The Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan: A Social History

Description

There is little doubt that the quantity and quality of Hindustani classical music have both declined in Pakistan since 1947. The standard explanations – religion, conflicted national identity, and loss of patronage – fail to account for the selective discrimination against classical music. This book offers a new sociological explanation centered on certain less examined aspects of the population transfer accompanying the partition of British India. It is argued that the asymmetric exchange of wealth, values, and preferences disproportionately impacted the acceptance of classical music. Accompanying phenomena of modernisation, urbanisation, and growth of the market economy also transformed the evolution of classical music in Pakistan. This, more robust, explanation goes beyond music and should be of interest to social scientists working on other dimensions of the evolution of Pakistani society.

Kabir Altaf graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University with a major in Dramatic Literature and a minor in Music and obtained a M.Mus. in Ethnomusicology from SOAS, University of London. He served as an Assistant Professor of Practice at Habib University.