Tradition bound India’s heart is its folk culture. Through the folk culture we can observe the breath of real india and its people’s psychic graph. In Baul tradition of Bengal, a folk tradition cum a folk religion where the songs of fakir Lalon Shah (1774-1890) called as Lalon Geete, which expounded humanity over all social and religious dogmas. In the stream of Bengali folk songs Lalon Geete is the most beautiful and enriched in its approach. In other words, it may be said that Lalon Geete possess the top most position among the Bengali folk songs. Approximately for the last two centuries the Lalon songs are giving a full content in the minds of the people of Bengal.
To Lalon, ‘man’ is his main concern and
man’s heart is the only place where god resides whom Lalon called as ‘Moner Manus’.
Lalon’s philosophy is the philosophy of searching the ‘moner manus’ that
has no caste, no religion, no gender bias, after all on realization of which
presence men can attain the eternal bills.
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| Fakir Lalon Shah Drawing by Jyatirindranath Tagore (Source: en.wikipedia.org) |
Bengali is an Indo-Aryan language
possessing a history and tradition of at least a millennium, with a rich
tradition of folklore and folk literature. The origin of Baul songs and rhyme are
obscure, but are thought to be of considerable antiquity. Lalon shah was born
in 1774 in Varara village under Kumerkhali upazila in Kushtia district of
Bangladesh. He died in 1890 at the age of 116 years in Sauria village nearby
Kushtia town. Among the Baul poets it may be undoubtedly said that Lalon shah
was the greatest in all respect. There are two streams in Lalon Geete as
composed by Lalon Fakir, such as, Hindu yuga stream and Islami sufi stream. In
many cases we can see, that there is a strange mixing between these two
streams. In Hindu yuga stream, the events of Shrikrishna and Radha is the
principle resort while the other is Chaitanya Dev. On the contrary, basing
Hazrat Muhammad and his religion Lalon composed many songs. Over and above we
can see an acquaintance of many events of Baul austere endeavor, Marfati,
survey of the body, the mystery of the creation of God etc. through these Lalon’s
songs.
Around the middle of the thirteenth
century, the whole of Bengal fell into Muslim hands, and the new rulers
launched a campaign for the spread of Islam. As a consequence, many people who
held marginal positions within the structure of Hindu society, many of whom may
have been Sahajiyas, embraced Islam. Some however, became converts in name only,
as a survival tactic, and continued to follow their Sahajiya practices. These Muslim
Sahajiyas were among the first fakirs of Bengal. At the same time, various Sufi
orders of Islam began to penetrate Bengal. As they essentially practiced a cult
of mystic love, their creed was based on self-realization and was found to have
many features in common with Sahajiya tradition. A large number of people
became their recruits, including the Muslim Sahajiyas, who found in Sufism a
kind of shelter from the oppression of orthodox Islam. This led very naturally
to considerable intermingling of ideas. Bauls would seem to have begun to be
widely spread in Bengal only around the middle of the seventeenth century and
it still exists. Fakir Lalon Shah is the main pioneer and the greatest
spoke-person of the marginalized Baul tradition of the undivided Bengal. Rejecting
the religious institutions and their constitutional dogma, Fakir Lalon Shah has
created a world which is based on human and humanity. Through his songs he has
raised his voice against class, caste, religious malice and so many social
issues which we can still observe in our society. The most profound theme we
can observe in ‘Lalon Geet’ is Lalon’s reaction against class and caste system
of Indian society and the religious conflicts. His age-old songs are still
modern in the context of our present society. When the Lalonite Baul singer
sings the song:
“Jat gelo jat gelo bole eki ajab karkhana
Satya kaje keu noy raji sab dekhi tana na na.
Jokhon tumi bhobe ele
Tokhon tumi ki jat chhile
Jabar belai ki jat nile
Ea-kotha amay bolo na.
Brahmin-chandal chamar-muchi
Eki jole hoi go suchi
Dekhe suune hoy na ruchi
Johm ea to kauke chharbe na…”
Through this song Lalon is expressing that
he is becoming puzzled by the word religion which is uttered everywhere by
everyone while very few are agreed to do for the truth. Lalon asks when men
take birth, are they remain aware in which religion they are taking birth. And they
know at time of their last ride which religion they would have then. He is also
confused in thinking that as the same holy water makes both the Brahmin and the
outcaste pure and sacred, then why these differences between them in the
society.
At Lalon’s contemporary era, which is
marked as Bengal renaissance, The hindu intellectuals ignored both the Hindu
and Muslim masses. In Baul songs,
particularly in songs of Lalon we can see a triumph to bring all the community
together. The main concern of Renaissance, that is communal harmony, finds its
way and becomes prominent into the illiterate but self-learned people’s songs. Rural
Bengal’s this humanitarian revolution’s main breath was Fakir Lalon Shah. He
has seen that this religious conflict even putting barrier in his way of
preaching peace.
Bauls are one of the socio-religious sects
of the society. As a social sect they cannot keep themselves totally detached from
the events which have been going on their time-line. Social events and their
experiences with them foreground the theme of their songs. Fakir Lalon Shah, an
eminent guru of Baul tradition cum religion, has expressed his views against the
social binaries like class, caste, gender and religions through his songs. At the
time of Lalon’s age his songs had achieved much popularity into the common folks
but most of the landed gentry were indifferent to his songs and philosophy. Now
at our age, some active endeavors have been seen into the urban intelligentsia
of Bangladesh and West Bengal of India to look back to the songs of Fakir Lalon
Shah and his philosophy. But such a limited and regional attempt is not enough
for Lalon Shah’s songs and philosophy which deals with the great themes as
humanity, peace and fraternity.
By Zavizah.
References:
British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance
Part II Vol X (Calcutta)
A
Historigraphical Critique of Renaissance, Analogues for nineteenth century
India Perspective in Social Sciences-Historical Dimensions, Oxford University,
1977 p. 189.
One
Hundred Poems of Kabir, Introductions. p.19.
Nizami, K.A. 'Socio-Religious Movements in
Indian Islam (1763-1898)' (Ed. St. Lokhandwalla) pp. 107-108 quoted by Amalendu
De., Roots of Separation in Nineteenth century Bengal, Calcutta, 1974 p. 20.
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