WBRi Media Ethnic Bengali Indian Music

Bengal is today split between the Indian state of West Bengal and the independent nation of Bangladesh.

The earliest music in Bengal was influenced by Sanskrit chants, and evolved under the influence of Vishnu poetry such as the 13th-century Gitagovindam by Jayadeva, whose work continues to be sung in many eastern Hindu temples. The Middle Ages saw a mixture of Hindu and Islamic trends when the musical tradition was formalized under the patronage of Nawabs and the powerful landlords bAro bhuiyAn.

Much of the early canon is devotional, as in the Hindu devotional songs of Ramprasad Sen, a bhakta who captures the Bengali ethos in his poetic, rustic ,and ecstatic vision of the Hindu goddess of time and destruction in her motherly incarnation, Ma Kali. Another writer of the time was Vidyapati. Notable in this devotional poetry is an earthiness that does not distinguish between love in its carnal and devotional forms; some see connections between this and Tantra, which originated some time in the middle of the first millennium CE.

The Bauls (the word comes from Sanskrit batul, meaning "divinely inspired insanity") are a group of Hindu mystic minstrels from the Bengal region, who sang primarily in the 18th and 19th centuries. They are thought to have been influenced greatly by the Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as by Sufi philosophers. Bauls traveled and sang in search of the internal ideal, Moner Manush (Man of the Heart or the inner being), and descried "superfluous" differences between religions.Lalon Fakir, alternatively known as Lalon Shah, who lived in the 19th century in and around Kushtia, is considered to be the greatest of all bauls.

By far the most defining expression of Bengali music, with an ouvre of over two thousand songs, was Rabindranath Tagore (known in Bengali as Robi Thakur and Gurudeb, the latter meaning "Divine Teacher"). His songs are affectionately called Rabindra Sangeet, and cover topics from devotion, love, nature and seasons, and patriotism. Tagore's earlier works had been inspired by the lilas of Krishna while his latter works involved transcendentalism of the Upanishads. Some of the important Rabindra Sangeet artistes are Shantidev Ghosh, Shailajaranjan Majumdar, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Debabrata Biswas, Suchitra Mitra, Pankaj Kumar Mullick, Santosh Sengupta, Subinoy Roy, Chinmoy Chatterjee, Ashoketaru Bandopadhyay, Sagar Sen, Sumitra Sen, Ritu Guha, Purabi Mukhopadhyay, Purba Dam, Sushil Mullick, Mohan Singh, Sharmila Roy Pommot, Swastika Mukhopadhyay, Indrani Sen, Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta, Promita Mallik, Rezwana Chowdhury Bonna, Indira Bandopadhyay, Sahana Bajpaie, etc.

Another influential body of work is that of Kazi Nazrul Islam, which constitutes what is known as Nazrul geeti.Some of the notable Nazrulgeeti singers include Suprova Sircar, Dhirendra Chandra Mitra, Manabendra Mukhopadhyay, Dr. Anjali Mukhopadhyay, Dhiren Bose, Purabi Dutta, Firoza Begum, Anup Ghoshal, Sohrab Hossain.

Other Bengali music, shared by West Bengal and Bangladesh, is from the poetry and songs of Nidhu Babu, Kabir, Lalon Fakir, Atulprasad Sen, Dwijendralal Ray, Rajanikanta Sen and a large canon of patriotic songs from Greater India's Independence movement.

Beginning with the establishment of Hindu Mela in 1867, the concept of patriotism entered Bengali music. The patriotic genre was a major part of Bengali music until its independence in 1947.

Modern Bengali music has been enriched by singers like Hemanta Mukhopadhayay, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey,Kishore Kumar, Rahul Dev Burman, Sachin Dev Burman, Geeta Dutta, Dhananjay Bhattacharya, Shyamal Mitra, Tarun Bandopadhyay, Satinath Mukhopadhyay, Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Robin Majumdar, Kanan Devi, Satya Chowdhury, Sudhirlal Chakraborty, Jaganmoy Mitra, Dilip Kumar Roy, Uma Bose, Kamala Jharia, Angurbala, Indubala, Utpala Sen, Gayatri Bose, Supriti Ghosh, Alpana Banerjee, Protima Banerjee, Sabina Yasmin, and Runa Laila. Pannalal Bhattacharya, Mrinalkanti Ghosh, Bhabani Charan Das, Radharani Debi and Gitashree Chhabi Bandopadhay were famous for their renditions of devotional songs, while Abbasuddin Ahmad and Nirmalendu Chowdhury were stalwarts in singing Bengali folk music.

Notable Bengali music composers include Ravi Shankar, Himangshu Dutta, Kamal Dasgupta, Rai Chand Boral, Timirbaran Bhattacharya, Kalipada Sen, Nachiketa Ghosh, Robin Chatterjee,Hemanta Mukhopadhayay, Salil Chowdhury, Sudhin Dasgupta, Rahul Dev Burman and Abhijit Bandopadhyay, while Ajoy Bhattacharya, Hiren Bose, Subodh Purakayastha, Pranab Roy, Sailen Roy, Gauriprasanna Majumdar, Shyamal Gupta, Pulak Bandopadhyay and Mukul Dutta were well-known lyricists.

In recent times, western influence has resulted in the emergence of the phenomenon of Bangla bands, both in Dhaka and in Kolkata, as well as songs reflecting the joys and sorrows of the common man, Jibonmukhi Gaan (songs from life). Some famous Bangla bands are Bhoomi, Chandrabindoo, Miles, Nagar Baul, Tishma, Feedback,Souls, Fossils, Cactus, Lakkihichara, Krosswindz and Insomnia. With her powerful rock vocal and unique style and stage performance, Tishma completely changed the path of Bangla female artists. At the same time, singers like Ajoy Chakraborty are working to bring back classical raga influence into bengali music.

Bangladesh (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ, Bangladesh), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônoprojatontri Bangladesh) is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south. Together with the Indian state of West Bengal, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. The name Bangladesh means "Country of Bengal" in the official Bengali language.

The borders of present-day Bangladesh were established with the partition of Bengal and India in 1947, when the region became the eastern wing of the newly formed Pakistan. However, it was separated from the western wing by 1,600 km (994 mi) of Indian territory. Political and linguistic discrimination as well as economic neglect led to popular agitations against West Pakistan, which led to the war for independence in 1971 and the establishment of Bangladesh. After independence the new state endured famines, natural disasters and widespread poverty, as well as political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative calm and economic progress.

Bangladesh is the seventh most populous country and is among the most densely populated countries in the world with a high poverty rate. However, per-capita (inflation-adjusted) GDP has more than doubled since 1975, and the poverty rate has fallen by 20% since the early 1990s. The country is listed among the "Next Eleven" economies. Dhaka, the capital, and other urban centers have been the driving force behind this growth.

Geographically, the country straddles the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones. Bangladesh has the longest unbroken sea beach in the world in the Cox's Bazaar. The government is a parliamentary democracy. Bangladesh is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the OIC, SAARC, BIMSTEC, and the D-8. As the World Bank notes in its July 2005 Country Brief, the country has made significant progress in human development in the areas of literacy, gender parity in schooling and reduction of population growth. However, Bangladesh continues to face a number of major challenges, including widespread political and bureaucratic corruption, economic competition relative to the world, serious overpopulation, widespread poverty, and an increasing danger of hydrologic shocks brought on by ecological vulnerability to climate change.

Remnants of civilization in the greater Bengal region date back four thousand years,[7] when the region was settled by Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, and Austro-Asiatic peoples. The exact origin of the word "Bangla" or "Bengal" is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from Bang, the Dravidian-speaking tribe that settled in the area around the year 1000 BC.[8]

The kingdom of Gangaridai was formed from at least the seventh century BC, which later united with Bihar under the Magadha, Nanda, Mauryan and Sunga Empires. Bengal was later part of the Gupta Empire and Harsha Empire from the third to the sixth centuries CE. Following its collapse, a dynamic Bengali named Shashanka founded an impressive yet short-lived kingdom. Shashanka is considered the first independent king in the history of Bangladesh. After a period of anarchy, the Buddhist Pala dynasty ruled the region for four hundred years, followed by a shorter reign of the Hindu Sena dynasty. Islam was introduced to Bengal in the twelfth century by Arab Muslim merchants and Sufi missionaries, and subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam throughout the region.[9] Bakhtiar Khilji, a Turkic general, defeated Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal in the year 1204. The region was ruled by dynasties of Sultans and land lords Bhuiyan for the next few hundred years. By the 16th century, the Mughal Empire controlled Bengal, and Dhaka became an important provincial centre of Mughal administration.

European traders arrived late in the 15th century, and their influence grew until the British East India Company gained control of Bengal following the Battle of Plassey in 1757.[10] The bloody rebellion of 1857, known as the Sepoy Mutiny, resulted in transfer of authority to the crown, with a British viceroy running the administration. During colonial rule, famine racked the Indian subcontinent many times, including the Great Bengal famine of 1943 that claimed 3 million lives.

Between 1905 and 1911, an abortive attempt was made to divide the province of Bengal into two zones, with Dhaka being the capital of the eastern zone. When India was partitioned in 1947, Bengal was partitioned along religious lines (for the majority Muslims), with the western part going to India and the eastern part joining Pakistan as a province called East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan), with its capital at Dhaka. In 1950, land reform was accomplished in East Bengal with the abolishment of the feudal zamindari system. However, despite the economic and demographic weight of the east, Pakistan's government and military were largely dominated by the upper classes from the west. The Bengali Language Movement of 1952 was the first sign of friction between the two wings of Pakistan. Dissatisfaction with the central government over economic and cultural issues continued to rise through the next decade, during which the Awami League emerged as the political voice of the Bengali-speaking population. It agitated for autonomy in the 1960s, and in 1966, its president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was jailed; he was released in 1969 after an unprecedented popular uprising.

In 1970, a massive cyclone devastated the coast of East Pakistan, killing up to half a million people, and the central government responded poorly. The Bengali population's anger was compounded when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose Awami League won a majority in Parliament in the 1970 elections, was blocked from taking office. After staging compromise talks with Mujib, President Yahya Khan arrested him on the early hours of March 26, 1971, and launched Operation Searchlight, a sustained military assault on East Pakistan. Yahya's methods were extremely bloody, and the violence of the war resulted in many civilian deaths . Chief targets included intellectuals and Hindus, and about ten million refugees fled to neighbouring India. Estimates of those massacred throughout the war range from three hundred thousand to 3 million.

Before his arrest by the Pakistan Army, Sk. Mujibur Rahman formally declared the independence of Bangladesh and directed everyone to fight till the last soldier of the Pakistan army was evicted from East Pakistan. Awami League leaders set up a government-in-exile in Calcutta, India. The exile government formally took oath at Mujib Nagar in Kustia district of East Pakistan on April 14, 1971 with Tajuddin Ahmad as the first Prime Minister. The Bangladesh Liberation War lasted for nine months. The Bangladesh Forces formed within 11 sectors led by General M.A.G. Osmani consisting of Bengali Regulars and Mukti Bahini conducted a massive guerilla war against the Pakistan Forces with all out support from the Indian Armed Forces. Jointly the Mitro Bahini achieved a decisive victory over Pakistan on December 16, 1971, with Indian Armed Forces taking over 90,000 prisoners of war.
After its independence, Bangladesh became a parliamentary democracy, with Mujib as the Prime Minister. In the 1973 parliamentary elections, the Awami League gained an absolute majority. A nationwide famine occurred during 1973 and 1974, and in early 1975, Mujib initiated a one-party socialist rule with his newly formed BAKSAL. On August 15, 1975, Mujib with most of his family members were assassinated by mid-level military officers.

A series of bloody coups and counter-coups in the following three months culminated in the ascent to power of General Ziaur Rahman, who reinstated multi-party politics & founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Zia's rule ended when he was assassinated in 1981 by elements of the military. Bangladesh's next major ruler was General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, who gained power in a bloodless coup in 1982 and ruled until 1990, when he was forced to resign under massive revolt of all major political and the public, nevertheless western donor pressure in a major shift in international policy after the end of communism. Since then, Bangladesh has reverted to a parliamentary democracy. Zia's widow, Khaleda Zia, led the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to parliamentary victory at the general election in 1991 and became the first female Prime Minister in Bangladesh's history. However, the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina, one of Mujib's surviving daughters, clinched power at the next election in 1996 but lost to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party again in 2001.

In January 11, 2007, following widespread political unrest, a caretaker government was appointed to administer the next general election. The country had suffered from extensive corruption, disorder and political violence. The new caretaker government has made it a priority to root out corruption from all levels of government. To this end, many notable politicians and officials, along with large numbers of lesser officials and party members, have been arrested on corruption charges. The caretaker government held a fair and free election on December 29, 2008. Awami League's Sheikh Hasina won the elections with a landslide victory and took oath of Prime Minister on 6 Jan 2009