Why Uttarakhand Government's Plan To Help Covid-Affected Folk Artistes Could Become A Turning Point For Devbhoomi Culture

The Uttarakhand government has prepared a framework to help folk artists and musicians whose livelihoods have been hit by the pandemic. The government will help them return to the performance scene by digitally taking the folk arts of Uttarakhand to the masses.

Many of these folk artistes come from the lower economic strata. A grant of Rs 1000 (per artiste) has been approved by the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat (through the CM Relief Fund for the segments affected by Covid in the low economic strata). In the local media parlance, the grant is termed as "mehnatana".

The flow of art in the hills of Uttarakhand takes place via the travels and an interactive exchange between the performing artistes and the audience.

Naturally, the livelihoods of the Uttarakhandi folk artistes have been impacted by the precautionary guidelines from the governments at the state and national levels, to fight the spread of Covid in the villages of the Himalayan state.

In the pre-Covid times, artistes would travel across the blocks in the 13 districts, across the state and outside the state to deliver performances on different occasions. Dehradun and Delhi-NCR are two big hubs for their participation in government-held and institution-backed cultural festivals.

Artistes from the lowest economic rung seem to be the most affected. Many of them are percussionists, accompanists, dancers, and culture intellectuals in their own right.

Their opportunities to perform within the state have been hit owing to the cancellation of weddings, cancellations of local fairs and festivals and celebrations, seasonal festivities.

The financial grant approved by CM Rawat seems to be a short term effort to keep help trickling in to the families of these artistes.

His government, hopefully, is moving in the right direction, by working a plan for making 6,500 such artistes earn their livelihoods through the arts, in dignity.

The state tourism ministry and culture ministry (both under Satpal Maharaj) have come up with a plan to rope in social media and offline relay of folk arts and music performances to make them renew the transmission of their art to the masses.

The state tourism ministry has pushed for initiating the drive. In order to make the initiative effective and nuanced, the state tourism ministry shared the plan for the initiative with the culture ministry. The culture ministry has worked on a plan.

Once approved by the chief minister's office, this will head to the ground across the different blocks in the districts for implementation.

Beena Bhatt, director, department of culture told this author that the culture minister has said that their performances should be relayed via social media (including Facebook and Youtube). "We have sent a proposal to the government. We have to get approval from the highest office," she said.

Bhatt feels that though the medium may work well for folk musicians, there could be a "hitch" when it comes to the performers of folk dance. These aspects required policy decisions. The culture ministry's proposal addresses these aspects and issues.

The artistes have already been identified for the implementation of the plan. Bhatt explains how the culture ministry worked it out.

"When the lockdown happened, the culture ministry sent a proposal to the district offices, to district administration and to other resources to know who are the artistes affected by the nationwide lockdown to fight covid," she adds.

These artistes, understandably, belong to a particular income group. "That's how we completed our survey. A list has been made. The list has been given to the district administration. As per the orders, we were asked to give the list to the respective districts, so that through the CM Relief fund that money is disbursed to the district administration. That groundwork has already taken place," she adds.

Bhatt tells his author that there are 6,500 such artistes. The department of culture has empanelled folk artistes. All the groundwork related to their bank account details for the financial grant has been completed earlier.

Swarajya asked Bhatt if there are volunteers who are offering to be part of the relief drive to help the folk artistes. She said that there are a couple of people who have asked for it. "They were not locally based. We have told them that we are giving you the numbers of the artistes, if you want to help then you can help them directly," she added.

The culture ministry has plans to provide technical assistance to artistes in remote areas by using available and ear-marked recording studios in districts such as Haldwani and Pithoragarh. It is, however, waiting for the policy decisions to be made.

There is a huge opportunity concealed in this measure to fight adversity.

Uttarakhand has the chance to change and revive the propagation of arts from the hills through focused and proper curation -- with this one small step towards a framework. Curation, in this author's view, would be the master key to unlock the opportunity.

The digital medium may actually work well for folk musicians as well as other folk artistes performing other disciplines.

The "hitch" that Bhatt (rightly) foresees, could actually be an advantage in disguise of a "hitch", in this author's view.

Why? The digital medium opens the stage, wide, for discovering all aspects that go into dance and theatre narratives and oral traditions. There is a strong chance of building a lecture demonstration field within these arts on Uttarakhandi traditional terms (and not as defined by the cultural Left and as defined by some culture-dedicated NGOs) in the contemporary parlance.

The Trivendra Singh Rawat government has taken a step in the right direction, but the scale of interaction required and expected, considering there are 6,500 such artistes, would be hard to cover (in qualitative terms) with the government's efforts, alone.

Frankly, an initiative like this would be best implemented with help from Indic volunteers -- culture connoisseurs, celebrity artistes who come from the state, and genuine culture-inclined individuals who have an experience in culture-volunteering within the state.

CM Rawat can use this opportunity to diversify the absorption of Uttarakhandi folk music, dance, theatre, katha and vidha narratives, and to merge their celebration with the planned circuits dedicated to Sita and the Ramayana, and the Indic celebration of the Char Dhams and other spiritual destinations, eventually.

The state government and Rawat himself must examine the fact that the Uttarakhandi folk performing arts, in totality, are still largely undiscovered by pan India audiences.

Here on, Dehradun and not people in Delhi-NCR must decide how the countless details and intricacies in the folk performing arts treasure is projected.

This will be in musical harmony with Rawat's efforts and calls to bring back fellow Uttarakhandis living in states, back to the state and its villages.