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The Discordant Notes of Caste Lines in the Classical Arts
At a recent webinar organized by the UCLA Center for India and South Asia, scholars and artists laid bare the seldom-discussed problem of caste in the performing arts of South India.
The concretisation of the present-day notion of Carnatic music came about when English-speaking upper castes colluded with colonial powers to define a narrow idea of India and its complex social matrix. Photo: Louise Patterton/Unsplash, (CC BY-SA)
In the early 1900s when legendary musicologist, Pandit V.N. Bhatkhande, reached the south of India as part of his epic sojourn through the country to consolidate music systems, he was disappointed.