Bhojpuri in Bombay
In recent years, Bhojpuri popular culture has emerged as the most prominent regional media category in Bombay: the culture and media capital of the country.
In a city which is home to many migrant communities, some settled here since its inception, the cultural space is now being dominated by recent influx of populations form Bhojpuri hinterlands.
Parallel to this, the onset of globalisation and the consequent media boom, along with the corporatisation of mass media, has been the other major influence on the shaping of the cultural scene.
Public culture can be seen as a space where hegemonic tendencies of globalisation on one end and grassroots expression on the other, contest each other. Thus the examination of Bhojpuri media in Bombay makes for an interesting study on how opposing dialectics such as traditional/modern, young/old, city/countryside, and regional/pan-regional, play out over a period of time.
[Since Mumbai is an important cultural centre of the world, and as Bhojpuri is a dialect spoken in nearly every continent on the planet, the examination of 'Bhojpuri in Bombay' can be of global import.]
The recent attack on the Bhojpuri community by the right wing Marathi political parties who claim to represent the “sons of the soil” makes the contested socio-political space more complex. It is not just a class conflict but also a communal conflict between the lower classes. The upper classes however seem to be homogenising under the market mantra…
I invite comments and criticisms.
See related project:
Miss Use
A survey of raunchy Bhojpuri music album covers
