and Ekushe Festivals, the male Bengali people mainly put on pajamas and Punjabis while the female wear sharees. Here tradition has scopes for playing a strong role while food also is a major organ of festivals. Some festivals can be mirrored in foods and feasts; in two of the three previously mentioned festivals, food plays its own role. In Eid, the economically influential householders arrange family feasts; relatives and neighbors also take part in it. Special quality foods are arranged even on New Year in the well-off families. Apart from the New Year and Eid, Ekushe has no such special arrangements. There are other similarities tooall of the three festivals have public gatherings or congregations. The congregation of Eid is religious; now cultural elements also have added to it; in the New Year, the festival is full of delight and the essence of secular culture and Ekushe is an occasion of culture and protest. All the three festivals have some attachment to traditionthe marks of traditional renewal or reconstruction are to be noticed in these festivals for that tradition and modernity are just the head and the tail of a coin.
After the declaration of the 21st of February as International Mother Language Day, this Bengali Festival for all has been diced into a day for preserving language and national identity of the world population and the minority people and thus it has also transformed into a universal festival around the globe.

Translated into English
by Farhan Ishra.
The author Shamsuzzaman Khan is currently DG of Bangla Aacdemy.