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Asian Theatre Journal, Volume 33, Number 1, Spring 2016, pp. 57-81
(Article)

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DOI: 10.1353/atj.2016.0023

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 Performing Bidesiy in Bihar:
Strategy for Survival, Strategies
for Performance
Brahma Prakash

Bidesiy is a popular folk performance from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in eastern India.
Similar to other popular theatre genres, such as jtr of Bengal and nauak theatre of
Uttar Pradesh, bidesiy incorporates dance, drama, music, acrobatics and other arts.
Because of the prominence of lau (female impersonator) actors, bidesiy is often
called lau-nc (the dance of female impersonators). The performance emerged as
a cultural response to the British era colonial outmigration of the nineteenth and early
twentieth as a text of tribulation of those who were left behind remembering those often
forcefully migrated to bidesh (foreign land). Bidesiy continues to be performed with
similar echoes of labor and migration. During the time of my fieldwork in 20092011
in Patna, Vaishali, and Nalanda districts, there were more than two hundred such
bidesiy parties (troupes) estimated to be performing. This study gives an overview of
bidesiy theatre in Bihar in relation to the inseparable link between a performance and
a marginalized communitys struggles for survival based on viewing forty performance
by twelve groups and focused on the works of two popular troupes.
Brahma Prakash is a theatre practitioner and an assistant professor of theatre and
performance studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India. He completed his PhD in theatre and performance studies from Royal
Holloway, University of London on the topic of The Performance of Cultural Labour
(2013). He received the Dwight Conquergood Award (2013) from Performance Studies
International for his scholarly contribution to the performance culture of marginalized
communities in India.

O beloved, Holi-Diwali [the festivals] has come.

Buy a red dupatta [scarf], bini [forehead dot], and come.
Even if you cannot [manage to] buy, do come.
Take the Rajdhani [fastest train] and come.
(Lakhandev Mastana Bidesiy Party 2010)

Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring 2016). 2016 by University of Hawaii Press. All rights reserved.
58 Prakash

When I was doing my fieldwork on bidesiy in 2010, this musical

pieceSaiyan ayi Holi-Diwali (O Beloved, Holi-Diwali Has Come)
was performed by a bidesiy party (troupe) in Hasanchak village,
Barh, a local administrative division, around sixty kilometers from
Patna, the capital city of Bihar, India.1 The theatrical performance of
bidesiy carries strong depictions of labor and migration. And, since
both the eastern Indian states where it is performed, Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh, remain the biggest suppliers of cheap manual laborers to
smaller Indian cities and emerging metropolises, the significance
of the performance has remained more or less intact. This history
of bidesiy goes back to the colonial period in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, when many people from eastern India
were sometimes kidnapped, economically constrained, or forcibly
migrated to Caribbean countries to work as indentured laborers or
bonded coolies in sugarcane plantations. At that moment of history,
the term bidesiy was used for the person who left home and resided
in bides (another or foreign land) for livelihood purposes. Though
the term primarily referred to the indentured laborers of Caribbean
and other British colonies, it was and is also widely used for the inter-
nal economic migrants from the region with their long-term sepa-
ration from loved ones and constant longing for desh (homeland).
In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, bidesiy stands for the migrants, the cul-
ture of the migrants, a folk song genre, and a theme of folk paint-
ing. Bidesiy (ca. 1917) by Bhikhari Thakur (18871971) is a famous
play that narrates the story of a Kolkata (Calcutta) migrants family.
The success of the play resulted in the naming of the full theatrical
genre itself as the bidesiy or theatre of the migrant laborers.2 The
theatre of migrant laborers is commonly organized, performed, and
viewed by those whose households survive on the remittance money
earned by migrant laborers. Bidesiy is a low-budget but popular com-
mercial theatrical form that involves dance, music, gesture, dialogue,
and so on. Episodic in nature, the bidesiy performance addresses the
social issues of migration, poverty, caste, gender, family relationship
and the ancestors stories of the community. The center of a bidesiy
performance is lau-nc (dance of the female impersonator),
characterized by jerky hip dancing with sensual body movement and
loud music. Laus, transvestites, sing and dance on different social
occasionsranging from marriages to festivalsto various songs,
from auspicious marriage tunes to popular Bollywood film numbers.
In bidesiy, impersonators represent women across Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh, unlike the many other parts of India, where impersonators
have largely been replaced by women to make the representation
realistic. In the absence of significant middle class in Bihar, the idea
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 59

of realistic representation has not become a major issue and, hence,

laus remain important (Fig. 1).
Even though the plays of these bidesiy parties may not directly
deal with migration, their performances retain strong references to
bidesiy and prdesiy, two popular terms for migrant laborers in Bhoj
puri.3 This article explores the context in which bidesiy emerged as a
strategy for survival and how bidesiy addressed the performative chal-
lenges of that earlier time giving self-confidence to the community bro-
ken by the British colonial migration.
Bidesiy as a community of migrant laborers and bidesiy as a
performance are linked. Bidesiy performance continuously supported
this morally and psychologically broken emotional community. The
audience responded with strong support when the performance tradi-
tion itself came under attack from the neoliberal mediatized cultural
forms of the 1990s. Corporate television and orchestra dance perfor-
mance emerged as the major challenges for bidesiy parties and other
local traditions. There was a feeling that like many other local tradi-
tions, the performance was going to end. However, performers and
community responded and the new performance strategies of these

Figure 1. Sonu, a leading female impersonator of Brahmdev Rai Bidesiy

Party performing in Mankaura village, 2010. (Photo: Brahma Prakash)
60 Prakash

marginalized communities have not only resisted those challenges but

also revitalized the genre. Though I will be discussing migrant issues in
a broader cultural context, my focus will be on the theatrical perfor-
mance of bidesiy.
Bidesiy troupes generally maintain a flexible structure with a
large scope for improvisation, normally performing at weddings and
festivals for the lower orders of the society. A bidesiy party usually con-
sists of eighteen members. Four master musician-singers (gurus) play-
ing holak (two-headed hand drum), nagara (a drum with a rounded
back and a hide head), Casio piano, and jhal (cymbals) and one assis-
tant. The mahant or ustd (director-manager) heads the party, and the
troupe generally takes his name, for example Bhikhari Thakur Bidesiy
Party or Lagandev Paswan Bidesiy Party. The ustd is commonly
responsible for contacting artists, managing accounts, and fixing sat-
tas (programs). He also decides on the scripts, keeping in mind the
training of the artists and demands from the audience. The remaining
thirteen members are actors, with perhaps six usually playing female
roles on a regular basis, but flexibly replacing musicians or playing
male parts if needed. The performance generally starts at night (9:00
p.m.) and goes until morning (8:00 a.m.). The performance involves a
full play, small satires, and dance sequences to popular songs and live
musical performance.
Based on historical accounts of colonial migration, archival
materials, and ethnographic fieldwork, this article gives overview of
bidesiy and its strategies for survival as the neoliberal globalization of
the 1990s has systematically destroyed the agricultural sectors and local
industries, and left no option but to migrate for a significant section
of society. From agricultural laborers in Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat,
to taxi drivers in Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata, bidesiy or pardesia can
be seen everywhere in India. The bidesiy has remained vulnerable citi-
zen in the postcolonial Indian society,4 facing labor exploitation and
harassment in the work place. The bidesiy has struggled and survived,
using performance as a strategy for enduring and a reminder of the
past. The first part of this essay explores the way performance emerged
as an important strategy for survival in the nineteenth century. The
second part will discuss the various strategies adopted by bidesiy per-
formers in the face of the cultural onslaught of the 1990s to fulfill the
aesthetic and class tastes of the audiences.
Performance as a Strategy for Survival
The term bidesi can be traced back to the metaphor of death
and departure in the nirgun singing of the north Indian bhakti tradi-
tion,5 in which bidesi refers to the person who left for the other land
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 61

(i.e., death). This early metaphorical use was reframed in different way
with people migrating in great numbers in the late nineteenth century.
In 1873, Kesodas wrote in a song, Bhave Nahin More Bhavanma Ho
Rama, Bides Gavanma (I Do Not Care for Palaces, Hey Ram / My
Beloved Has Gone to a Foreign Land) (Narayan 2005).6 There is also a
story that a prostitute named Sundari came to Banaras from Delhi and
used the term bides as a form of address. Bides or foreign land here does
not necessarily refer to another country as such, but other geographi-
cal and cultural regions. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the
term bidesiy was popularly used for the indentured laborers from the
Bihar-Uttar Pradesh region of India. They migrated, often forcibly, to
work in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean countries.7 The British
had successfully suppressed the Rebellion of 1857 and were looking
to expand their empire after draining immediate resources from the
region.8
The British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act on 28
August 1833 and Trinidad became the first colony to end slavery.9 At
this point, European colonies found themselves in great need of man-
power for their plantations (Narayan 2005:12). Colonialism had also
systematically destroyed agriculture and traditional industries (weav-
ing and animal husbandry) in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which resulted
in famine and massive disruption to livelihood (Vertovec quoted in
Cohen 1995: 59), thereby producing a flux of cheap labor from Bihar
and Uttar Pradesh. Ravi K. Thiara (1993) has shown this important
connection between British expansionism and the commoditization of
Indian labor. Due to Bihar and Uttar Pradeshs geographical location,
there were pre-existing patterns of intraregional seasonal migration.
However, colonial migration was different in nature, and it took place
on a massive and sudden scale (Narayan 2005:12). Fraud, deception,
and kidnapping were widely used in order to gain indentured migrants
(see Ericson and Emmer as quoted in Cohen 1995: 59). These issues
have been vividly detailed in the lyrics of bidesiy songs of the Carib-
bean: Dipua ma laye pakrayo kagadua ho / Angutha lagaye dina har
re bidesiy (We bidesiys were lured by the middleman / we were
given a blank paper in which we were asked to put our thumb impres-
sions) (Majumder 2010: 25). The colonial migration shook the very
core of the society and became part of the local cultural landscape and
imagination.
Most of these migrants were from the so-called lower castes
(around 70 percent), which included the agriculturalists (30 per-
cent), artisans (7 percent), Dalits, and other oppressed (socially and
economically Backward) castes (33 percent) (van der Veer and Ver
tovec 1991: 151).10 Mostly these individuals were men in their twen-
62 Prakash

tiesthe years when expectations to marry, work, and deliver back to

the community were high. Instead, these indentured laborers were
flogged, starved, imprisoned, often sexually abused, and died in great
numbers (Desai and Vahed 2010). With the disappearance of a mas-
sive number of young people, there was anxiety, fear, and loss of com-
munity bonds.
Against this background, bidesiy as a performance emerged as
a transformative and vital reconciliatory force to endure hardship and
provide a shared utopian space to rebuild the community in affective
terms. Echoes of migration and displacement found their expression
in the existing song culture. The idealized devotional love songs of the
bhakti period were replaced by day-to day love in viraha or songs of love
in separation. The mythical deitiesRadha-Krishnawere replaced
by the more human characters of Bidesi and Sundari, or the newly
married couple who had to migrate soon. Krishna himself was trans-
formed into a bidesi (migrant) and Radha into a left-behind virahini
(the person who is longing in separation) who yearns for the return of
her beloved. The excessive spiritualism of the late bhakti performance
faded when it came face-to-face with this physical and cultural displace-
ment. Bidesiy, although it was the performance of an emotionally and
psychologically broken community, never downplayed the political
economy of the colonial migration. Infused with grief, a virahini sings
Reliya Na Bairee (Neither the Train Is Our Enemy), a popular bidesiy
song from Bihar:

Neither the train is our enemy, nor is the ship our enemy,
Money is the enemy / Money is the enemy
That compels our beloveds to migrate [to other lands].
(Anonymous)

In the cultural landscape of bidesiy, two geographically sepa-

rated entities, the land and the displaced bodies, attempt to meet
and long for each other with intense memory. The memory was less
about the self and more about themselves, the sense of collective and
shared experiences that ultimately constitutes a culture. Bidesiy made
this longing performative, and its performance constantly evoked
some hopes and desire amid grief, and kept the community aware of
its own subjectivity, materiality, agency, and potency. The song below
from Bhojpuri region of Bihar interweaves such performatives when
performers sing Adhi Adhi Ratiya (At Midnight):

At midnight, the nightingale calls.

The pretty woman starts, arises, and stands near the bed.
The mango has blossomed, the mahu tree has flowered.
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 63

The sleep of the lady separated from her lover has been broken.
The breeze blows over her body.
The door to memories begins to open.
The flowers have blossomed; the bee hovers near.
Why has her beloved not come home? (Adhi Adhi Ratiya;
Henry 2006: 26)

In this aesthetic expression of bidesiy, there is a strong sense

of submission. As my next example will show this is true for the one
who has left as well as the one who is left behind; the bidesiy appears
as an ultimate trial to show the community bound across both regional
national boundaries. In the following song, collected from an old East
Indian woman from Trinidad, we can see the extent of the trial a bidesi
promises to undergo:

Like the plane flies across the skies,

I will fly along with you my beloved,
Beloved,
I will come along with you,
Like the train runs along the tracks,
I will run along with you o my beloved. (Sharma 2009: 609)

Performance of bidesiy reconciled between the desh (homeland) and

the bides (foreign land), between hope and hopelessness, and between
the imagined and real sense of completeness. The community of fami-
lies and migrants fell back on performance as a way to make sense
of the world. Bidesiy became an experience of exile whose essen-
tial sadness can never be surmounted (Said 2000: 173). Unlike the
celebration of incompleteness by some postcolonial scholars, for
example Homi Bhabha (1998: 6265), bidesiy (re)presents the grief
of violence inherent in that incompleteness of the colonial migra-
tion. In his play Bidesiy, Bhikhari Thakur laments such incomplete-
ness through the allegory of Jal Binu Machlee Ke Halia Bidesiy (A
Bidesiy Is Like a Fish out of Water). At a psychological level, the aes-
thetic experience generated both melancholy and mourning. Bidesiy
emerged as a cultural expression in which aesthetic experience from
viraha or longing in separation transformed the essential-negativity
from a dire socioeconomic condition to a new hope of rebuilding
the community. The reconciled community adhered to the principles
of what Jacques Rancire would term as the aesthetic community,
a community in being together apart (2008: 1). Performance as a
mode of articulation was able to bring the sense of togetherness for
those living in separation.
Bidesiy was extensively performed during the colonial migra-
64 Prakash

tion in almost all kinds of situations as a strategy of survival. Migrants

performed before leaving home, en route to an unknown destination,
and on arrival in the Caribbean.11 Dwight Conquergood (2013) in
the context of Hmong refugee camps has observed that people dis-
placed by trauma and crisis always try to salvage what is left of their
lives through performance. By performing bidesiy song migrants and
those left behind regrouped and channeled their communal energies
for all kinds of purposes. In the backdrop of deeper crisis, bidesiy was
a therapeutic system with its mesmerizing music and rich imageries
of the Indian landscape. Broadly, bidesiy performance fulfilled two
immediate purposes. While the love in separation or virah rasa served
the cathartic purpose at the psychological level, the performance also
helped migrants to engage in hard labor and facilitate the adjustments
of the local community to the loss of their young. The form functioned
as a change agent against all kinds of odds.
Bhikhari Thakur: Portrayal of Bidesiy
Bhikhari Thakur (18871971), a poor lower-caste barber who
worked as a migrant laborer in Kolkata, developed the theatrical
form bidesiy. Author of dozens of popular plays and numerous songs,
Bhikhari Thakur founded his bidesiy traveling troupe around 1916,
when the indentured migration was at its peak (Fig. 2). As a migrant
laborer working in various other parts of eastern India, Bhikhari Thakur
was able to watch several kinds of performances. He was in particularly
inspired by rmall, rsall, jtr, Prs theatre, and ankint.12 After
returning to his village, he started presenting the Rmyaa with a small
troupe, but was soon blocked by the upper-caste Hindus of the region
from performing this religious text of such high importance (Sanjeev
2006: 170). Dismayed by the incident, he joined the existing lau-nc
performance of the lower castes from his region, which already had
a theatrical structure with song, dance, and actors performing lower-
caste myths and legends.13
The significance of Bhikhari Thakur as an important histori-
cal and cultural figure of eastern India is in his creative blending of
religious and secular, tragedy and comedy, traditional and modern in
bidesiy. He integrated dance, drama, music, song, dress, design, light-
ing, and technology, incorporating everything he found appropriate
and exciting from other popular theatres (Bidesiy, Eka Loka Nya
ail 2003). He re-created stories and songs from Rmachariatmnas
(Story of Rama) and the Mhbhrata with his own interpretations
and innovations. He extensively used the available bhakti songs, lower-
caste songs (birh, alh, mallh), labor songs (dhnrop) and womens
songs (jantsr, jhumar, sohar) in his repertoire. He correspondingly
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 65

Figure 2. Akhil Vishwa Bhojpuri Vikash Manch celebrating the 125th birth
anniversary of Bhikhari Thakur with his troupe member Ramagia Ram in Ran-
chi in 2012. (Photo: Courtesy Bhojpuri Academy)

used caste-based dances, mainly the lower-caste dances (dhobi-nc,

gond-nc, netu-nc, chamrbs) in his repertoire.14 His party combined
the musical instruments of holak (double-headed hand drum), tabla
(drum), sitar (a plucked string instrument), jhal (cymbal), and bansi
(flute); later, he also added the harmonium in his musical repertoire
(Yadava 2004: 10). In his song-writing, he experimented with the musi-
cal meters of the existing song genre of the kjr, hor, cait, caubol,
brahms, sohar, vivhgt, jantsr, sorh, alh, pachr, bhajan, and kir-
tan.15 Besides addressing social problems, bidesiy continued to play the
legends of lower-caste protagonists. This mixing of various art forms
in theatrical style was perhaps the main reason behind the success of
Bhikhari Thakurs bidesiy.
Bhikhari Thakur also developed sophisticated strategies via his
mixing of various artistic genres and repertoire, a trait shared by lower-
caste performances across India, which causes classicists to stigmatize
these hybrid popular forms. Adulteration is considered by upper-
class ideology as not only immoral, but also dangerous in a caste- and
religious-based segregated society. The mixing distances such perfor-
mances from the elite art forms.
Thakurs sociopolitical vision was influenced by the social
66 Prakash

reform movement of the nineteenth century. His plays dealt with the
social issues of caste, migration, treatment of the aged, and gender dis-
crimination. At that time of crisis, it was important to keep morale high
and counter forces that marginalized community status. When selling
of daughters became prevalent among the lower sections of the society,
Bhikhari Thakurs bidesiy party performed Beti-bechwa (The Daughter
Seller), which attacked that unjust social practice.16 Following Thakur,
several artists who had worked in his party opened new bidesiy parties.
Bidesiy continued to be one of the major performance traditions in
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh through the cultural globalization of 1990s. In
the following section, I will discuss major strategies developed by more
contemporary bidesiy parties, specifically the Padarth Rai and Brahm-
dev Rai groups, for the genres continuity and survival in caste-based
Indian society
Strategies for Performance of the Bidesiy Parties
of Padarth Rai and Brahmdev Rai
When I went to the field, I was well aware of the bidesiy parties
of Padarth Rai and Brahmdev Rai. I had grown up watching their per-
formances in my village and so selected these parties as a part of my
study. At the same time, I also watched performances from other par-
ties to maintain objectivity. Padarth Rai and Brahmdev Rai are broth-
ers who are now running separate bidesiy parties in the Bakhtiyarpur
block of Patna District in Bihar. Earlier, both ran one bidesiy party
together, until the younger brother, Brahmdev Rai, formed his own
independent party. Padarth Rai has been running his party for forty
years and cannot remember how many performances his party has
done over the years. If we estimate twenty to twenty-five performances
each year, the total comes to around one thousand performances in
all. The average number of audience members during each perfor-
mance that I witnessed was around two to three thousand viewers. The
brothers and my other informants claim that, on occasion, they have
witnessed more than five thousand people turning up for a perfor-
mance. In the following section, I will discuss their performances and
their strategies.
On 18 October 2010, I called up Brahmdev Rai, who informed
me that his party was going to perform at Mankaura village that night.
He added with pride that the event was scheduled on the invitation
of Vijay Singh, the headman of the village and an upper-caste Rajput.
Since the bidesiy in this region is rarely invited by the upper castes,
Brahmdev Rai must have felt privileged by the recognition. The village
was around six to seven kilometers inland from the nearest national
highway. The party had already reached there at five in the evening. I
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 67

arrived by seven. The performance was outside the village, at the com-
munity center, where the village has a permanent stage.
Bidesiy parties do not move with their own stage, as do some
other popular genres. The organizer has to arrange for the stage, the
lights, and a sound system. In many cases, the villagers construct a
raised stage using wooden carts put together side by side and then cov-
ered by a tent. The bidesiy party just carries the musical instruments,
makeup, properties, and personal belongings of the performers. No
advertising materials are used. The oral form of publicity is still preva-
lent, some of it carried out through loudspeakers, which reach two or
three nearby villages. On annual festivals, people already know there
will be a performance, because the party comes every year.
In this instance, the performance venue was village community
center, which had two permanent buildings attached to each other:
one for the goddess Durga and the other for conducting social and
political programs. For the purpose of this festival, the space had been
enclosed and decorated. Outside the rectangular enclosure, small ven-
dors were selling sweets, food, betel nuts, cigarettes, and tobacco items.
Embodied Experiences
At another performance on 5 October 2010, Ustd Padarth
Rai introduced the program of the night and asked Labr or Labr
(also called Joker by local audience) to tell something about bidesiy
artists life and struggles (Fig. 3). Joker took a round of the stage and
performed Sagro Umar Ham Ncahun Mein Bitayal (The Life I
Spent in Dancing). The performance not only represented the prob-
lems of labor and migration, but it vividly put embodied experiences
on the stage.

labr: The life I spent in dancing,

So, my father forced me
To get married to a girl.
I got married, but I continued to dance.
So my wife ran away with someone else.
But I am not any less a fucker,
So I also ran off with someone elses wife.
But I continued to dance.
My [new] wife bore a bastard kid.
The fucking kid also died.
But I continued to dance.
ustd: What else happened?
labr: I had two acres of paddy field
And an ancestral mud house.
68 Prakash

All have been washed away in the rains.

But I continued to dance.
ustd: What happened then?
labr: [laughs] Even then, shamelessly, I am dancing [. . .]. (Padarth
Rai Bidesiy Party 2010).

Most of these bidesiy artists are agricultural and contractual

laborers who belong to the Dalit and other lower castes. As the perfor-
mances take place only seasonally (at the most, two to three months
in a year), artists cannot depend entirely upon these performances
for their livelihood. They usually migrate to local cities or other states
to work in construction or agricultural sectors and come back during
the performance and harvest season. At the same time, performance
is passion for these artists. According to informants, their passion for
nc (performance) was so strong that they ran away from home at a
tender age in order to become a lau. Most artists seem to wilfully
opt for this professionto perform despite their being thought infa-
mous and degraded by a section of society. Though there are a few
cases of sexual exploitation of lau artists, it does not seem to be

Figure 3. Surajdev Paswan, Labr ( Joker, right) of Brahmdev Rai Bidesia

Party is making satire about the Brahmin Guru (left), 2010. (Photo: Brahma
Prakash)
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 69

the main reasons for the stigma attached to their performance. The
stigma largely comes from artists caste background and involvement
in the dance profession, which itself is considered low and degraded
in normative cultural practice.

Representation of Agency
It was around 9:00 p.m., and the performance was about to start.
The compound was packed. I went backstage to check the performers,
who were almost ready, and so I wished them best luck. One lau
female impersonator asked me how (s)he looked. When I told her that
she was looked terrific, everybody laughed. The performance began
around 9:30 p.m. with the sumiran (invocation) of the Maiya, a mother
deity. On the stage, a female impersonator became the statue of the
Maiya, while the other female impersonators worshiped her in a reen-
actment of the ritual ceremonies normally performed by women of the
community. By adopting and espousing the same Maiya songs, with-
out making any significant changes, the performers not only identified
themselves with the women in the crowd, who perform the same ritual
in daily life, but also incorporated the womens agency in village religi-
osity by performing their songs. The ritual became part of the secular
performance without missing its essence. The song of this invocation
was as follows:

Maiya, the red color of your tika [forehead mark] is looking

beautiful
Maiya your color is red
Maiya you are red, the color is red
The vermillion on your head is red
The bindi on your face is red
Maiya you are red, the color is red (Brahmdev Rai Bidesiy Party
2010)

The audience quietly enjoyed the song. Suddenly I heard some

humming sounds coming from behind me. I looked back and amazed
to see some women humming the song along with the female imper-
sonators representing them (the women). Here, the ritual elements in
theatrical performance were creating something deeper than theatri-
cal representation of woman. I also felt that women in the audience
took more interest in this performance piece, because of their sense of
identification with it. Bidesiy performers, thus, by adopting this strat-
egy, were able to pledge an affective presence with these women even
in actual absence of females on stage (Fig. 4). Since artistic genre func-
tions with and marks the social identity of various classes, castes, and
70 Prakash

Figure 4. Women audience watching Padarth Rai Bidesiy Party perfor-

mance in Birpur village until early morning, 2010. (Photo: Brahma Prakash)

genders, bidesiy performers try to create a synthesis based on every-

ones tastes and demands. Bidesiy performers also employ similar strat-
egies in seating arrangements, which I would like to discuss below.
Negotiation with Social Segregation
Bidesiy performs for diverse caste communities who remain
quite segregated even in a village setting. In case of Mankaura village,
I got the following caste statistics: Kahar (Extremely Backward Class):
120 households; Kumhar (Extremely Backward Class): seventy house-
holds; Dusaadhs (Dalits; Scheduled Caste): fifty households; Yadav
(another Backward Class): thirty households; Rajput (Upper Caste):
twenty-five households; Others (mainly Lower Castes and Dalits): ten to
fifteen households.17 Despite being a minority, the Rajput caste group
dominates this village. The former village headman is Rajput, and
Rajputs are the organizers of festivals and performances. The hege-
mony wielded by this caste can also be seen in their palatial houses,
their educational level, and their lifestyle. When I went inside the tent
Brahmdev Rai proudly introduced me to the organizing committee,
which mainly consisted of Rajputs. I was informed that it was a three-
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 71

day program: the first two days for the bidesiy and the final day for
a famous orchestra dance party from Patna that charged seventy-five
thousand rupees (about us$1,250) for a night. On the other hand,
the Brahmdev Rai party received only around nine thousand rupees
(us$150) for two days. I wanted to meet people from some other castes,
but I was so surrounded by Rajput young boys, local contractors, and
village leaders that I was unable to meet members from other caste
communities that day. I only later came to know that the performance
had become a major space of caste contestation where the power of
particular caste was asserted or that power was challenged. Against this
very segregated caste background of the village, the performative chal-
lenge for the Brahmdev Rai Bidesiy Party was how to strategize a per-
formance all classes could enjoy, so the performers would not cause dis-
turbance. The following section will try to demonstrate the way bidesiy
performers successfully adjusted in such a situation.
By 11:00 p.m., the performance compound was almost full. Chil-
dren were sitting in the front row. A rope separated male and female
audiences. Some of the malesteenagers and bachelorswere stand-
ing at the perimeter of the stage. In a bidesiy performance, the audience
sits with their peer groups: children were sitting with other children,
the elderly with the elderly, and the young stand with the young, while
the upper castes and other special privilege people have their chairs
close to the stage. Others sit on the ground. The seating arrangements,
while segregating the audience in terms of sex, castes, age groups, and
so on, also provided a comfortable zone where segregation is aestheti-
cally enjoyed. For example, in a typical feudal society, children may not
express themselves if they are sitting with their parents. Young males
will not make lewd remarks if they sit with their fathers or other fam-
ily members. Girls may not express their reactions if they sit with their
mothers. While the sitting arrangements provide space to express their
reactions in a segregated society, it also reinforces social hierarchies.
In the context of Tamil performance, Susan Seizer also noted similar
patterns of segregated seating (Seizer 2005: 180). This arrangement,
although it symbolizes the social diversities of the audience, is embed-
ded in social hierarchy. This segregated space of performancebased
on gender, caste, class, and agedemonstrates the ghettoized nature
of Indian society. Bidesiy performers fully exploit such spatial arrange-
ments without challenging the norms, but harnessing them as part of
the political and aesthetic strategy.
Performance for Everyone
In a performance sequence, all actors were circling the stage
to marching tunes. They were carrying the national flag of India,
72 Prakash

Tirang (affectionately called the tricolor), marching and dancing.

Labr ( Joker) was the most visible character due to his exaggerated
and inappropriate marching movements that violate set norms. The
actors were reciting shayari (couplets), in the local language.

first actor: E sakhi!

O dear friend! [Referring to a female friend]
second actor: Han sakhi!
Yes, my dear friend!
first actor: Sarfaroshi kee tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai,
Dekhna hai zor kitna bazuen katil mein hai
The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts.
We shall now see what strength,
There is in the boughs of the enemy.18
chorus: Han han
Yes . . . yes
third actor: (Comes over to the mike and recites another couplet)
Hindustan se dostee karoge to phulon kee mala pahnaungee
Pakistan (ya America) se dosti karoge to kaat dungee
Consider friendship with Hindustan [India],
And I will garland you,
Consider friendship with Pakistan (or the USA),
You will be cut down to size.
others: (Making a full circle on the stage) Han han
Yes . . . yes

(Now the first actor comes over to the mike while others stay back, dancing
to the rhythm of chorus).

first actor: Sir pe hai topee dil mein hai iman[m]

Aap hi batatie is mehfil mein kaun hai Hindu kaun hai
Mussalman
They wear caps [taqiyah] on head and have honesty in their
hearts
Do tell if it matters who is Hindu and who is Muslim [in this
gathering].
fourth actor: Aur suno! Sir par hai topi pahte hain Kora
Aap bhee hain insan aur wo bhee hain insan
Listen! They wear caps and read the Koran
(So what?) You are also a human being, and so are they.
third actor: Aapas mein akra jana baat bahut ganda hai
Ham logon ke mathe par apna tiranga jhanda hai
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 73

Fighting among ourselves is too bad.

Dont we have Tirang on our head?

Afterward, the group performed a full song to the same march-

ing tune:

all: (In chorus) Ham to inquilab hain, har zulm ka jawab hain
Har garib, mazdoor shahid ka ham hi to murad hain
Uthe chalo, badhe chalo, ham to inquilab hain
Jhagra ab chhoro yeh Hindu Mussalman ki
Aaj ki zarurat hai insan ko insan ki . . .
Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata ki jay
Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan! [slogans]
We are the revolution; the answer to all exploitation.
We are the only hope of the poor, the workers and
the martyrs.
Wake up! March on! We are the revolution.
Come on! End this fight between the Hindu and the Muslim.
Today, we are in need of each other.
We are the revolution, the answer . . . (refrain)
I bow to thee Mother! Victory for Mother India,
Hail the soldier, hail the farmers! (Brahmdev Rai Bidesiy
Party 2010)

How does one read this representation of patriotism, secularism,

and revolution in a performance of marginalized communities? Patri-
otism and nationalism in dominant discourses come with prominent
overtones of religion (particularly, religiosity discriminating against
minority communities). But here there is an emphasis on communal
harmony and brotherhood. The presence of lower-caste Muslim per-
formers in the bidesiy further undercuts any space for a kind of divisive
religiosity. Performers also sing about a revolution for the poor, the
workers, and the farmers. After attending several such performances,
I realized that the way these ideologies function in each performance
is a part of the performance strategy. This is further evidenced by the
actors and the managers acceptance that it is not their lower-caste
background or class perspective, but their all-inclusive performance
strategy that ultimately matters to them (Brahmdev Rai 2010). With
regard to their performance strategy, bidesiy parties have to ensure
that their performances please all tastes and communities. As a part
of the same strategy, they have included revolutionary songs, womens
songs, patriotic songs, Bollywood item songs, and even special scenes
74 Prakash

for children. They include revolutionary songs because some of the

areas they perform in have been a part of the revolutionary movement.
Since these parties get generous tips from army personnel and police
officers, they have some special songs for them, too. With this profes-
sionally responsive approach, the contemporary bidesiy cannot be
directly said to be representing the agency of a specific class or caste.
Theirs can be considered a responsive approach, which is important
for wide patronage. Responding to the survival scenario has brought
about many such readjustments. However, in the artists performance
of materiality in language, body, and jokes, their subaltern agency
comes back. For instance, a bidesiy party might have selected some
womens songs as a part of their performance strategy, but by selecting
the songs, it has also selected and reinforced womens agency embed-
ded in those songs. Such performance strategy questions the under-
standing, which takes such performance either as a pre-political (or
unexamined) act or as a pure political (or fully intentional) act of the
subaltern. Performance strategy rather works as a tool to encompass all
possible heterogeneity in performance, however problematic it may be
for those who want a pure political reading based on rhetoric of class,
gender, or ethnicdivides.
The performers of bidesiy also use various other strategies to
sustain their performance. Their strategy needs to be contextualized
in the sociopolitical condition of their society. For example, caste is
important when it comes to the selection of a manager-director. In
the areas where I did my fieldwork (Patna, Nalanda, and Vaishali), the
managers mainly belong to one of the two castes: Yadavas (Backward
Caste) and Dusadhs (Dalits). For strategic purposes, performers pre-
fer a manager from a powerful caste, or, if this is not possible, at least
they will have a leader who has a strong base in that particular region.
Against the backdrop of the caste violence in Bihar in 1990s, this makes
the entire group powerful, accords security, and helps the networking
in terms of contacting and gaining clients.
The bidesiy parties are invited on two occasions: weddings and
festivals. For a wedding ceremony, either side may pay for the expenses.
In the case of a festival, the money is collected from villagers as chand
(donation). The party charges around five thousand to ten thousand
rupees (us$85167) for a night. Out of this, each artist makes around
three hundred to four hundred rupees us$57). Good artists generally
are paid more. Money also flows in as prizes and tips, which again need
to be divided between the artist and the organizer. The organizer pro-
vides transportation, accommodation, and food. Every year, the party
travels to three or four nearby districts. Unlike other Indian perfor-
mances, such as the north Indian nauak, the Tamil special ntakam
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 75

(drama), and the Karnataka yakagna, which went through success-

ful commercialization and use ticketing for their shows, the bidesiy,
still follows the semicommercial methods (requiring a patron or vil-
lage payment but not tickets for individual viewers). With this kind of
approach, bidesiy, unlike other commercial troupes, has been able to
maintain a strong community relationship and social values.
Strategies for the Stage
Most often, the actors are introduced in a style perhaps drawn
from the Prs Theatre or the nauak. On 20 October 2010 in Man
kaura village of Barh, a senior artist began introducing the actors
announcing, Lets welcome Gudia Rani from Kolkata. O folks what to
say about Gudia Rani, Gudia Rani is like a small vehicle, so even if there
is a traffic jam she can pass through the narrow way. The announce-
ment has obscene connotations. In addition, it should be noted that
the actors name is not Gudia Rani, nor is (s)he from Kolkata. The
female impersonator is not going to play the role of Gudia Rani. It is
all made-up to create theatrical sensation. Now, lets welcome Sonia
Begum from Lucknow, and so continue such theatrical announce-
ments. Each actor comes to the stage and freezes in a certain danc-
ing pose. As the introductions end, the group performs a dance piece,
which attempts to include all the movements of the lau-nc. One
actor explains that this dance needs to be excellent because it sets the
pattern for the whole performance. At the same time, he says, it also
helps to recall all possible dance movements that the actors can use
in their performance. In this dance segment, the actors change the
choreography to follow the musicians, who keep changing the musical
taal (rhythm). This dancing poses scene is one of the most energetic
and fantastic scenes on the bidesiy stage, and it draws in the audience.
As discussed above, song, music, and dance as integrated forms
are thoroughly exploited in the performance of bidesiy. Around 70
percent of the bidesiy dialogue is song. Actors are singers and dancers.
Interestingly, from time to time, actors pitch in to play instruments and
some musicians act. Often, a female impersonator plays a male role in
one scene, while in the next (s)he may come back to perform a bidesiy
song as a woman. While the king speaks standard Hindi, other charac-
ters use local dialect. Characters follow a kind of social code in their
movement. For example, king uses slow movement but powerful steps.
According to Susan Seizers analysis of Tamil special ntakam, the move-
ments of a character represent their social status, different kinds of
movements are deemed appropriate for different persons (2005: 77),
and while the higher class remains stationary, the lower castes move
to serve the noble. I believe the greater movement of the lower-class
76 Prakash

characters can also be read from a slightly different perspective: While

the higher class wants to control, the lower-caste characters subver-
sive bodies are not controllable. In the bidesiy the frenetic movement
of Joker and the gyrations of the women do not appear under con-
trol of or serving the higher class. The movements of low characters
rather overshadow these figures of authority. During the performance,
all characters use full vocal projection, maintaining high-level pitch
and energy. Most of the staging includes movement near the front of
the stage with energetic projection of voice and character throughout
the performance. Commonly, broken and ungrammatical Hindi mixed
with local dialect is used for the dialogue. Some bidesiy performers use
the metaphor of the stage as a battlefield. On stage, as in a battlefield,
one has to be alert, otherwise one may lose the war or be killed by the
enemy. This shows the level of physical and mental alertness that the
bidesiy artists aim to take on stage. I have often observed that even
though the actors are half-asleep when waiting in the green room
area, once they enter the stage, they are fully energized.
Strategies against Global Cultural Onslaught
In 1991, India signed the World Trade Organization agreement
and opened its door to neoliberal globalization, which, besides prolif-
eration of global brands and symbols, manifested new regimes of pack-
aging culture and performance. Neoliberal globalization manifested in
villages across India with Coca-Cola, color TVs, and orchestra culture,
which shifted ideological (political) and consumerist (aesthetics)
interest (Sasidharan 2007: 164). The orchestra (archestra)also called
orchestra dance party (or company) or simply music groupis a
kind of jazz orchestra that imitates song, dance, and music from the
Bollywood industry, which in my view functions as a disseminator of
global cultural values for Indian audiences and Indian local values for
a global audience. Orchestra parties (or archestra dance groups) involve
women singers and dancers. They sing Hindi movie songs, mainly item
songs, and perform to recorded songs both in forms of lip-synching
and performing live the tunes that come from local as well as national
stars recordings. The orchestra emerged as one of the most powerful
cultural manifestations of globalization in northern India. Compared
to traditional local performances, the orchestra was entirely new in
terms of its power, circulation, and mediations of agency. The local cor-
porate cassette and CD industry became the center of this mediation,
unlike the social agency in bidesiy performance. Orchestra had a new
structure of music, language, performers, musical instruments, and
performing style accompanied by comparatively powerful technologies
and commercial approaches influenced by neoliberal corporate glo-
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 77

balization in India. The impact was immense. The success of this kind
of orchestra can be understood from the fact that in very short span of
time, orchestra culture swept through the musical and performance
landscape from Bihar to Punjab. My study of various folk performances
in Bihar shows that orchestra had shaken local folk performances to
the core to emerge as the most dominant live performance genre. Of
course, bidesiy started facing a severe challenge from the packaging of
the orchestra dance party as this genre became the choice of first upper
castes and later was common among the dominant Dalits and Backward
Caste sections, who were the traditional patrons of the bidesiy. Young
people were turning to the orchestra, especially during weddings and
religious festivals. Several of the bidesiy parties were forced to stop per-
forming. Around 1998, I remember community member discussing
that bidesiy was not going to survive and the older people were getting
worried. Amid this crisis, some bidesiy parties with the active support of
communities did some new experiments in this condition of do or die.
These bidesiy parties developed powerful strategies for performance,
incorporating aspects of this rival genre. The bidesiy party of Padarth
Rai and Brahmdev Rai considered these experiments as important for
survival, and Padarth Rai was of the view that the bidesiy had to address
tastes of that the younger generations for orchestra. In his view, the
incorporation of these features did not alter the beauty of the bidesiy.
Padarth Rais Bidesiy Party incorporated many orchestra elements
with Padarth Rai (2009) arguing that only iron cuts iron (fighting fire
with fire). The genre survived; however, some felt the loss of bidesiys
distinctive flavor in favor of the orchestra form. For many critics in the
audience this seems to be what happened, but for me this analysis is
too easy.
Conclusion
From Bhikhari Thakur to Padarth Rai, the bidesiy has gone
through a long journey. Despite several changes, bidesiy continues
to renew its strategies and entertain the same society: agricultural
laborers, migrant workers, and the lower castes. The urban middle
class questions the existence of the bidesiy and has declared it to be
a dying art that needs to be rescued, and the older generations from
rural areas believe that the overall popularity and quality of the bidesiy
performance has declined. Yet younger generations are of the opinion
that the bidesiy has made a comeback. The bidesiy parties themselves
claim that their popularity is increasing day by day, with good money
and respect, as well as better prospects for the artists. While readers
may wonder what the future of the bidesiy might be in the age of mass
media, the bidesiy parties are not worried about their future. On the
78 Prakash

contrary, they appear to be quite confident. They believe that televi-

sion, VCDs, CDs, DVDs, cinema, and the Internet will not bring about
any disastrous changes. A bidesiy artist told me that Earlier, we used to
wonder who would listen to our songs when the radio came; and then
we thought that cinema might ruin our art; and, later, some people
told us that the VCDs, CDs, and DVDs were definitely going to throw
us out. They have come and gone. We are still here dancing to the tune
of the bidesiy (Paswan 2010).
When bidesiy itself came under attack by cultural globalization,
the performers deployed various strategies to save their performance.
This essay explores the way bidesiy emerged as an important strategy
for survival against the background the colonial displacement of the
nineteenth century and ways the bidesiy performers tried to save their
performance from the attack of cultural globalization in the 1990s. The
first part of this essay explored the way bidesiy performance emerged
as strategy for survival during the colonial displacement; the second
part has largely discussed the strategies of performers to endure late
twentieth century onslaughts and new caste-class relationships.

NOTES

1. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Bhojpuri and Magahi

are my own.
2. This has been one of the major trends of naming of a popular cul-
tural performance in the north India region. Similar to bidesiy, nauak also
draws its name from particular popular play Nauak of sangeet (musical)
genre of performance in north India.
3. The Bhojpuri language is spoken in parts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
and Jharkhand in eastern India. With the indentured laborers, the language
has also traveled to Guyana, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname.
4. In recent years, Shiv Sena, a right wing political party from Maha-
rashtra, has continually targeted the migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh region.
5. The bhakti movement was a popular pan-Indian subaltern Hindu
religious-cultural movement, which challenged the upper-caste hierarchy of
institutionalized Brahminism, the caste system, and an unjust society through
its devotional approach. Viraha (separation) was one of the constant themes
in the bhakti movement.
6. In another narrative, Kesodas (15531653), following the ideology
of Kabir (14491518), is believed to use the term bides perhaps referring to
overseas migration.
7. The European colonial countries set up a large number of sugar,
coffee, cocoa, jute, and other plantations in colonies like Suriname, Fiji, Mau-
ritius, Guyana, and Trinidad.
Performing B idesiy in Bihar 79

8. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 marked the first large-scale mutiny

against the East India Company in India and threatened the British Empire.
9. Before that, the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act on
25 March 1807, which made the slave trade illegal throughout the British
Empire.
10. There were two main reasons for low-level migration of the Upper
Castes: they were comparatively in a better socioeconomic position, and cross-
ing the sea was considered impure for them. Majumder illustrates that even
the British were not interested in taking Upper-Caste migrants because they
were not considered suitable for the heavy and dirty work at the plantation
sites. However, some poor Upper Castes did migrate after renouncing their
caste surnames (Majumder 2010: 37).
11. W. H. Angel, captain of the clipper ship Sheila on its journey from
Calcutta to Trinidad (in 1877), described the musical activities of Indian
migrant laborers (see Ramnarine 1998).
12. Rmall and rsall are popular devotional performance from
northern India; jtr is a form from Kolkata, while Prs theatre originated and
spread from Mumbai; meanwhile ankint is a popular theatrical form from
Assam. Thakur was also inspired by the nauaki of northwest India.
13. During my fieldwork, two other prominent names, Guddar Rai and
Ganpat Rai, came up repeatedly. Their contributions also seem important in
the development of the bidesiy theatre.
14. In Indian caste-based society, every caste has developed its own
music, dance, and narrative repertoire. Bhikhari Thakur tried to combine
those available genres together.
15. These are the song traditions for different social purposes, for the
occasion of birth, marriage, ritual, and so on.
16. In most of the cases, there is no written record to show when these
plays were written and first performed. We do not know whether they are
original or they were adopted from existing stories. However, Bhikhari Thakur
himself reported that he heard the story of his play Bidesiy from somebody
else (Thakur 1987).
17. The government of India uses the collective term Other Backward
Classes to classify castes that are socially and economically disadvantaged.
Within Backward Classes, Extremely Backward Classes makes up the most
disadvantageous sections.
18. This is a couplet by Mohammed Iqbal (18771938), a nationalist
poet and philosopher and important figure in Urdu and Persian literature.

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