Hindustani sangeet is an ancient art form that is performed and appreciated today across the modern political and socio-cultural borders of the region – representing a true Southasian cultural exchange. It might not necessarily be known as the 'music of the people', having traditionally been patronised largely by the elite, but its basic grammar – the swaras (notes), ragas (modes), talas (time cycles), instruments and compositions – is used in multiple styles throughout the region. Hindustani sangeet cannot be identified with any specific cultural or religious identity, nor a particular era. Rather, it has evolved over many centuries, having undergone considerable transformation in the 12th and 13th centuries due to influence from Central Asia, and then again in the 20th century with the introduction of modern media such as gramophone recordings, radio and cinema.
But more than anything else, what has shaped the way we perform and appreciate Hindustani sangeet today is Partition. It is popularly assumed that the cultural impact of Partition was mostly felt in Pakistan and Bangladesh, since they were suddenly 'deprived' of the 'central source' of culture and the arts, namely India. But this assumption ignores the reality of the struggle that the arts fraternities in all three countries have gone through in the last six decades. Unfortunately, there has been little research on the impact of Partition on the culture and arts of the region, partly due to the emphasis on the traumas and violence suffered by those who were forced to migrate during Partition, and partly due to the difficulties faced by scholars and researchers in travelling across borders to study the impact. Only very recently, with some openness about scholarly and cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan, is some attention being paid to studies on the cultural impact of Partition.
In 2005, this writer, who is from India, spent over five months in Pakistan to study the musical-poetic heritage of Delhi's 13th-century poet Amir Khusrau, following on many years of research in India on this topic for a documentary film. As an Indian, even as a Muslim, I found that I had certain biases about Pakistan, and was in for many surprises. As my research proceeded, instead of constantly lamenting the futility of Partition, I began to change my attitude and nationalist biases. I quickly came to realise that, rather than interpreting Pakistani culture and music as an 'extension' of Indian culture, I would have to consider the cultural developments in Pakistan's last 60 years in their own context. Keeping this in mind, I began to interview musicians, scholars and students of music in various towns of Pakistan. In particular, I kept coming back to the larger question: How had the classical music tradition itself been transformed in Pakistan post-1947?
We know that Lahore (and the rest of undivided Punjab) has long been a centre of aristocratic patronage for classical and folk music. For instance, in 1901, Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, a patron of classical music from Maharashtra, found Lahore to be the ideal place to start India's first music university, the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, which trained many well-known musicians. Appreciation of classical music in Lahore has also not been restricted to the elite – ordinary Lahoris have a fairly good sense of sur and tal, and are apt to hoot an artist off the stage if they find the music even slightly faulty.