After giving up all worldly possessions, they wander the Bangladesh countryside dressed in white robes, singing of peace and love for all with their single-stringed ektaras.
Bangladesh’s “mystic minstrels” have long been dismissed as hippies and even attacked and killed after being branded heretics in the Muslim-majority country.
According to their leaders, Bangladesh’s minstrels, known as Bauls, are growing in popularity, even attracting members of the rising middle class with their ethos of inclusion and rejection of consumerism.
Photo: AFP/Munir uz Zaman
“More and more people are drawn to Baul philosophy and its humanism despite the attacks and daily humiliation,” said Mohammad Aynuddin, 35, an English teacher at a state school who describes himself as a Baul enthusiast.
Originating in Bengal in the 17th century, the sect was popularized by musician and social reformer Lalon Shah whose moving songs of religious tolerance inspired poets and thinkers of the time.
Many ascetic Bauls renounce the modern world and travel on foot from town to town singing and begging alms, staying at ashrams, but have no fixed address. Others choose to remain in their homes, but live a quiet, secluded life of music and worship.
Photo: AFP/Munir uz Zaman
Strongest in west Bangladesh and across the border in India’s West Bengal, the sect’s philosophy is a mix of Hinduism and Sufism rather than one specific religion — angering some Islamic hardliners.
Last month, suspected Islamist militants hacked to death a popular sociology professor who had held weekly meetings on Baul philosophy and also pushed for a ban on the full-face veil on campus.
Although police are still investigating, the professor’s son and his colleagues believe both moves enraged religious fanatics.
In August, Muslim villagers also attacked a group of wandering Bauls, hacking off their beards and hair and forcing them to recite Islamic prayers, according to the Daily Star.
‘TODAY I’M A BEGGAR’
But such attacks failed to dent the mood recently at Lalon’s shrine in a remote western village, where sect members new and old, gathered to mark the 124th anniversary of the singer’s death.
Blindfolded, with their hands tied and draped in white death shrouds, new recruits Aftab and Saleha were led around the shrine, while dozens sang and played their ektaras and drums, in a lively initiation.
The 70-year-old husband and wife, who both use only one name, have handed over their prosperous restaurant in Dhaka to their children, to spend the rest of their lives roaming the country singing.
“Today I’ll become a beggar. I’ll live by begging and won’t care about worldly affairs,” the worshippers sang as the pair — dressed in the shrouds to symbolize their “last journey as free souls” — walked around the shrine seven times.
Thousands of Bauls took part in five days of singing and other celebrations for Lalon in late October in the border town of Chheuria where he once established an ashram for his followers.
“From now on their religion will be humanism. They’ll be neither Muslim, nor Hindu or Christian,” said Banat Ali Fakir, who became a Baul seven years ago, as he watched the initiation. After taking a two-day vow of silence, the new recruits were expected to beg rice and other food from adjoining neighborhoods to host a feast for their fellow followers.
“In the past only a few hundred people would visit the shrine daily,” shrine caretaker Mohammad Ali Fakir told AFP.
“Now there are days we see 2,000 to 5,000 people. More and more people are becoming Bauls as its core message is humanism. It does not differentiate between peoples or castes,” he said.
‘WON’T FIGHT BACK’
Some Bauls expressed concern about the recent attacks, saying that, with just a musical instrument, they are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves as they travel around singing.
“They ask us: why don’t we say our Islamic prayers or fast during the month of Ramadan? They warn that nobody will join our funeral prayers,” Baul enthusiast Aynuddin said, describing the response of his Muslim fellow villagers.
But Baul researcher and writer Saymon Zakaria said the attacks are “nothing new” although he conceded they are growing amid a rise in the number of “hardline Islamists in rural areas who see the Bauls as a threat”.
“Most Bauls simply ignore these attacks and live a quiet life among villagers. They are mainly pacifists who won’t fight back,” he said.
Bauls are growing in numbers in cities because of their “pastoral appeal” although there are no official figures.
Baul philosophy is even spreading to Western countries like Japan because “it’s a kind of rebellion against consumerism. It is also a new fashion,” according to Zakaria.
“People are tired of straight jacket rituals. They seek peace and salvation and they find that in Lalon Shah’s songs and Baul lifestyle,” he said.
For a time, it became popular to describe the tactics of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in encroaching on sovereignty and militarizing islands in the South China Sea as “salami slicing.” Those slices have been getting chunkier. The People’s Liberation Army has been increasing its navy and air force activities in the region. The Chinese Coast Guard has likewise been ramping up their activities, and the civilian paramilitary People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia has been backing up the navy and coast guard with alarming swarming maneuvers. The PRC claims most of the South China Sea through its U-shaped 10-dash
For most train journeys, where you are going is the main consideration. On the Shanlan train (山嵐號) in eastern Taiwan, however, it’s not the “where” but the “how” that matters. On this pricey but meticulously crafted train journey running between Hualien and Taitung County’s Chihshang (池上), what you’re paying for isn’t to get from Point A to Point B, but rather a sensory, aesthetic and cultural experience. On the platform, the train stands out vividly next to the other Taiwan Railway carriages. Its exterior is painted in a yellow-green gradient intended to blend harmoniously with the ripening rice paddies of the East
The comical bit of parachute journalism by Simon Shuster in the Atlantic last week under the title “Will Taiwan Just Give Up?”, drew much attention for its numerous minor errors, largely forgivable, its total lack of understanding of Taiwan and its history and its strange, pro-China interpretations, including taking Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) seriously. The laughter and indignation that essay generated among Taiwan aficionados is an indicator of how far Western journalism on Taiwan has come. Twenty years ago, it would have been another piece for the pile. Today, it is an obvious outlier. Shuster’s piece was
For a small nation, Taiwan has an unusually long list of territorial disputes. In part or in whole, it has disputes over the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. It also has another territorial dispute with Vietnam over the Paracel Islands, and with Japan over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai Islands, 釣魚台). Of course, the biggest territorial disputes are with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which not only claims all of the above, but also Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙島), Kinmen, Penghu and all of Taiwan itself. This creates considerable headaches politically for the government, especially
RSS