In India, a Baul mystic is singing COVID-19 advice to rural communities

Gautam Hazra (center), a minstrel from the itinerant Baul community of Bengal in Shantiniketan, India. Photo by Rajib Roy.

NEW DELHI– Circled by gathering passersby on the outskirts of Shantiniketan—a university town 152 km north of Kolkata—Gautam Hazra Baul plucks his khamak, a stringed percussion instrument used by mystic minstrels in Bengal.

A cascade of rhythms dispels the afternoon’s stillness around a small shack where tea in earthenware cups is passed around to bystanders.

The minstrel’s robe of coarse patchwork cloth sways as he gyrates his hips to the rhythmic music. A kettledrum tied to his waist and anklets with tiny bells around his feet accentuate the melody. As the crowd swells, Hazra launches into a full-throated voice to match his mastery of the khamak.

“We can defeat corona, but wear your mask and wash your hands first,” sings Hazra, a 40-year-old minstrel from the seasonally nomadic Baul community whose beliefs draw on Vaishnavite devotional Hinduism, Tantric Buddhism, Sufi thought and other syncretic traditions.

To some, Bauls are God’s troubadours and to others they are spiritually ecstatic “madmen.”

Gautam Hazra (left) with a disciple in Shantiniketan, India. Photo by Rajib Roy.

“We celebrate love, and only this can end religious polarization that the coronavirus pandemic has sparked,” says Hazra, who has been wandering through Bengal’s verdant countryside dotted by evergreen tropical trees to spread awareness to the rural masses about COVID-19.   

Bauls have influenced large swaths of Bengali culture, and particularly left their imprint on the works of the 19th century poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Their focus on religious tolerance, meditative discipline and freedom of body and soul has influenced musicians, poets and thinkers across Asia, the United States and Europe.

Baul spiritual teacher Lee Lozowick embraced the ecstatic religiosity of the mendicant minstrels in his early life and established its rich spiritual tradition in the U.S. in the 1980s. Bob Dylan’s 1967 “John Wesley Harding” album cover pointed to his closeness to the Bauls. American poet Allen Ginsberg was also deeply influenced by their tolerant beliefs.

Nurtured in this Baul tradition for over 25 years, Hazra has composed more than 150 songs and plays 18 folk instruments. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, he has written seven songs to alert locals and tribal groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s socio-economic impact.

The BJP-led Narendra Modi government imposed one of the world’s most stringent lockdowns across India in March to curb the spread of the virus, leaving millions of poor and migrant workers without jobs, food, shelter and transportation.

Gautam Hazra with his khamak and drum in Shantiniketan, India. Photo by Rajib Roy.

With cities that the poor helped build turning their backs on them and with the looming threat of starvation, many of them were forced to walk hundreds of miles back to their villages.

Not only that, the pandemic has unleashed violence and hate against religious minorities, whipped up anti-Muslim rhetoric, stifled dissenting voices, intensified online trolling and pushed labels such as “corona jihad”, “bio jihad” and “corona carriers” on social media platforms.

READ: In India, Muslims blamed for spreading coronavirus

Pained by the surge of attacks and smear campaigns against minorities, Hazra found solace in Baul music, making religious tolerance the pivot to build solidarity among communities.

“All concerts and large public gatherings have been called off,” says Hazra. “To alleviate peoples’ distress, I decided to travel to remote villages to sensitize the poor about social distancing practices. I also connect with ordinary people through digital platforms such as YouTube.”

Hazra’s name is popular on street corners, village school grounds, local clubs, police stations and tea shacks. Locals call him the “corona guru” who expresses his beliefs through song, poetry and dance.

“Politicians don’t realize social distancing is a privilege,” says Kalpana Baul, a female minstrel from a neighboring town. “Hazra connects with people at the grassroots level and speaks their language.”

For several sections of India’s poor living in tightly packed houses, social distancing and hygiene compliances are inconceivable. Many can’t even afford face masks and hand sanitizers.  

Recognizing these challenges, Hazra turned to Baul music and poetry to connect with those at the grassroots level. He also distributes food packets and necessities among the most deprived.

In an auto rickshaw fitted with a microphone, he rides around villages announcing social distancing practices to combat the virus. Then, he disembarks to draw a crowd, sings a song or two, and ends by distributing food kits among the locals and folk artists.

In India, nearly 4 million COVID-19 cases have been recorded till date with nearly 70,000 deaths, but the government figures are likely undercounting. The economic and social impact on the poor is unprecedented.

Ujjwal Gorai, a local folk musician, says Hazra understands the predicaments of the poor because he himself rose from depressed ranks near Shantiniketan. Losing his parents at age 18 and with little financial or social support, Hazra spent most of his childhood doing odd jobs to sustain himself.

But when Hazra got involved with the mystics of Jaydev Kenduli, a religious center near Shantiniketan with several temples and ashrams, his life changed. Not only was he drawn to the heterodox and anarchic beliefs of the Bauls, but also to their soul-stirring music.

“I was ordained as a Baul in Jaydev Kenduli and decided to spend the rest of my life in poetic pursuit of the higher power. The search started from within,” he says.

In 1995, Hazra turned a friend’s house into an ashram where he started hosting meditation sessions, music recitals and ritual feasts during local festivals. He also learned how to play folk musical instruments, exchanging notes with other Bauls and taking disciples under his care.

Over the last few years, Hazra has been roped in for bigger projects in cities across India and like cultural events during public festivals such as Durga Puja. But with the pandemic derailing his plans, he’s now focused on galvanizing his cultural activism online.

At a recent online cultural event with Chinese and Indian scholars, Hazra sang Baul icon Lalan Fakir’s songs to sensitize Asians about the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. He’s also working on songs to pay homage to goddess Durga during Bengal’s biggest public festival this October.

“This year, I haven’t got any projects, but I’m working on a few Baul songs that will educate people about ways to greet goddess Durga during a pandemic,” says Hazra.

Despite his optimism, noted Baul artist Bhagavan Das Baul warns the thrust on digital media can erode the mystics’ search for spiritual ecstasy and eat away at their itinerant life.

“How can Bauls perform online?” he asks. “Our traditional practices need to be preserved, otherwise there will be a spurt in saffron robe-wearing, dread-locks-sporting artists online who know little about Baul tradition and spirituality.”

Shaktinath Jha, a professor of Bengali at Behrampur College in Bengal and a leading scholar on the Baul and fakir tradition, says wandering minstrels should focus more on critical issues such as ending religious polarization and the stigma of social isolation.

Despite these skepticisms, Baul religiosity and interfaith work amid a global health crisis hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Siddharth Gomez, who maintains the Baul Archive in Kolkata, believes if the audience has moved to digital platforms, then Bauls, too, have to restructure their modes of communication.

“Through songs related to the body and soul, Hazra is thinking up new ways to help people deal with the mental health aspect of the crisis while remaining spiritually centered,” Gomez says.

The pandemic has also upended the lives of many artists, even pushing some into hunger.

“Everyone is talking about migrant workers. But what about poor musicians, dancers, instrumentalists and theater artists?” says local Baul musician Ujjwal Gorai.

Hazra says just as the pandemic has forced people to consider new ways of living and working, so too Bauls are learning to reinvent themselves.

“Our dismissal of caste, creed and religious discrimination is more relevant than ever,” he says. “If that means embracing new media and public address systems to bring people closer in times of extreme distress, so be it.”

Priyadarshini Sen is an independent journalist based in Delhi. She writes for India and US-based media.