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The British Library’s Sound Archive holds a vast array of recordings from early 20th-century South Asia. This archive reveals a wide range of songs in languages from across the Indian Subcontinent (Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi and Bengali, among others). Beyond this range of languages, it also showcases a variety of genres, ranging from folk music (whether Gujarati garbā or Punjabi heer songs) to comedic ditties, and from various devotional hymns (bhajans, nāṭs and shabads, across the three main religions of Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism, respectively) to classical rāga-based music.

Among the British Library’s Sound Archive are gramophone and other recordings of many prominent north Indian and Pakistani classical music vocalists, most notably the legendary 20th-century musician Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (1902–1968). Bade Ghulam Ali represented the Patiala musical gharānā or lineage of Punjab, and while he was a master of the khayāl form, he achieved mass recognition through his renditions of the highly emotive style of light classical ṭhumrī singing. He was born in the town of Kasur near Lahore in west Punjab, which became part of Pakistan in 1947. From 1947 to 1957 Bade Ghulam Ali was a citizen of the new nation state of Pakistan, where he often found himself disagreeing with the drive towards the Islamicisation of music that aimed to rid classical music of any so-called ‘Hindu’ referents.

As a result of this disillusionment, Bade Ghulam Ali moved to India in 1957, where he was granted Indian citizenship thanks to the interventions of political leaders such as Morarji Desai and Jawaharlal Nehru. The move from his hometown in Pakistan to the city of Bombay in India in the 1950s brought Bade Ghulam Ali greater professional acclaim and opportunities. However, this came at the cost of being separated from his extended family back home in Kasur and Lahore, a pain he felt keenly to the end of his life, which came in the Indian city of Hyderabad in 1968. Many of his famous ṭhumrī renditions on the theme of separation from the beloved can equally be seen to capture the pain of Partition – of estrangement from one’s ancestral lands and of an uneasy migration that a majority of Punjabis of his generation also experienced. This is especially evident in the ṭhumrīs ‘Yād Pīyā Kī Āye, Ye Dukh Sahā Nā Jāye’ (‘The Beloved’s Memory Torments Me, This Sadness I Cannot Bear’)^[1] and ‘Kaṭey Nā Birahā Kī Rāt’ (‘The Night of Separation Seems Endless’).^[2]

However, while the place of maestros such as Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan is assured in a musical tradition that vests greater status and power in male virtuosos, there is an equally powerful range of female singers, some remembered, some forgotten, who lent their voices to these transformative years in South Asia’s history. Many women singers are featured on gramophone recordings produced between 1935 and 1955 and released on the Young India label which have been preserved as part of the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (EAP).

The first set may be called the songs of independence, sung for the nationalist movement. Some of these were sung in Urdu by the Agra-based singer Sitara Begum, later better known as the actress Jyoti of Bombay cinema. In ‘Bharat Nahi Aazad’, which you can listen to below, she sings:

Bhārat Nahīṅ Āzād Huwā Hāye Kissī Se (x2)
Kab Tak Bandhe Rahoge Ghulāmī Kī Rassī Se
Hāṅ Poochh Lo Jī Se.
Oh (a pity that) that no one has yet managed to free India
Till when will the ropes of slavery tie you down? 
Just ask yourself this.

Ab Tak Bahut Sahe Haiṅ Zulm Ab Nā Saheṅgey (x2)
Āgey Kadam Baṛhāyeṅgey Peechey Na Haṭeṅgey
Jab Desh Pe Qurbān Haiṅ Gandhījī Rishī Se (x2)
Till now we have suffered many cruelties, but no more shall we suffer
We will step forward and no longer be left behind
When saint-like Gandhi has made sacrifices for the Nation. 

Bhārat Ke Naujawān Zarā Hosh Meiṅ Āwo (x2)
Kāyarpane Ka Dil se Nishān Nām Haṭāwo
Marnā Tumhe Qubool Ho Jeenā Nā Haṅsī Se (x2)
O youth of India, come to your senses
Remove any sign of cowardice from your hearts
Embrace death (for the Nation), how can you live with laughter (anymore).

Manzoor Desh Ke Liye Ho Sar Bhī Kaṭānā (x2)
Āzād Desh Karke Raheṅgey Yahī Ṭhānā 
Gar Jān Bhī Denī Paṛe De Denā Khushī Se 
For the Nation, it is acceptable to have your heads cut off 
We will ensure our Nation is free, this we have decided
Even if you need to lay down our lives, do so happily.

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

Sitara Begum’s elder sister Wahidan Bai (mother of the famous Hindi film actress Nimmi) also features in this collection – most notable are her devotional songs, such as ‘Dūlhā Hai Ajmeri Khwaja’ (‘The Ajmeri Saint Ajmer is a Groom’), sung in praise of the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti.

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

Sonā Deshāṅ Vichoṅ Desh Punjāb Nī Saiyyo
Vich Panjāb Farogh Karende Panj Darīyā Manmoṇe
Panjāṅ Dā Panjāb Banāyā Nām Panjā De Soṇe
Jhelum, Sutlej, Rāvī, Beās, Chenāb, nī Saīyyo!

Amongst all the golden lands, is the land of Punjab
Within Punjab do thrive the charming five rivers
All five made Punjab, and the names of all five are beautiful –
Jhelum, Sutlej, Ravi, Beas, Chenab, oh beloved! 

Another song by Badrulnissa, sung as a duet with Budh Singh Tan, ‘Bagdī-e-Rāvī’, invokes the ecology and landscape of Punjab region by focussing on the river Ravi, one of the five rivers that flow through Punjab. 

The contrasting interpretations of desh as nation and region, reflected in the song examples sung by Sitara Begum and Badrulnissa Begum respectively, perfectly capture the tussle between competing notions of political administration that played out during these years. The Muslim League, led by Jinnah, favoured a federation of regional provinces, while the larger Indian National Congress, under Nehru and Patel, advocated a centralised and unified state. Apart from this disagreement, the Muslim League’s insistent demand for a separate nation state for Indian Muslims culminated in the violent Partition of 1947, an event that affected millions of people, countless musicians and artists among them. 

One such musician was the legendary Roshanara Begum of the Kirana gharānā of Hindustani classical music. Born in Bengal with family roots in Bombay, at the time of Partition in 1947 she decided to migrate west with her husband, a Punjabi police officer hailing from Lala Musa in west Punjab. The EAP records feature a number of rare recordings by Roshanara Begum which showcase her virtuosity as the leading female classical vocalist of her generation. Roshanara Begum had to leave behind the land of her birth and her ancestral home in India to begin life anew in Pakistan. Roshanara Begum’s migration thus occurred in the opposite direction of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan’s, which we discussed above. Displacement and migration profoundly shaped the lives and musical trajectories of both these musicians. The lyrics of the composition ‘Is Nagarī Se Dūr’, which you can listen to below, perfectly capture the angst of displacement that Roshanara Begum (among countless others) would have experienced:

Is Nagarī Se Dūr Chaleiṅ Hum 
Iss Nagarī Se Dūr Kahīṅ Par
Apnā Rain Baserā Ho
Pāp ke dukh saṅkaṭ ne jahāṅ par
Apnā Hāth Nā Pherā Ho
Let us go somewhere far away, away from this city
Somewhere we can create our own shelter for the night
Where the sadness and hazards of sin
Have not spread their hands.

Uss Nagarī Meiṅ Miṭṭī Meeṭhī
Prem Kī Bārish Hotī Ho
Prem Ke Māre 
Mail Dukhon Ka Hoti Hai
That earth of that land would be sweet
And a rainfall of love would occur
Lost in love/due to love/because of love
The dirt of sadness would… 

Āwo Preetam Hum Tum Donoṅ 
Prem Ke Banne Kī Ban Jāyeiṅ
Chhoṙ Ke Sāre Jhooṭhey Dhandhe
Iss Jag Se Uṛ Jāyeiṅ 
Come, beloved, you and I, us both
Let us become grooms of love
Leaving behind all lies and dishonest business
Let us fly away from this world.

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

^{Usage rights: Audio and image are Public domain.}

Legions of her fans left behind in India, especially the city of Bombay, yearned to listen to her perform at music festivals. Roshanara Begum, however, rarely travelled to India given the increasingly rigid and heavily militarised borders. An exception to this was the Harballabh music festival of Jalandhar in Indian Punjab, where she agreed to travel on the request of the organiser Ashwani Kumar, a policeman and pre-1947 comrade of Roshanara’s husband.

In conclusion, the lives of a substantial number of musicians were deeply affected by the trauma of Partition, and the implications of 1947 for South Asian musical cultural histories are only now beginning to be recognised. Music is popularly believed to transcend borders and other artificial and man-made divisions. While it certainly does so more successfully than many other art forms, the small sliver of examples discussed here reveal how both songs and musicians were equally enmeshed within the all-pervasive politics of national, regional and religious identities in South Asia. 

Wade, Bonnie C., Khyal: Creativity Within North India's Classical Music Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Manuel, Peter, Ṭhumrī in Historical and Stylistic Perspectives (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989)

Gilani, Malti, Qurratul’ain Haider and Manorma Ahuja, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan ‘Sabrang’: His Life and Music (New Delhi: Harman Publishing House, 2003)

Saeed, Yousuf, ‘Jugalbandi: Divided Scores’, Himālmag South Asian, 25 January 2011: <https://www.himalmag.com/divided-scores/>.

Sheikh, M A, Who’s Who: Music in Pakistan (London: Xlibris UK, 2012)

Afzal-Khan, Fawzia, Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through Its Women Singers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

[1] Padma Bhooshan  – Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan: Featuring Aaye na Balam and 10 other enchanting thumris, Revised edition of GRAMOPHONE EBLP 1751 [Recording first published in 1968]

[2] Padma Bhooshan  – Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan: Featuring Aaye na Balam and 10 other enchanting thumris, Revised edition of GRAMOPHONE EBLP 1751 [Recording first published in 1968]