Delhi University is one of the few in the country to possess a full­-fledged faculty of music. But for years now, the Music Department has been rocked by a clash between the shastrakars (grammarians) and the kalavidhs (performers). At the root of the controversy lies the dilemma of whether university teachers of music ought to possess formal educational qualifications, or qualify purely on the basis of being traditional performers.

In April 1979 the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued guidelines specifying that music teachers should ideally possess academic qualifications, or be “traditional or professional artistes with high commendable achievement” in their field. In Delhi University, however-unlike in other well-known music departments at Banaras Hindu University, Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan and Calcutta’s Rabindra Bharati which accepted the UGC guidelines — the issue was slowly passed through the Academic Council (AC) to the Executive Council in June last year, when it was sent back to the AC for amendment.

Unfilled Vacancies: Last month a committee set up by Vice-Chancellor Gurbakhsh Singh provisionally upheld the UGC’s guidelines with regard to professors’ and readers’ posts. But the impasse continued, and the professorial posts remained unfilled — in Hindustani music for two years now, and in Carnatic music for six years.

At the storm’s centre was sitarist Debu Chaudhuri, 47, who recently completed a three-year stint as head of the Music Department and dean of the Faculty of Music and Fine Arts. Chaudhuri joined the department in 1960, when it was started, and insiders say his promotion to professorship is being held up by the present department head, S. Shukla.

A well-known performer, Chaudhuri is a traditional musician who studied under Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan, the doyen of the Seniya gharana (school). In contrast, vocalist Shukla ostensibly fits the academic bill with an M.A. in Hindi, but his musical training extends only to a diploma from the Bhatkhande Sangeet Vidyapeeth in Lucknow.

The continuing controversy has also meant a drop in overall faculty performance. Against an ideal of six students to a teacher, the ratio is often five times as much, and individual attention is impossible. As many as eight of the 18 teachers in Hindustani and Carnatic music continue in ad hoc part-time appointments, with their jobs always in jeopardy.

Says Chaudhuri: “The result is that students emerge with theoretical knowledge and very little practical sense. Many of them cannot even tune an instrument.” Worse still, the students are predominantly women who take to music as a last resort, and, complain teachers, drop out when they get married. Serious students of music prefer to study under traditional gurus, disdaining the ‘collectivised’ teaching in the university.

Few Openings: In any case, says Chaudhuri, music degrees are not job-oriented-only a handful of the many graduates from the department have so far flowered into concert musicians. Elsewhere in the country, too, musical training has never reached exceptional levels. Apart from the Indira Kala Vishvavidyalaya at Khairagarh in Madhya Pradesh, which is the only “university for music” in the country, the Bhatkhande Vidyapeeth in Lucknow, the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in Bombay, and the Prayag Sangeet Samiti in Allahabad confer Sangeet Visharad diploma.

Asad Ali Khan, 44, symbolises the uncertainty caused by Delhi University’s diffidence towards music teaching. An acknowledged exponent of the Rudra Veena-itself a dying instrument-Khan has been an ad HOC lecturer, earning a consolidated salary of Rs 750 per month, since 1973. He studied under his father Sadiq Ali Khan at Jaipur, but discovered that times had changed and that he could not avoid a regular job in order to survive.

“The only reason I am continuing in this state of tension,” says Khan, “is because I want very much to teach. In any case, what does the term ‘scholarly’ mean with regard to music? I would think it means a deep and thorough knowledge of music, including its theoretical aspects. And traditional training has always combined practical and theoretical knowledge.”

But the sad truth is that India’s traditional musicians are a dying breed. Says Khan: “Not all of them can subsist on performances, and if even teaching jobs are denied them because they lack academic qualifications, their only prospects are despair and penury.”

Three years back this was brought home to Delhi University when Yunus Hussain khan, an accomplished vocalist, gave up the ad hoc lecturership he had held since 1962 and moved to Santiniketan. “Today Yunus Khan is a professor at Visva-Bharati,” says Debu Chaudhuri, “and all because some short­ sighted rules were stuck to.”

—Chaitanya Kalbag
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