Marathi Kirtan Before and After “The Classical”

Abstract: This essay examines the shifting boundaries of “the classical” in Indian music through a historical study of Marathi naradiya kirtan, a devotional song–narrative genre that both sounded classical and resisted classicization. Situating kirtan within colonial and nationalist discourses of music classification, the essay traces how concepts of the classical were simultaneously constructed in Europe and India through Orientalist encounter, caste hierarchy, and cultural reform. Drawing on the Marathi biography of nineteenth-century kirtankar Govindbuva Hoshing, the article foregrounds the role of Brahmin performers who selectively absorbed Hindustani musical practices (raga, tala, and improvisation) while rejecting Hindustani music’s Islamicate associations and secular performance contexts. In doing so, the article reframes classicization as a boundary-making process rather than a stable set of sonic attributes.

Through close reading of Hoshing’s 1925 biography and analysis of naradiya kirtan’s performance practices, the article demonstrates how kirtan occupied a liminal position between court music, devotional ritual, and emerging nationalist imaginaries. Written after Hindustani music had been firmly established as “classical,” the biography retroactively recasts nineteenth-century musical fluidity as evidence of Brahmin moral and spiritual supremacy, subordinating classical music to Hindu devotional authority. The article argues that naradiya kirtan’s refusal of classicization allowed it to retain caste prestige, ritual centrality, and moral legitimacy, even as it appropriated the sonic resources of classical music. Ultimately, the essay shows how sound, caste, religion, and geography were reconfigured through colonial modernity, producing enduring distinctions between the classical and the devotional that continue to shape Indian musical life and nationalist discourse.

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