The death of a Bhojpuri singer this summer is a blow to the already dying folk tradition that reflects the historical reality of millions who were taken from India to work as indentured workers in British colonies around the world
Simit Bhagat
Gopal Maurya and his troupe get ready for a performance outside his home in Buxar,
Bihar, in 2017. Picture credit: The Bidesia Project
Shivlal Baari was 75-years-old when I first met him in Mishrauliya village in Chhapra, Bihar. The year was 2017 and I was on a solo motorcycle trip—crisscrossing the Bhojpuri-speaking region to document folk music. Shivlalji was shy, and reluctantly agreed to record a few melodies that had been passed down through the ages.
He was a member of the Bhikari Thakur group—a Bhojpuri theatre troupe—active from the 1930s to the late 1960s. The plays and songs they performed were not mere entertainment, but powerful narratives of love, separation and social issues. From the pain of migration to the treatment of widows to daughters being auctioned off, their performances held a mirror to the society of their time.
When I returned to Chhapra in the summer of 2024, I learned the devastating news of Shivlalji’s passing. It hit me harder than I expected. Despite being born and raised in Mumbai, with no roots in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, I felt a profound connection to Bhojpuri language and folk culture.
This connection began a few years earlier when I stumbled upon a village in UP where almost every resident could play an instrument and sing Bhojpuri folk songs. The music somehow stayed with me long after my journey home.
And so, this loss felt deeply personal. It was not just the loss of a talented performer; it felt like losing a piece of our collective identity. We lost a part of our oral history and culture that he preserved through his performances.
Sadly, Shivlalji had no successor for his musical legacy.
And he's not the only one. This is the fate of most ageing Bhojpuri folk singers. Many are farmers, labourers or craftsmen who engage in singing as a passion inherited from their elders. Traditionally, rural communities in India have folk songs for special events such as festivals, weddings and childbirth. However, as people migrate to large cities, rural culture is slowly dying. Folk songs are an undocumented casualty.
“Earlier, every village would have a few folk artists who could perform traditional songs. But today, even on important festivals like Holi, it is difficult to find people who can sing traditional Holi or Phagua songs,” says Ram Asare Pal, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and now works as a security guard in Mumbai.
Many Bhojpuri folk singers are now in their twilight years, living in poverty or have turned to different professions. Their loss is an irreplaceable part of our heritage. We are losing a way of understanding the world through music that has survived for generations.
CHUTNEY MUSIC
Folk artist Kailash Mishra tunes his instruments at a village temple in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, in the year 2017. Picture credit: The Bidesia Project
In the past, these folk songs were an integral part of everyday life. They served as sources of entertainment, religious and cultural expression. They were also a means of passing on information from one generation to another.
Take the case of one of Bhikhari Thakur’s popular songs, 'Are Sajni Re'. The song goes as follows:
Oh beloved,
Yesterday, my dear departed for Calcutta,
Without shoes on his feet,
No roof above his head,
How do you walk, oh dear one?
These lines carried the weight of countless migration stories told during the British Raj in India. A reality for millions of people who left the ports of Calcutta to work as indentured workers in British colonies around the world.
These landless and downtrodden people took a long journey across the ‘Kala Paani’ in search of a better life. They left their motherland, leaving behind their families, village and the very earth that had sustained them for generations. But they took something precious with them along. They carried their culture, their songs and the rhythms of everyday life. Their songs, once tales of longing and departure, found fertile ground in places like Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius and beyond.
One of the songs ‘Deshwa Ghulam Rahe’ by a Bihari folk artist Gopal Maurya goes:
‘Enslaved was my country, My beloved country. Under the rule of the British. They deceived and took me away and caged me onto their land. They deceived and took me away and caged me onto their land’.
Here, amidst the sugarcane fields and bustling ports, these melodies took on new hues. They blended local musical traditions to create vibrant new genres. One of them was Chutney Music, a fusion of Bhojpuri folk, American reggae and Caribbean rhythms. I saw how these melodies had taken on a new life in distant lands. They have become a bridge between India and our people, across the ocean.
As I rode my motorbike through the heartlands of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, these folk songs echoed in my head. Each village I passed through seemed to whisper its own version of this tale. With each performer I met, I felt the weight of responsibility growing. These were not just songs; they were the last echoes of a way of life that was disappearing before our eyes. The urgency of preservation became clearer with every passing day.
This led to my first award winning feature-length documentary film, In Search of Bidesia, which chronicles the stories of five Bhojpuri folk singers.
The success of the film gave birth to The Bidesia Project—an initiative dedicated to archiving and conserving Bhojpuri folk music that is at risk of being lost. We record folk music, edit it and popularise it through digital platforms. So far, we have amassed approximately 1 TB of footage and recorded over 200 songs.
One of the many heartfelt messages we receive on our YouTube channel goes: ‘When I listen to this, I can feel the pain that my great-grandparents went through’. This comes from Tanuja Danpath, South Africa, a recipient country of indentured migrants.
Interestingly, while these rich traditional cultural expressions are deeply appreciated abroad, contemporary Bhojpuri music has largely become vulgar and crass. It is disheartening to witness the decline of genres like Chaiti, Kajri, Jatsaar and Birha within Bhojpuri folk music.
Take the case of Jatsaar songs, for instance. During my first documentation trip in 2017, I met 92-year-old Sarawasti Devi from Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. When I asked her to sing a few old songs, she struggled to recollect them at the start. Yet, she pieced together a few verses and began to sing a Jatsaar song - traditionally sung by women while grinding grains on a stone.
It goes like this:
‘Sitting on the edge of a farm, we are cutting bamboo in the fields. Two learned men walk towards us, One is fair, the other is wheatish’.
The lines she sang described a village scene of people cutting bamboo in the fields. The song she sang was passed down from her mother, preserving a precious tradition through generations.
However, as electric mills replaced stone grinders, the age-old tradition of women working on stone mills ceased to exist. No one passes on these songs anymore.
Author Simit Bhagat poses for a picture with folk musicians outside a music school in Chhapra, Bihar in 2019 Picture credit: The Bidesia Project
Migration from these villages to big cities in India still continues. While in the past, they wrote about waiting for letters, now the characters in the songs lament that their loved ones aren't picking up the phone or calling back. However, the essence remains unchanged—their loved ones moving away and the seemingly endless wait for their return.
But these traditional genres have been integral to the cultural fabric of the wider Bhojpuri-speaking region. They offer a window into the joys, sorrows and everyday experiences of rural communities. As a result, it is crucial to document, digitise and promote these endangered genres. We need to safeguard this legacy and ensure that it continues to enrich future generations with its unique stories and melodies.
‘I'm uncertain about the future generations. But I know that this music will continue for at least one more generation’, says Ajay Mishra, a folk artist from Bihar, as he teaches his young son to play the harmonium. This poignant moment, captured as the final scene in the documentary film In Search of Bidesia, underscores the importance of preserving this heritage.
Simit Bhagat is the Founder of The Bidesia Project, a not for profit initiative that works on conserving Bhojpuri folk music. You can learn more about his work here:
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