http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/10/10/stories/2008101050590300.htm
*Dalit theology through folk music * RESEARCH Dr. Zoe Sherinian's is interested in learning the beats or the pattern used when the drum is taken out of the ritual context. Photo: G.Moorthy *Dr. Sherinian with parai. * Dr. Zoe Sherinian is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the School of Music at The University of Oklahoma. Dr. Sherinian is here in India for nine months on a Fulbright-Nehru fellowship studying the "Changing Status of the Frame Drum in Village Rituals of Tamil Nadu." For the past 15 years, Sherinian has been studying Tamil Christian music, liberation theology or Dalit theology through folk music, to be specific. Her focus has been musical production at The Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary particularly that of Rev. James Theophilus Appavoo aka Parattai. She has written four or five articles on his Christian folk music in major academic journals. Dr. Sherinian has almost completed writing a book titled, "Songs of Dalit Transformation: Tamil Folk Music as Liberation Theology." She visited Lady Doak College, Madurai, and found the time to interact with *The Hindu. *Excerpts from an interview with *D. Karthikeyan.* *What prompted you to take up Tamil folk music as subject of study?* I basically focus on documenting the change in the parai's status and changes in the parai drummers… how the parai is used by Hindus and so on. I was actually inspired to learn more about Tamil folk music because of my association with Rev. Appavoo. I am particularly interested in learning the beats or the pattern used when the drum is taken out of the ritual context. Right now I am conducting ethnographic research near a village in the Sivaganga district to learn the traditional context. *Can you think of Dalit folk music (parai drumming) as a counter-hegemonic discourse shaping the reality?* Dalit art forms have always been a counter-hegemonic discourse and it's only the academicians and the middle class intelligentsia, who have failed to understand it as such. The question itself is wrong and should be framed as 'how has the drum been used as a counter-hegemonic discourse by the oppressed and is that changing in any way?' Then the major question one would have to ask is, 'Is it becoming less counter-hegemonic as it enters the popular media or being appropriated by the middle classes?' *Can Dalit folk music be compared with Afro-American or Afro-Caribbean music?* Yes. Oppressed people have always had a form of resistance through folk music and it's been the case with many communities in many parts of the world. Dalit folk music is no exception in that this music always had a thread of resistance in it. However, if parai is appropriated by the middle classes it might lose its liberating power and its ingrained trait of resistance. *What do you think is the difference in using parai by Dalit Christians and other Dalits? * The 20 per cent of Dalit Christians who are not in villages anymore have a tendency to reject the village culture and are getting sanskritised. Thus, the usage of parai among Dalit Christians becomes more of a class issue rather than a caste issue. Since the 19th century it was considered to be inappropriate to use the drum inside the church. Rev. Appavoo was the first person who brought the parai inside the physical space of the church. Poor Dalit Christians have no problem with playing the drum. Urban Christian youth are taking this parai but it remains a question for what purpose they take it up. *On the transmission of Parattai's songs? * The songs and his liturgy in folk music have been well received by the village people. The music is so powerful that a seven-year-old boy in Kanchipuram was able to realise the music and the lyrical rendition, which described Dalit's marginality and exclusion. Liberation Theology propounded by Parattai is not a high art theory, his music came from the people and through the medium of folk music the theology has reached the people. Parattai believed that folk music can be changed to meet the social and religious needs of the context and thus can be a very powerful and liberating communication tool.
