 Hello everyone, I am Trisha Dora-Burra from the Bhupan Hazurika School of Mass Communication Krishna Kanta Hanik State Open University and I would like to welcome you all once again to another informative online class. In today's online discussion, we are going to talk about Unit 3 of the paper, Traditional Folk Media, which belongs to third semester of BA program in journalism and mass communication under Krishna Kanta Hanik State Open University. In the previous two units, that is Unit 1 and 2, you are introduced briefly about what traditional media is all about. In today's particular unit, in Unit 3, we shall talk about the history and growth of traditional media in India, a brief overview of some of the traditional folk media forms of India, as well as the impact electronic media has on traditional media. And finally, you know, we shall look into some of the applications of the traditional media for the purpose of development. Now when we talk about traditional media, what does come to our mind? Traditional media is something that has been passed down generation after generation. Now each culture have their own traditions, which are actually given or passed on from one generation to another generation. Initially, you know, we didn't used to have electricity or other technological tools at a disposal. And thereby, we didn't have any electronic media or for that purpose, any specific media which is based on electronic forms for the purpose of entertainment or information. Now have you really wondered like how the messages were communicated at that point of time when there was no such specific media, when there was no specific medium of communication, medium of channel, well, there was indeed communication was there, but there was no such technology enhanced media, technology enables communication tools or you know, channels through which such messages could be communicated. In fact, such messages were communicated by ways of, you know, word of mouth publicity, by way of, you know, oral communication. And so the people they used to adopt different ways of communication in the form of songs, there were dances, there were musics, there was drama, there were stories and puppet shows and so and so forth. Because you know, people since we live in a society, so we have the innate, you know, interest or ability to communicate with one another. And so there were different mediums apart from electronic media, how people used to communicate. And even the stories which we are talking about, the oral traditions, oral forms that could not be documented, they were spread to this different forms of media. And even during these days also, we have different, you know, such kind of communication tools at a disposal. Even the remote interior villages, you know, where you don't find the proper electronic media or you don't have a proper online-based media to communicate. People make use of such folk forms, different folk art forms, different folk dances, different folk songs to communicate with one another. And have you ever remembered like when you were small or like at one point of time, you know, your grandparents or maybe your parents, they might have told you the different stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana or other moral tales, you know. And have you actually enjoyed a live performance of drama in a village or any other area where you reside? How was it narrated to you? How was it communicated to you? Now, when your grandparents or when you're, for that matter, your parents then narrated the stories of our folk forms and all. Definitely they didn't make use of any, I guess, electronic media forms. They were told to you in face-to-face mode, you know, in oral mode. So, you know, oral traditions, oral folk forms, you know, folk dances, folk songs, folk dramas, the perpetrators, these are the other different forms to which, you know, different kinds of information are being communicated. And this for another umbrella of traditional folk media. Now, let us try to understand how the traditional media in India has evolved over the years, the history and growth of traditional media in India. Now, when we talk about the history, the history actually dates back to those ancient times when people that began to understand the value of civilization and organized living. And folk art was not born out of suddenly in one particular day. People wanted, people actually fell the need for entertainment, for satisfying the creative urge to express and remain united as a society. Now, as far as the McBride Commission Report of 1982 is concerned, which is actually known as Many Voices One World, and communication began, it actually became institutionalized in traditional societies. This particular report sees. And interpersonal communication and public institution communication in a form of transmission of norms and customs in grue and profession categories of people in course of time came to be responsible for the transmission of certain types of messages. And when we talk about the different categories of the professional people, there might be, you know, sorcerers, tribal chiefs, traveling merchants. It may be they may be local administrators. They may be dancers, scribes and so on and so forth. And as far as India is concerned, the folk traditions grew parallel across the country in different forms, basically catering to the needs and preferences of the people belonging to different age groups, belonging to different regions and actually giving a creative satisfaction and simple joys to the people. Because you see, we do have a print media. We do have electronic media and we do have online media. Now, why do we need the importance? So why do we need traditional folk media? There is definitely an important point in that. Traditional folk media gives us a sense of belongingness. It makes us feel that we are a part of the society because traditional folk media makes use of the traditional forms of communicating with one another unlike, you know, other electronic media forms. Because electronic media, there is hardly any, you know, contact in real time with one another. Of course, these days we have, you know, online way of, you know, chatting with one another. We have online, we are interacting with one another. But having said that, keeping that aside, the traditional folk media, it makes us feel that we are communicating with the person in real time because the person is in front of us. And the different forms or different, the messages that have been transmitted to different folk forms are very much, you know, a part of the society. And that makes us feel, you know, a part of the society. Now, according to Malhan, Malhan is a, he was a very renowned, you know, media personality. And in 1985, he has enlisted three or the most four different forms of traditional media. The first important form which he has highlighted is the action-oriented folk arts and verbal musical forms. You know, when we talk about action-oriented, it means that, you know, the folk art forms or the different folk media forms are accompanied by action. Like we have rural theater, there is puppetry, there is discourses, there are folk songs, the ballads, storytelling, and so on and so forth. And the second important form or type of traditional media, as given by Malhan, is the audience situations like festivals and fairs, social, ritual and ceremonial gatherings and meets. Because you see, it's not often that, whatever we, it's not only that, we gain different forms of information, we gain different knowledge, only by, you know, you know, getting through different folk media forms or maybe through different print media forms or electronic media forms. We also get some amount of idea or some amount of information we get by attending different festivals as well as different fairs, different ceremonial gatherings. Because, you know, when we attend the different festivals and fairs, we get a brief idea of what the situation is all about, the different actions that take place in such a place or such a, such an occasion. It enlightens us, it gives us a bird's eye view of what the situation might be. Third important type which Malhan has enlisted is the opinion leaders like the village heads. Now, in most of the villages, especially rural areas, we have the village chief, shift minister, the village heads are there. So what they do, they act like an opinion leaders. Now opinion leaders, the main function is like, you know, they try to inform the general public as a whole. They give their own opinion because the information they collect from the different media channels, they use it for their own purpose. And then they try to percolate that particular message down to the bottom level and they disseminate that particular message to the people at the lower level. So they play the important role of opinion leader. Lastly, we have the rural arts and crafts, traditional designs and miscellaneous motives. Now, when we talk about rural arts and crafts, because art, the crafts of different regions are different. For instance, if you talk about some, we have our own traditional art and crafts. If you talk about the art and crafts of Rajasthan, they have their own indigenous art and crafts. So the different traditional designs, the different motifs, they kind of bring out a different identity of the particular state of the region. So rural arts and crafts are also one type of, you know, traditional folk media form. Now, these different traditional media forms, which Malhan has and so they not only give a sense of information, but they also provide a type of mass entertainment and they serve as indigenous tools of interpersonal and integrative communication more specifically in the rural areas. And as time has gone by in the new course of time, different regions develop specialized regional folk media like the Tamasha, Maharashtra, the Jatra, Bengal and Yakshagana of Karnataka, which actually acted as communication channels for heralding the reform, social changes and develop in the Indian society. And there's different folk forms. We have different folk dances, different folk songs, folk theater, puppetry, the traditional art forms, you know, they all have been used at some point or other for social, cultural, religious as well as political purposes. And not only that, it also, they have been used for providing pure entertainment or purpose also. Now, and you know, these different folk forms, these different folk forms, different types of traditional folk media forms, it's not that, you know, they caters to a particular age group, because they have a kind of, they are so much indigenous in nature and the different socially relevant messages, which different folk forms they try to disseminate are so much related to our own lifestyle, our own way of living. So that makes us feel that we have a sense of belongingness we feel that we belong to whatever message that these different folk forms they try to disseminate. And traditional media, basically it's a beautiful area of dance, there is music, there is songs, there are prayers, there are different moral lessons to know, there's epic, there's mitology. And when, and one, another important fact about these traditional folk media forms is most of the time, you know, the medium of communication is their own native language or their own regional language that hardly there are one or two instances where, you know, English has been used as a medium of communication because now usually people feel more connected when such kind of information is passed on in the seminar to the people in their own native languages, in their own regional language. So definitely people will know, it's not only the people will be able to understand a better way, the topic which such kind of messages are being disseminated, but the people also will feel okay, our own society is being depicted in such a way that because we are part of the society, so my lifestyle has been depicted in this way. So I will be more interested in whatever message this different traditional folk media forms tries to convey to us. Now there's another very senior folk media scholar, his name is Balwan Gargi. He has actually defined traditional folk media form as, you know, he says in his own words, that folk media represents the people in their natural habitat with all the contradictions and multi-ferrous activities. It gives a glimpse of that style of speech, music, dance, dress and wisdom. So what he exactly means is that it represents the people. Folk media doesn't only represent that, you know, people are working in some place, people might be working in their respective workplace, people might be at their own residences, people might have gone for visiting some other place. So they might be at their own respective place during their different activities. And folk media represents the people at their own natural setting. It shows their way of the style of, how they're communicating. It shows the way of communicating to the medium of dance, to the medium of music, what dress code they are using, you know, what information they're passing down from one generation. So these different areas or these different, you know, multi-ferrous activities are being highlighted by the folk media. Now, let us try to see some of the important, you know, traditional folk media forms of India. Now, first, of course, we have the folk theater. And folk theater is a composite form in all the regions. It combines dance, music, art, dialogues, poetry and even folklore. And in some places, the themes which they are taken, you know, for the folk theater performances, they're taken from mythological characters. There might be mythological stories or different folk tales or legends and all. They try to, you know, disseminate some kind of, you know, social messages or sometimes, and sometimes it's been setarized contemporary scenario as well. For instance, you know, in the North part of India, we have the Nautanki and the Ramlila. They're very popular folk theater forms. And as far as Eastern India is concerned, we have the Jatra and, you know, as, and father towards East in Assam, we have the Ankyanath. So this is some of the very popular folk theater forms. And another important, you know, of course, it's that other different folk theater forms as well in the entire country. We have in Gujarat, we have the Bhavai and towards, you know, in Tamarsha also we have. Then Nautanki, basically it's another folk theater form, which is performed in North India. It opens stages and it also draws narratives from epics as well as folk clothes and heroic tales. And they're actually used to make social and political comments. And on the other hand, Jatra, Jatra is very much popular in Bengal, Orissa and Assam. And it actually got its name from the, you know, nomadic nature of the performers who travel from place to place. They give different performances. And because the nomads, you know, Jatra means you're moving from one place to another, literally translated. And so from that particular action, from that particular activity, the name Jatra has been coined. And this form, it got, it became very much popular among the communists, more specifically to spread the socially relevant messages in both pre and post independence India. Then the second important folk form or tradition folk form of India is, they're the folk songs. Now, I think we don't need much introduction about the folk songs. I think by now you must have understood what folk songs are all about. And as far as India's concept, we have a very rich collection of folk songs. And Professor Shyam Parmar, he's a renowned person belonging to this field of media and journalism. And he has actually divided the different folk forms into following types. Okay. He has said the first important time which he has focused upon are the Bhakti songs or the devotional songs, which has very strong links to classical music. Then we have the ceremonial songs, which include other seasonal songs or ritual works and all. And the ceremonial songs, basically, those are sung during certain ceremonies and all. For instance, you know, the birth of a child, or maybe, you know, to celebrate the six months completion of the birth of a child where the child has been given, you know, the first few morsels of food to eat. So, during certain ceremonies and all, or maybe even during marriage functions and all, during marriage ceremonies and all. So, those ceremonies which has some kind of value, or maybe which has some kind of relation to the Indian society highlighting any particular occasion. During those occasions, also such ceremonial songs are being sung very, you know, very occasionally. Then, of course, we have the tribal songs. So, these are the three important folk songs that are being highlighted. And there are also other important popular folk songs, which includes the ball and the Bhatiali of Bengal, the Duhairas and the Garbha of Gujarat. And of course, Nassam, we have the Bihu. So, you know, the main objective of such folk songs is that they not only serve as a purpose of entertainment, they not only give a sense of happiness, but they have a kind of, you know, relevance to the society. Now, what is that relevance? They try to integrate different issues that actually take place in society. And they try to, you know, disseminate or they try to focus on those issues to the different folk songs because the different folk songs express socially significant messages. And actually, they have been used to foster a sense of national pride and integration. The third important form of folk songs are the narrative forms. Now, what are narratives actually? Narratives means like when you talk about folk songs. Folk songs, it's not only about there is music in it, there are lyrics in it, someone is singing the song. But sometimes the folk songs can be in a form of narrative forms, where someone is reading out the different lyrics or someone is narrating out the different story behind that, you know, occasion. So, those falls on the narrative forms. And poetic forms with a strong narrative element, they have actually proved to be a particularly useful form from the point of view of communication of messages. Then lastly, we have the religious discourses. Religious discourses are popularly been known as Hari Katha. Of course, it's known by different names like Katha, we have Kirtan, we have Katha Kalakshepam and Pravachan. It involves a kind of dramatic exposition of stories and songs. And generally it is seen that such type of religious discourses, the performer, the person who is actually trying to con with the different issues. He is known as Kathakar actually. And he is actually expected to have a good amount of knowledge of the different scriptures because he will be narrating those scriptures in different locations. Because people will be there. So, when the person who is actually narrating this, you know, such kind of stories to the general public, he or she should have a very good amount of knowledge about the scriptures, about the music, about the qualities of a good actor as well as a proper knowledge of local customs. Because suppose someone from Bengal comes to some and he or she tries to engage in religious discourses. So, obviously the person from Bengal must understand what is happening in Assam without, you know, he or she if he starts, you know, you know, speaking on different religious issues without even considering the sentiments of the local people, then that would not be healthy in the long run. So, a proper knowledge of local customs along with proper knowledge of the scriptures as well as music is very essential, you know, to make the religious discourse appealing to the general public. And then we have the folk dances, of course. From the term itself, we can understand folk dances means those dance forms which, you know, try to imbibe or try to convey the different issues or different socially relevant issues or different folk forms. And folk dance forms, for instance, you know, we take about, let us take the example, Bihu dance from Assam. You know, Bihu dance in upper Assam is a little bit different than the lower Assam. But nevertheless, they convey the same amount of meaning. And Bihu actually signifies the essence of being an Assamist, the essence of the state of Assam. It signifies the cultural beauty of Assam. It signifies the natural beauty of Assam. So, every nuance is every step in this particular folk dance performance. It glorifies the cultural heritage or it glorifies the cultural beauty of Assam. So, different dance forms, different folk dance forms, they have such kind of, you know, it tries to disseminate such kind of meaning to the society. And such traditional folk dance forms are fundamentally very much similar. But of course, they have different names and are performing different styles. Okay. They are different style of performing. What may be, you know, what might someone see the Bihu dance performance as seen in the lower part of Assam might not be a bit similar to that, what that one visualizes in the upper part of Assam. So, there might be some differences, minor differences, but nevertheless, the amount of meaning or whatever content they try to convey is, it remains the same. Then, we have the traditional motifs and symbols. Now, as a layman, I'm sure you must have seen, you know, in most of the houses, most specific in rural areas, you might have seen, you know, people used to make little, little small dots of rangoli with different colors and outside their homes, even, or even doing festive occasions. You know, most specifically, I think the Diwali's and all, I think, most of us, we used to make the Alpana, you know, by trying to draw it on the baranda of our house. We try to welcome Goddess Lakshmi. So, this kind of, you know, occasions, when we try to, you know, kind of generate, we try to, why we do such kind of patterns? Why are we engaging such, engaging such in doing such kind of symbols and motifs and all? We have a different folk dancers. We have different folk forms. We do have different folk theater forms to, you know, give us a sense of entertainment to, to spread the knowledge, to give us some kind of information. But why do we still engage in such kind of traditional, in drawing out such kind of traditional symbols and motifs? Because this is a part of our everyday life. And this, this different beautiful patterns, which actually are made on the threshold of the house. And they actually, it sets a kind of belief. It helps us like to uplift the spirit, or maybe ward off evil energies and give protection. And as far as India's concern, people reveal many such kind of symbols, ranging from those which are very much simple kind of symbols to some very complex, you know, kind of symbols. And which might be in the form of figures and ritual drawings and so on and so forth. So, that is how, you know, people that try to communicate to traditional motifs and symbols. Because people want that through such traditions, they want the tradition to remain alive. Because in this particular age of electronic media, most of the time we find that such traditional forms of communication have actually come down to certain degree. So, people want to keep them alive. People want to make it a kind of, you know, to uplift or to take it to another level, the different tradition forms. And that is why they try to engage in such kind of, you know, different folk forms. Then we have the paintings. Now, paintings are also one of the important mediums of traditional media. Because, you know, painting is not only something which is colorful, some, you know, it's not that I have painted a picture of an apple, or I have painted a picture of, you know, a scenario of, you know, a person, you know, riding a bike or maybe a person, you know, swimming in the river, it's not that. There has to be some kind of inherent meaning to that. Because it tries to highlight certain important social issues. In earlier times, you know, how the primitive man they used to communicate, you know, they used to, you know, draw or they used to paint in those huge caves. They used to paint the pictures of animals being hunted. They used to, you know, draw with the help of a sharp edge stone on the rocks and all. They used to show the which way the animals can be seen, or how the hunting takes place. So this kind of, you know, different communication, way of communicating certain issues or way of communicating certain kind of any occasion, people used to take the help of painting. And it's not that painting, they used to use different colored paints or they used to be different kind of colors while, you know, drawing out such kind of, you know, issues or such kind of instances. It was just simple. They used to just take a, you know, sharp-edged rock or maybe a sharp edge, you know, maybe some something which is very sharp in nature. And they used to just, you know, carve out a kind of any image that might come to their mind. And through that particular image, they used to communicate. And from that point of time to the present time, we have actually come a long way. And at that point of time, of course, the medium communication was basically to inform the people that were about what exactly, what activity they are being engaged. Of course, now the situation has actually changed. It's not about, you know, we don't go about, you know, painting on different rocks or different caves and all that, inform the people where we are. That's just a different issue. But the thing is that the communication is still there. The communication is still prevalent. Even though the nature of communication or the issues to which we are communicating, the way of painting might have changed, but the primary focus remains the same. Now, let us try to understand, look at some of the examples of traditional paintings, which actually symbolizes deep meaning. Now, we have the traditional paintings of Madhya Pradesh, especially the wild paintings in Bundelkhand, in Chhateshkar, and in Gondwana, in Nehmar, Malwa. They are the living expressions of people, actually, who are linked with the socio-cultural environment of the area. Then, for instance, the Bheels and the Bhila, Bhilala tribes of Madhya Pradesh, you know, they used to paint myths that's related to the creation called Pitura paintings. You know, they used to carve out different paintings on the horses and elephants, on tigers and birds and gods, man, objects of daily life and so on and so forth. In the Gondwana region as well, there used to be unmatched creative vision has been shown by the Gond and the Pradhan tribes, who have actually impressed audiences at different exhibitions in Japan and France and Australia and in other countries as well. Then, let's come to Puppet Tree. Now, when we talk about Puppet Tree, what comes to our mind? Puppet Tree, they are a kind of, it tries to not only entertain the people, it tries to give us, you know, a sense of understanding of any particular issue, because it also conveys social messages. And generally, when we talk about Puppet in India, we have three important types. First, we have the string puppets, then we have the rod puppets, then finally, we have the glove puppets. And the person who actually manages the different puppets, he can be a single man performing the shows or a group of artists or a family of artists who are performing it at different places using the colorful puppets. And the different themes of this puppets for this different puppetry shows also different as part of the region and the traditions.