The awesome relevance of bhakti poetry even today

The other day I was listening to a Mira bhajan sung on an elegant stage, in an air-conditioned auditorium, rendered with all the sophistication of a trained classical musician. The listeners — mostly from the upper class –– were lost in a haze of aesthetic appreciation. Did they remember that these verses were a protest call on the busy streets, among a bustling crowd of people from many humble walks of life?

When Mira announced, “People call me mad. My family calls me renegade. But I will not yield to oppression. I will not give up my calling. I will do what I want, what I think is right,” she was exercising her power of dissent, asserting her individual identity, opposing gender discrimination, laughing at the status quo. And I thought of the many women — and men — who are doing the same thing today. 

That is the power of bhakti poetry. It not only transcends time but hits you with the gut-wrenching power of the here and now. It lives and breathes in an eternal present. See how Kabir’s (circa 1440 – 1518) verse sums up a topical situation dragging Mother Teresa into a noisome controversy, “Snakes may creep onto the sandalwood tree but they cannot make the tree lose its value.” And how brilliantly he captures the present-day scenario when he describes religious factions blinding themselves to truth as they fight unto death about Ram or Rahim? (And we may add Christ.)

Bhakti poets are also quoted by upholders of intolerance, propagators of hatred. Then we are in danger of forgetting that the bhakti movement rose as a protest of the masses against intolerance, striving to break caste, creed and gender barriers. Whether Annamacharya in Andhra Pradesh, Purandara Dasa in Karnataka, Narsi Mehta in Gujarat, Tukaram in Maharashtra, or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Odisha, the bhakti poets were anti-establishment in spirit. 

True, some modern scholars trace the feudal spirit prevailing in contemporary socio-political milieus to this ingrained bhakti tenet of surrender, bowing to the supreme authority. They argue that in modern times, this tradition makes neta replace deva.

But that is only one side of the story. The same bhakti tradition also accepts a formless transcendent God who may be reached only through a metaphysical search for the Truth of truths. When Tukaram says, “I spit on pundits,” he is not trouncing knowledge but mere textbook knowledge, just as Kabirdas did when he said that you become wise not by reading a thousand texts, but when you understand love.

And surely we can extend this concept to dismiss literal interpretations of the texts by dangerous fools in every creed? As a Sadhvi does in Parliament, or a bigot inflames hatred from a public platform. Such mob manipulators forget that singular commitment to your chosen god does not negate the Indian acceptance of plurality.  

Today when humour is suspect, and comedy is suffocated by all the moral policing around us, by the state and by self-proclaimed guardians of tradition (ravanasenas masquerading as ramasenas) how delightful it is to see the irreverence with which the old bhakti poets hit out against hypocrisy! Their shafts did not spare even the gods they worshipped. They throve on defiance. Nine centuries ago Mahadevi Akka cried out, “She has lain down with the Lord… and lost caste”. The bhakti poets knew that the path of dissent is steep, dangerous. They took it with a toss of the head— and a smile.

The author is a musician and a journalist