LALON PHOKIR
The mainstream of religious life in Bengal, Hindu or Muslim, has always had a parallel marginalized counterpart--that of the lower class/caste people--swimming against the mainstream, rebelling against all fundamentalist strictures, working furtively as a culture of silence that is at the same time vocal in surreptitious dissidence. These sub-cultural, liminal "religions" have always based themselves generally on highly syncretic principles. But their practices or sadhonas are seldom acceptable to the 'civilized' all-powerful educated upper class mainly because of their sexual nature. The most prominent sub-cultural sect working out of Bengal are the members of the Baul-Phokir faith.
Members of the faith across all sects and sub-sects ubiquitously regard Lalon Phokir as the "King of Bauls" who has been a subject of great interest among scholars as well as artists in Bengal: poets, novelists, playwrights and filmmakers.
Below, poster of a film on Lalon made in Calcutta (1986).
Lalon was probably
born in 1774 in the part of the formerly larger Nadia district now in Kushtia,
Bangladesh, and died in 1890. He had (arguably) lived an amazing 116 years, a
highly productive and devout life, gathering disciples and composing
innumerable songs. Legend has it that Lalon was born a Hindu and became a
Muslim under unusual circumstances. Lalon had set out on a pilgrimage with
friends, but contracted small pox soon after departure, and was abandoned for
dead. A Sufi practitioner, Malam Shah, saved him from death. Later on, he was
ordained into the discipleship of a certain Shiraj Sain, but his interpretation
of Islam was radically different, a far cry from the Koran-based Shariati
religious order. Lalon sought to combine it with a loose reading of Tantric
Vaishnavism, for to him God was One; human beings have merely made up different
names and created institutions to enshrine Divinity in external forms. Lalon
wanted to situate his “faith” as counter-institutional, but not as a
counter-institution itself
Lalon lived through one
of the most interesting periods of history in the South Asian subcontinent that
witnessed cataclysmic changes that came with colonial rule of the
British. His orally composed (and transmitted) songs reflect all of these.
Lalon worked within his small space in nineteenth century Bengal, always aiming
to reach high or even enter the world of literary fame. The Bengali literati
who controlled visible culture in Bengal in the 19th and 20th centuries have
traditionally viewed his music and poetry as "folk art." The literati
have always taken what they most needed from Lalon and used it in their own
agendas, whether to fold him up in the discourse of a "feel-good"
secularism or use him as an icon for a new nation. The inner quest of the Baul-Phokir
sect's bodily practice has ever been acceptable to educated upper class mainly
because of the sexual nature of their practice. But Lalon, the true philosopher
and artist, has existed on his own and in his own right.
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