The Kabir Project

Bangalore and Mumbai (India)

Degree Project and pictures by Itziar Ancín
June 14, 2013

Master in Communication for Development

Faculty of Culture and Society, K3 – School of Arts and
Communication
Malmö University
Supervisors: Oscar Hemer and Julia Velkova
Examiner: Bojana Romic
 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Abstract:

The Kabir Project (K.P.) was born in Bangalore, India, in 2002, after the Gujarat
pogrom, which occurred in the same year. In the context of increasing divisions in
Indian society, defined by religion, social class, caste and gender, this research explores
how this initiative, through live concerts and documentary films, spreads the folk music
traditions of the 15th century mystic poet Kabir along with his messages of unity and
understanding between confronted identity groups.

This study presents the context of violence between Muslims and Hindus since the
Indian Partition and the reasons for gendered violence in the conflict. It focuses also on
the connections between globalization and minorities’ prosecution in liberal
democracies; on the colonial roots and socioeconomic reasons which led to the Gujarat
massacre in 2002; and the social role of the mystic as bridging cultural and religious
differences.

Through two complementary methods: in-depth interviews to audiences and organizers

at the K. P. festivals in Bangalore and survey questionnaires distributed to the Kabir
Festival Mumbai audiences, this study tries to answer the following questions:
What is the potential for social change of the K. P. in the world-views of today's Indian
citizens? Are the messages presented by films and folk music capable of generating
positive attitudes towards dialogue between confronted identity categories? In which
ways?

The research reveals the success of the K. P. to challenge audiences’ minds through
communication for development events, whose objectives are reached by spreading
Kabir values through artistic forms, and by creating shared spaces between confronted
identity sections. Festivals in rural areas help to diminish the distance between those
antagonized communities. In addition, urban festivals also generate positive attitudes in
elites towards dialogue and coexistence, since that is the social profile of the audience.

Keywords: Kabir Project, arts for peace building, folk music, oral traditions, poetry,
Gujarat 2002, identity, Kabir festival Mumbai, Bangalore, India.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the collaborative project ‘Memories of Modernity II’ (MMII):
an experimental project of artistic and academic collaboration between the School of
Art and Communication (K3) at Malmö University, Sweden, and Srishti School of Art,
Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. A grant awarded by Malmö University
within the frame of MMII allowed me to conduct the field work of this research in
India.

I want to thank the meaningful guidance from my supervisors, Dr. Oscar Hemer and
Julia Velkova, from the selection of research methods to the suggestions to improve the
last draft. In addition, my work has benefited from the key support and guidance of
Shabnam Virmani, manager of the Kabir Project, since she received my first e-mail;
and from Dr. Jyoti Sahi, whose feedback helped me to improve the paper. My gratitude
also goes to the whole Kabir Project team in Bangalore.

This research would not have been possible without the dedication of my interviewees
and survey participants, who shared generously their time and deep insights with me
during the research process.

Finally, I would like to thank the support of my family and friends, especially from my
sister María del Mar Ancín and my friend Nuria Ardaiz.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Table of contents:

Abstract

Acknowledgements

1. The Kabir Project p. 4

2. Literature review p. 12

3. Theory and methodology p. 22

4. Analysis p. 34

5. Conclusion p. 56

References p. 64

Appendix I: p. 67

Survey questionnaire

Appendix II: p. 69

Interview outline

Appendix III: p. 70

Field work- Extracts of interviews

Appendix IV: p. 79

Kabir Festival Mumbai programme

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

1. The Kabir Project

India has been a theatre of conflict between communities on the basis of caste, ethnic
group, language, religion and the like (Jayaram & Saberwal, 2011, cited in Jayaram,
2012, p. 46), being the past two decades the worst, marked by two pogroms against the
Muslim community. The first began with the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992
in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, followed by a violence wave in the whole country, and the
second was developed in Gujarat ten years later (Bajpai, 2013).

In the context of these growing polarisations defined by religion, identity, gender and
borders that led to the Gujarat massacre in 2002, the Kabir Project was born that year at
the Srishti School of Arts in Bangalore, with the aim to seek for social change by
putting into question the meaning of identities.

The filmmaker Shabnam Virmani discovered a healing voice in Kabir, the Indian 15th
century saint-poet, who combined harmoniously the spiritual and the socio-political.
She produced four documentary films, trying to find the space between the dualities of
Hindu-Muslim, sacred-secular, classical and traditional, and East and West. And during
a six-year journey she documented the poetry and philosophy of the saint, which
remained alive in different Indian regions through folk music traditions, with its
democratic and inclusive spirit. As part of the Project, several audio CDs of folk
musicians who sing Kabir verses were recorded, and also books compiling his works
were published (Virmani, 2010; Abhinav, 2009).

The Kabir Project had its climax in 2009, with the organisation of a large festival of
Kabir in February-March in Bangalore, celebrating all Kabir traditions, where the four
documentary films, core elements of the initiative, were officially presented.

In the context of growing jingoistic mood in India, four months after the Mumbai terror
attacks, the Kabit Project succeeded in providing visas to the Pakistani singers, so they
could join other Kabir singers from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka
at the festival, to recall the voice of Kabir as a shared cultural heritage across the
nation’s borders (Virmani, 2010).

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The final concert was performed by the Pakistani musician Fariduddin Ayaz in a 1350-
seat auditorium. When he sang the Rajasthani folk song ‘Come to my country’, he said:
‘let us go to that undivided land, that country beyond India and Pakistan, that undivided
mind space where we all belong, where Kabir is calling us’, moving audiences (cited in
Virmani, 2010).

Kabir Project books, CDs and documentary films in the Kabir Festival Mumbai.

Documentary films
Each film shows two poles of a duality. Had-Anhad (which means Bounded, Boundless
in English) probes the divides created by religion and nationalism, and explores the
Hindu-Muslim and the Indo-Pakistani divide. From the point of view of intercultural
dialogue, it reminds audiences of their shared past with the Muslim neighbor country,
and of “bonds that are deeper than blood” (Virmani, 2010).

Chalo Hamara Des (Come to my country) evokes a cross-cultural friendship between

Prahlad Tipanya, a rural dalit folk singer from Madhya Pradesh, and Linda Hess, an
American scholar-translator who practices Zen Buddhism. Tipanya, admired by many,
“carries his insights with lightness and shares them with a playful ease and deeply
inclusive humility that appeals to audiences deeply” (Virmani, 2010).

Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein (In the Market Stands Kabir) skirts with the tension
between sacred and secular appropriations of Kabir. The film tracks the opposing pulls

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of the individual and the collective, the spiritual and the social, through the life practice
of Prahlad Tipanya as a cleric of the Kabit Panth sect and as a politician.

Koi Sunta Hai (Someone is Listening) weaves between urban, classical domains of
knowledge and the rural, folk, oral traditions of Kabir. Moreover, it probes the
boundaries existing in the realms of knowledge, art and music and shows how the
prestigious singer Kumar Gandharva had the humility and openness to learn from folk
musicians (The Films, n.d.). “This kind of radical action is equally needed in the realm
of social conflict and politics — to be able to walk over to ‘other’ sides, with the
capacity to listen, absorb and through that experience, transform oneself” explains
Virmani (2010).

Thereby, the documentary films try to drive from “self-righteousness” towards an

“empowering ambiguity”; “an arrival into the present moment, feeling a profound
connectedness with all things and beings” (Virmani, cited in Abhinav, 2009).

Festivals
The first festival and the four documentary films inspired and motivated many other
people to organise urban and rural festivals of Kabir all over the country, along with the
creation of Kabir communities around the events.

The rural festivals are called yatra, which means ‘trip’ in Hindi. The yatra are journeys
of many days in which musicians move together in a bus from one village to another
where they perform in the evening. While the urban festivals include well defined
programs, events and timetables, which are carried out in auditoriums and other urban
spaces, the yatra give participants the chance of sharing the journey with artists, and
the events can last the whole night.

These Kabir festivals are an extension of the Kabir Project developed in Bangalore, but
independent from it, offering film screenings and live folk music concerts. Thereby, by
January 2013, the Kabir festivals have been organised in Mussoorie, Chennai,
Pondicherry, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Vadodara (Baroda), Ujjain, Indore, Bikaner,
villages of Malwa and Rajasthan, and also in Kathmandu (Nepal), Canada and the
USA. And some of them have become annual events: in Auroville and Chandigarh,
with two editions, and in Mumbai, with three.

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The musicians who participated in the Bangalore festival in 2009, belonging to

different regions and portrayers of the different Kabir traditions, usually perform in the
different festivals, and offer workshops where they share their knowledge of Kabir with
audiences.

Through music concerts, film screenings and workshops, festivals do not offer a
temporary escape from reality. Instead, they try to bring the socio-political, material
world, together with the spiritual world, the meditative stillness and the insights of self-
knowledge (Virmani, 2010).

Concert by B. Malini and V. Bharadwaj in Khar West. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

Social change
Virmani’s documentary films have had a key role in the spread of the Kabir Project
initiative. As described by Halloran (in Cottle et al, 1998), they have operated “at
societal levels by creating social ethos and climates of opinion”, providing meanings,
conferring status by approving and disproving, offering models for identification,
defining problems, suggesting remedies and offering selected guidelines. And finally,
they move and appeal audiences and promote social change (pp. 17, 18).

Their focus is on religious divisions, but they also deal, “in subtle but positively
affirming ways”, with the issues of gender and caste. “The identity of woman or dalit
too beyond a point shouldn’t be hardened or consolidated in our consciousness to such

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an extent that we don’t or can’t step out of it”, Virmani says (cited in Abhinav, 2009).
This sensitive focus on the dalit is especially significant as underlined by Béteille
(2012, cited in Jayaram, 2012,) for both individuals and communities to which they
belong, as “caste has been a tenacious and persistent signifier of identity in India”
(p.53).
I will introduce the concept of Dalit (also known as Untouchables or Scheduled
Castes), which is essential to understand Indian social divisions. This term designs a
group that has historically been poor, deprived of basic human rights, and treated as
social inferiors, and still face economic, social, cultural, and political discrimination in
the name of caste (Kethineni, S., & Humiston, G., 2010, p.100) in India. This
perpetuated discrimination, which has dominated Indian society for over 3,000 years,
was developed by the Brahmins (Hindu priests) to maintain their superiority over the
less educated and less skilled. It resulted not only in Dalits being most of the poor in
India, but also in the creation of numerous other obstacles that hamper Dalit’s ability to
change their situation (Artis, Doobay, & Lyons, 2003, cited in Kethineni, S., &
Humiston, G., 2010, p.100-101).

The caste system was formalized into four distinct classes: at the top of the hierarchy
are the Brahmins, arbiters in matters of learning, teaching and religion. Next in line are
the Kshatriyas, warriors and administrators. The third category is Vaisyas, who belong
to the artisan and commercial class. Finally, the Sudras (Backward Caste) are farmers
and peasants. These four castes are said to have divine origination as they came from
different parts of the Hindu god Brahma, the creator. The Brahmins came from the
mouth of Brahma; the Kshatriyas, from his arms; the Vaisyas, from his thighs, and
Sudras, from his feet (Izzo, 2005, cited in Kethineni, S., & Humiston, G., 2010, p. 101).
Beneath the four classes, there is a fifth group, formed by human beings literally
untouchable for the rest of the castes and excluded of the caste system. Gandhi gave
them the name of Dalit in order to restore their human dignity.

Kabir: the saint, the poet

Kabir was born in Varanasi in the 15th century in a family of weavers who had recently
converted to Islam. He learned the family craft, studied meditative and devotional
practices with a Hindu master, and developed into a teacher and poet, unique in his
autonomy, strength and abrasiveness. He is generally assumed to have been illiterate;

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therefore his verses were composed orally and collected by disciples and admirers after
varying periods of circulation (Hess, 2002, p.3).

Kabir’s poetry urges human beings to rise above identity politics and to seek an
essence; but not a relinquishing of all identity markers, all cultural reference points.
Rather, he invites us to be free enough to enjoy and celebrate the multiple
manifestations of the essence that have taken shape all around them (Virmani, cited in
Abhinav, 2009).

He aimed to show how we ‘other’ multiple categories of people in order to consolidate

our identity and how this ‘othering’ keeps us locked in dualistic ways of perceiving
ourselves and the world (Virmani, 2010). Thereby, in the violent episodes of recent
Indian history, these mental processes unfolded into massacres against the whole
Muslim community to defend the collective Hindu identity as a symbol of religion,
nation and masculinity.

Kabir, who was very critic and controversial, even against religious practices, is
considered a saint by many coexisting religions in India, such as Hinduism, Islam,
Buddhism and Sikhism. For instance, he was against the caste system and sought for
understanding in a society marked by great divisions. His argument was that without
powerful personal experience and critical self knowledge, humans can at best take
refuge onto scripture, ritual and community as ways to secure their insecure egos and
identities. Then all these become meaningless enactments that can strengthen social
exploitation and divisiveness. For Kabir, the inner body realization of human
fundamental connection with the cosmos was also the realization of the worthlessness
of all social divisions. “Kabir himself is the perfect icon to reflect this, because he
inhabits many cultures and opposing social paradigms, and yet refuses to be contained
or defined by any one of them” (Virmani, 2010).

Kabir verses emphasize that all social, spiritual, moral action begins with
the individual. But the authentic spiritual quest of an individual would simultaneously
connect her or him to the community (Virmani, 2010).

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The folk Kabir traditions

Religious "literature" in medieval India was sung. It spread across the country on the
lips of devotees and ascetics who walked from region to region or met in "holy men"
conventions, where a chief activity was bhajan, or devotional singing. This oral
tradition is still flourishing today, so that it is possible to move among groups of singers
in villages and transcribe songs by Kabir in different local languages. In Kabir's case
there are three major collections, put together by sects in three widely separated regions
of North India: the states of Punjab in the West, Rajasthan in the Midwest, and Uttar
Pradesh/Bihar in the East. The best-known translations in the West are Tagore's English
renditions of one hundred songs, published in 1915, and Robert Bly's new versions
adapted from Tagore, both based on verses originally brought together by a Bengali
collector who compiled them from oral and written sources in the early 1900s (Hess,
2002, p.6).

Kabir, as a poet, is studied in some Indian regions at school, so that in those places the
population knows his teachings very well. But what I discovered while interviewing my
informants for this research during the methods testing, was that they did not know
some inclusive aspects of this historical figure, like the fact that he was a saint for
different religions. In this direction, the Kabir Project is an effort towards experiencing
Kabir in an integrated way, without fragmentation.

Research question
In order to conduct this research, I have focused on the potential for social change of
the 15th century Kabir mediated messages on the world-views of today’s Indian
citizens, exposed to the films and folk music through the Kabir Project and related
events. Then, I have explored their power to generate positive attitudes towards
dialogue between confronted identity categories, such as religion, gender, social class
or caste on their audiences in Bangalore, the economically developed city where it was
born, in the Southern province of Karnataka; and in the Kabir Festival of the
cosmopolitan and huge city of Mumbai, in the central province of Maharashtra.
My premise for this research is that culture and development are a matter of
interrogating culture as a terrain of power, as ideology (Pieterse, 2009, pp.64, 77), and

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that identity is a culturally constructed category, whose meanings associated are

historically produced within particular cultural languages (Hall, 1997, pp. 296-301).

Discourse creates differences between people on the basis of a certain representation of

their differences, which reflect the power relations subjected to some classification and
those promoting them. But these representations as the ‘other’ can be challenged and
reversed. And the translation of difference creates new concepts, values and ideas that
can be communicated through understanding and interpretation. In this case, the poet,
through the filmmaker and folk singers, are ‘involved in the creation of myth and are
the holders of symbolic power’ as cultural producers who seek to demolish artificial
boundaries between people belonging to different identity groups (Hall, 1997, pp.172,
191, 164, 179).

Furthermore, thinking about the reception of the messages (Cottle et al, 1998, p 20),
even if it is limiting to look at Kabir only as an icon of Hindu-Muslim unity
(Mukhopadhay, 2011), he is considered a holy man by different religious groups, and
his authority might generate a positive attitude in the audience (Virmani, 2010).

M. Marwada, from Gujarat, in Borivali West. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

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2. Literature review

The Indian anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (2006) explores the fear of minorities in the
context of globalization in his book Fear of small numbers. The creation of collective
‘others’ is based on stereotyping and identity contrast to set boundaries. The ‘other’ is a
society’s scapegoat, presented as ‘evil’ and persecuted by those who have the power
and want to distract from the real problems to protect their privileged position and
preserve the inequalities in a community (pp.50-51).

Indian society, like many others in South Asian countries, is marked by fear of small
cultural differences, being cultural wars the origin of the aforementioned violence
waves since Partition. This fact is related to India’s lack of individual rights and
protection from a liberal democratic perspective. Instead, Indians are “attached to their
communities and consider the rights of collectives to be above the rights of
individuals”. In this context, the only hope to heal the wounds produced by this sort of
conflicts and to prevent violence in the future, “might be prudent, sensible patient acts
of resistance and counter-protest, civic and civil organisation” (Bajpaj, 2013). The
Kabir Project can be considered as one of these healing efforts.

The true enemy

In Faces of the Enemy (1991), the North American social psychologist and writer Sam
Keen, posits that the best way to avoid violence and war is to deconstruct the
‘otherization’ processes and to understand the ways our mind works to create enemies.
Even if the causes change, the images we use to de-humanize our enemies have always
remained the same through history and in spite of distant geographies. How does this
process work? The group identity depends on the division between insiders and
outsiders, ‘us’ and ‘them’, and on the assumption that an outside power is conspiring
against the community. In the language of rhetoric, war is a battle between good and
evil. By identifying the enemy as evil, the guilt associated with murder is transformed
into pride; and compassion, into indifference. In addition, the enemies are portrayed as
dumb, cruel and subhuman people and as culture destroyers. The necessity to demean
our enemies is caused by the human instinct for compassion, which is strong and makes
difficult to kill others whom we fully recognize as human beings. But social powers

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find the way of overcoming this moral imperative that forbids humans to kill. Even so,
the effort is successful only for a few people (pp.71-75).

Keen concludes that “our true war is our struggle against the antagonistic mind” and
“our true enemy is our propensity to make enemies”. Kabir urges us to seek for self-
knowledge, which introduces self-doubt into our minds. And “self-doubt is a healthy
counterbalance to the dogmatic, self-righteous certainty that governs political rhetoric
and behavior; it is, therefore, the beginning of compassion” (Keen, 1991, p.75).

O. Hemer and A. Appadurai. Seminar ‘Mediating modernity’. Bangalore 2013.

Globalised minorities
Appadurai (2006) coined the term ‘predatory identity’ to define a kind of social identity
that perceives itself as threatened by another one by its mere existence. It emerges
when majority’s identity is identified with the notion of purity in the context of national
identity. Thereby, minorities would represent the obstacle between majorities and total
purity. The anthropologist describes this sort of liberal majorities as “seeds of
genocide”, because they claim to be inclusive but are related to ideas of “singularity
and complete ethnos” (pp. 50-57).

In the 80s and 90s, India, like many other nation-states, had to negotiate two pressures
derived from globalization: to open up markets for foreign investment and to manage
the capacity of cultural minorities of using the United Nations human rights discourse

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to argue for their claims for cultural dignity and recognition. In the 90s, this dual
pressure produced a crisis in many countries for “the sense of national boundaries,
national sovereignty and the purity of the national ethnos”, directly responsible for the
growth of racism in societies as diverse as India (ibid, p. 65).

The Indian nation state was formed in 1947 through the political partition that produced
the new nation state of Pakistan as a political home for the Muslim who lived in
Britain’s Indian colonial empire. From a postcolonial perspective, it was the final
consequence of a series of institutional changes sponsored by the British in colonial
India, like religious counts in the 19th century censuses, separating electorates for
Hindus and Muslims in the early 20th century, or strategies for ‘divide and rule’ that
provoked the painful birth of two nations (ibid, pp.66; 111).

Hinduism and its political brand evolved a cultural politics in the course of the 19th and
20th centuries. Moreover, the birth of Pakistan created a link between the Hindu
identity and the rise of a major Hindu political coalition power in the 90s. Furthermore,
the partition generated a permanent state of war between both countries and the crisis in
the Northern state of Kashmir, along with a perfect alibi for the identification of India’s
Muslim citizens with Pakistan, its major cross-border enemy. This panorama laid the
groundwork for India’s current crisis of secularism (ibid, p.66).

The two main pogroms against Muslims since the massacres of the partition occurred in
this period: in 1992, the destruction of the 16th-century Babri Mosque in Uttar Pradesh,
and the related wave of genocidal riots throughout India, and those developed in
Gujarat in 2002.

In the decade bracketed between both events, a national public opinion was formed
against the inclusive and secularist ideals of Indian Constitution, supported by the
majority of the population, including the better educated middle classes. A coalition of
grassroots movements and political parties called Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in
English, Indian People’s Party, campaigned to create links between the Hindu
humiliations by the pre-British Muslim rulers of India, the suspicion against the
patriotism of India’s Muslim citizens, the wish of Pakistan to destroy India militarily,
and the militant actions by Muslim terrorists in Kashmir. Thereby, in 40 years, the

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world’s largest democracy born with a Constitution paying special attention to religious
inclusion, secular tolerance for religious diversity and concern with protecting society’s
weak groups, was turned into “an aggressively Hinduized polity, systematically sought
to identify India with Hindus and patriotism with Hinduness” (ibid, pp.67-68).

Terror in Gujarat 2002

Harsh Mander, in his book Fear and Forgiveness (2009), explores the Gujarat
massacre. In 2002, about 2.000 Muslim people, most of them young women, were
murdered, often burned alive after being gang raped, and more than 200.000 people lost
their homes, plundered and destroyed by their neighbors. Mander (2009) describes this
violence period as a ‘state-sponsored pogrom, planned and executed by right wing
religious fundamentalists’ (pp. ix-x).

In the later decades of India’s struggle for freedom from British colonial rule, Gandhi
and his vision for the new India as a secular nation with equal rights of citizenship for
everyone, independently of their faith, caste, gender, class or race, were supported by
the masses. It is true that extremist Muslim and Hindu opposed Gandhi’s inclusive
Hinduism and nationalism. I will clarify that secularism in India does not mean a denial
of faith in the public sphere, as it does in Europe, but equal respect for all faiths,
including the absence of it. This understanding of secularism can be found in the
practice and teachings of tolerance of Kabir, the Sufi traditions and Bhakti reformers,
Buddha or Akbar. A meaningful remark is that many of those who supported a secular
democratic India were devout practitioners of their religious faiths, what reveals that
the battle in this field was not between the teachings of any religion, but about power
and political interests. Therefore, it was a political decision if the new India would be
based on identity and divisions or in acceptance of and respect for diversity. In this
sense, Mander understands the demolition in 1992 of the Babri Mosque as “an assault
on the idea of secular democratic India itself” (ibid, pp. 1-3).

Ten years later, the pogrom in Gujarat began with mass campaigns periodically
organized by Hindu fundamentalist organizations. The trigger event was a train
burning, which caused almost 60 deaths, being many of them radical Hindu. According
to humanitarian sources, the fire was most probably the result of an accident, but the
Gujarat government version was a Muslim terrorist conspiracy. Anyway, this tragedy

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was used to ignite hatred against Muslims and justify crimes against humanity (ibid, pp.
3-4).

A main aspect when exploring the origins of violence in the aforementioned crimes
between the Hindu and Muslim communities since Partition is brutality and rage
against women (Butalia, 1998, p. 131). This aspect is not a specificity of India, but
characteristic of other contemporary wars against minorities, such as Rwanda or
Bosnia. But surprisingly, the specific reasons for this gendered violence are not
addressed by Appadurai (2006), when he explores thoroughly the reasons for violence
in ‘glocal’ contexts from many other perspectives.

The bodies of women were considered as property of the hatred ‘other’ and as symbols
of their honor, becoming the target of the attacks in order “to humiliate the men who
‘owned’ them and help break their spirit” (Mander, 2009, p.). Sadly, many Hindu
women supported the mass sexual violence against Muslim women, unaware that they
could have been the target of the same horrendous attacks. Furthermore, feminist
observers perceived a worsening in violence against women in Gujarat, not only
towards Muslim but Hindu women as well, as one more fatal consequence of the
brutally gendered violence occurred in 2002, including the increase in the trafficking of
women and girls (p. 15).

With the aim of throwing some light on the issue, I will present briefly Klaus
Theweleit’s theories in Male fantasies (1987). He explores the duality between the
woman-mother and the ‘other’ woman: “a kind of distillation of sexuality, threatening
to engulf the male in a whirlpool of bodily and emotional ecstasy, (…) because she
endangered his identity, his sense of self as a fixed and bounded being”. Through this
representation, she is ‘otherized’ and becomes a target for violence (cited in Robinson,
1987).

Moreover, the Indian researcher Urvashi Butalia, in The Other Side of Silence (1998),
points at a set of symbolisms at the Partition period, which connected nationalism,
manliness and women’s bodies.
During the Partition, about 100.000 women were abducted from both sides of the
border. Within the Hindu political discourse, those crimes challenged Hindu manhood

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and Indian nationalism. Hindu women were represented as pious mothers and sisters,
victims of Muslim men, in sharp contrast with the aggressive and dangerous Muslim
woman. But, regrettably, Hindu men were responsible of violence, not only towards
Muslim women, but also against ‘their own’ women (p.193).

Within Hindu nationalist discourse, the ‘pure’ body of women was crucial for the
Indian state’s self-legitimation. As Butalia describes, the birth of Pakistan became a
metaphor for the violation of India, as the body of the ‘pure’ Hindu women. Abducted
women were, almost all, bearers of the honor of the nation and of its men, instead of
human beings deserving compassion and justice. Therefore, it was important to
reestablish the purity of abducted women and to relocate them into the family and
community, even against their will (ibid, pp.183-8). “Only then would the purity of
‘mother India’ be restored and the weakened manhood of the Hindu male be
vindicated” (ibid, p.190).

The Gujarat government, who had not provided security and assured basic human
rights for the population in 2002, was reelected after the massacre in 2002 and 2007,
and refused to reach out resources and support to victims, subverting the judicial
system to deny justice to survivors. The consent for silence in the aftermath of the
massacre was imposed as a form of deceitful reconciliation. As a consequence, there
was an enforced social acceptance of fear and a second-class citizenship was born,
along with the creation of ghettoes where they lived without the most basic services
and dignified conditions (Mander, 2009, pp. 6; 15).

Cultural fiction and violence

In order to analyze the true origin of this massacre, the key question is who was
interested in promoting these horrendous crimes? In other words: who had the most to
gain from the violent episodes considered above? Fear towards the Muslim ‘other’ was
a strategy inflicted by the Hindu privileged minority, as “the Hindu majority hides the
numerical minority of upper caste” in Indian society (Basu, 1994, cited by Appadurai,
2006, p.74). Thereby, the religious division was a ‘cultural fiction’, conceived and
spread by this Hindu privileged minority.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

In the context of the Hinduization of Indian politics, Muslims were portrayed and
perceived as a mark for Muslims as a powerful and threatening global majority. A
relevant point highlighted by Appadurai (2006) is that the debate about minorities’
rights can unsettle relevant issues when connected to larger ones, like the role of state,
the limits of religion or the nature of civil rights as matters of legitimate cultural
difference (pp. 69-74).

Appadurai (2006) also puts the Gujarat pogrom in the frame of the global war on terror
announced by the USA after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York. The “sense
of uncertainty about the enemy within and the anxiety about the incomplete project of
national purity”, in the form of this globalised image of the Muslim terrorist, was
spread through news media, the Internet and political speeches and messages, which
probably helped the BJP to campaign and sponsor the massive ethnocide in Gujarat
against the Muslim minority (pp.95; 100; 110).

In the contexts of Partition and the Gujarat pogrom, the Indian state abandoned all their
prospects of securing justice as guaranteed under the Constitution for all citizens, in a
capitulation by a disempowered section of society through fear, boycott and violence
(Butalia, 1998, pp.69-71), instead of seeking for reconciliation in the sense of
restoration of trust and goodwill. But “forgiveness is authentic only if the person who
forgives has the option not to forgive” (Mander, 2009, p.112). A modern pluralist
democracy is based in the ethico-political principles of liberty and equity for all
(Mouffe, 2002, p. 11). Then, considering the continued failure of the Indian state to
punish the main perpetrators of the crimes against humanity committed during the
Gujarat pogroms, can India be considered a democratic state? And in that case, what is
the meaning of democracy?

The path to justice

The real construction of peace requires the healing of remorse and compassion and the
demonstration of justice done, but neither of these has been reached in Gujarat after the
pogroms. “Instead of acknowledgement, there remains active denial and the blame of
victims; instead of remorse, there is pride for communal enmity; instead of reparation,
there is economic boycott and state denial of rehabilitation; and instead of justice, there
is active subversion of process of law” (Mander, 2009, p.35).

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

In this context, how can a peaceful future be constructed and developed? Hamber and
Kelly (2004, cited in Mander, 2009) underline an essential condition to any process of
reconciliation: “developing a shared vision of an independent, just, equitable, open and
diverse society” (p. 18). Through reconciliation, the wave of suspicion, fear, mistrust
and violence is broken down and opportunities and space in which people share their
perspectives and experiences are created. It requires building positive relations while
addressing issues of trust, prejudice and intolerance in order to embrace commonalities
and differences, and to accept and engage with those who are different from us
(Mander, 2009, p. 18).

But no systematic structured official or significant non-official process of this kind was
developed, even if the pogroms between Muslim and Hindu had a result of 25.628
deaths. Therefore, “hate was retained and nurtured, stereotypes remained and selective
memory and lies were perpetuated in relation to a demonized ‘other’”. Mander (2009)
points at the ‘truth and reconciliation’ processes developed in South Africa as an
accurate model to follow (pp. 8-14).

Then, the author started working in the Nyayagrah campaign, created to fight for
justice and accountability, by documenting types of social and economic boycott
experienced by survivors on the ground through site visits and in-depth interviews. The
project is a mass community based effort, mostly relied on community justice workers
drawn from the affected communities, often themselves survivors. They have fought a
long battle for just compensation and rehabilitation in the Supreme Court to challenge
the closure without trial of more than 2000 cases registered after the Gujarat carnage.
Thanks to Nyayagrah, in January 2006, the Gujarat government ordered the reopening
of 22 closed cases (Aman Bidari).

The social role of the mystic

I will finish this chapter with a brief note about a book on mystic traditions by the
Indian scholar Susan Viswanathan. In her work, entitled Friendship, Interiority and
Mysticism: Essays in Dialogue (2007), she suggests that mystics often stand in between
cultures as a consequence of some confusion in their own identities. For instance, the
Spanish mystic St. Teresa of Avila, may have had Jewish cultural links. Her image of

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

the Interior Castle could point back to an image which is found in the Midrashic
tradition (a group of Jewish commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures compiled between
a.d. 400 and 1200), which also appears in both St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's letters. It
speaks of God's house having many mansions. The same image emerges in Kabir's
understanding of the "Ajab Mahal" or "Ajab Shehr", meaning a wondrous palace, or
wondrous city, and referring to the mystical and undiscovered dimensions of the “inner
self” (J. Sahi, personal communication, March 24, 2013).

I will explore the origin of the role of the

mystic Kabir as bridging not only cultural, but
also religious differences. Kabir was born in a
household of Muslim weavers in Varanasi. But
to be a Muslim in North India in the 15th
century often meant to be ‘still half a Hindu’.
For several centuries, Muslims had been
establishing a strong political and cultural
presence in North India. Large groups of local
people—usually low-caste Hindus, often
laborers and craftspeople—found it convenient
to convert to the religion of the rulers, but this
did not mean that they forsook their former

J. Sahi and I. Ancín, during the seminar gods and practices.

‘Mediating Modernity’ in Bangalore.
Thereby, many different religious influences
are evident in Kabir, who more than any other poet-saint of the period reflects the
unruly, rich conglomerate of religious life that flourished around him, such as
Hinduism, Hindu and Buddhist tantrism, the tantric teaching of the Nath yogis or the
Islam. But he always declared his independence from the major religions of his
country. Instead, he asserted that the individual must find the truth in his own body and
mind, in ways that “the line between ‘him’ and ‘it’ disappears” (Hess, 2002, pp. 4-7).

Finally, he persistently evaded any attempt to define or explain him, being the
impossibility of ascertaining the basic facts about his religious life part of his legacy of
teaching (Hess, 2002, pp.5- 6).

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‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Workshop in Fort by the folk musician P. Tipaniya. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

B. Malini and V. Bharadwaj at Nariman Point. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

3. Theory and methodology

The research of social sciences is the study of “how and why people behave as they do,
both as individuals and in groups within society”, which should employ a systematic
and disciplined method of acquiring knowledge and be verifiable (Cottle et al, 1998,
p.12). For this, a holistic approach to a study of social sciences, which reflects social
reality as “multi-faceted”, allows this complex reality to be reflected through the
application of various and complementary methods (Cottle et al, 1998, pp.12-29).

I consider that the main method to achieve the objectives of this research must be
qualitative, due to the culturally constructed and complex nature of identity, which
requires a deep analysis of individual worldviews and is the concept challenged by the
Kabir Project and related events. But the incorporation of a quantitative complementary
method can also be used to test the general applicability and representativeness of the
in-depth interviews and provide “a more legitimate basis for extrapolating implications
beyond the particular” (Pickering, 2008, p.101). In turn, “the broad data obtained from
surveys can be supported by more qualitative information which would give depth to
bold figures” (Cottle et al, 1998, p 233).

Therefore, the research methods that I have conducted for this research are in-depth
interviews along with survey. They can be combined to good effect, as survey can
unveil some aspects that can be missed in interview analysis, like the relevance of
viewer’s education, age, gender or social class (Deacon et al, 1999, p. 71).

In-depth interviews
In qualitative research, interviews are employed as some form of ‘conversation with a
purpose’ (Burgess 1984, cited in Mason, 2002, p.225). The in-depth interview is an
accurate qualitative method to provide information about why and how the
relationships between beliefs, attitudes and behaviour are produced and to explore ways
in which the participants perceive abstract contemporary issues (Cottle et al, 1998, pp.
233, 257) like identities.

The method has its roots in theoretical and epistemological traditions that privilege the
narratives of social actors or subjects as data sources, and consider talk as a core

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

element in our ways of knowing about the social world. Its main characteristic is the
flexibility of its conversational style, whose purpose is achieved through the interaction
of interviewer and interviewee around relevant issues and experiences during the
interview (Mason, 2002, p.225).

Criticisms of this method point to the unreliability of interviewees’ accounts due to

memory, selectivity and truth related issues, and to main differences between
informants in fluency and linguistic codes. In addition, it is important to observe that
the nature of language, who uses it, its potential and meaning, are not neutral, but the
result of power relations (O’Brien and Harris 1999, cited in Mason, 2002, p.237).
Therefore, it would not be suitable to interpret interviewees’ accounts as mere
descriptions of social experience. Instead, it is important to recognise that the narrative
itself is a cultural form or genre with its own structural conventions, rather than a
neutral medium for the gathering of data and facts (Mason, 2002, p.237; Chamberlain
and Thompson 1997, cited in Mason, 2002, p.232).

The construction of knowledge

The interview is a process of knowledge construction, where interviewee and
interviewer co-participate. Then the objective is to work out how to organize the asking
and the listening in order to create the best conditions for the construction of
meaningful knowledge (Mason, 2002, p.226-7).

It is relevant to consider that the types of questions interviewers ask, and the way they
listen to and interpret the answers they are given, help to shape the nature of the
knowledge produced. Indeed, in interpreting data, sometimes what an interviewee says
is not the straightforward answer to the interviewer’s question. That’s why they should
be receptive to what interviewees answer, and to their ways of understanding, being
this aspect one of the main criticisms to in-depth interviews when compared to the
more structured interview methods in survey (Mason, 2002, p. 231).

When conceiving the questions, it is useful to give concrete contexts and frames in
order to help respondents to give meaningful answers. General and abstract questions
do not make immediate sense to them, who often ask for clarification as they find it
difficult to answer (Finch and Mason 1993, 2000; Mason 2000, cited in Mason, 2001,
p. 228). In these cases, the answers often appear clichéd and empty of grounded

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

meaning and the knowledge produced may be limited when seen in the context of the
overall theoretical project. Therefore, the choice of specific questions about people’s
own experiences is more suitable (Mason, 2002, pp.227-30).

Another meaningful factor is the structure or framework for the dialogue. A sequence
of questions too rigid and devised in advance lacks the flexibility and sensitivity to
context and particularity required to appreciate the ways of interpreting the world. The
point here is how to, and how far to, structure an interview. The solutions would
depend upon the theoretical orientations of the researcher. Most qualitative researchers
try to structure interviews in ways which are meaningful to interviewees and relevant to
the research, while many others try to minimize their role in the process of structuring
and in the sequencing of the dialogue (Mason, 2002, p. 231). In the interviews I did, I
tried to combine both perspectives.

When conducting this method, building rapport is fundamental in order to get

interviewees to cooperate (Cottle et al, 1998, p. 67). In this research, all of them opened
themselves and were willing to explain to me how their experiences in relation to the
Kabir Project and related festivals had changed them in many ways.

In relation to the language used in the interviews, 11 out of 13 were conducted in

English. In the case of the other two, while interviewing two of the main musicians
involved in the Kabir Project, from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, one of the
volunteers working for the festival in Mumbai helped me with the translation from
Hindi to English.

Finally, I tried to focus less on my research’ key concepts and more on wider or looser
ones, being open even to oppositional ones (Mason, 2002, p.234-6) and letting the
conversation flow in order to obtain revealing data.

Identification of sampling frame

Research populations must be defined by the specific research objectives. Sampling
techniques used in analyzing people and institutions can be broadly divided in two
categories: random or probability sampling and non-random sampling (Deacon et al.,
1999, p.41).

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

The key difference between qualitative and quantitative methods, when considering the
sampling frame, is that in the qualitative tradition, samples tend to be seen as
illustrative of broader social and cultural processes, rather than representative. Thereby,
their concern in many cases is not that much in generating an extensive perspective by
producing findings that can be generalized more widely, than in providing intensive
insights into complex phenomena in highly specific circumstances (Maykut &
Morehouse, 1994, cited in Deacon et al., 1999, p.43). And this is my aim with the
research.

As a consequence, qualitative studies tend to use comparatively small samples which

are generated more informally and organically than those typically used in quantitative
research (Deacon et al, 1999, p.43). For this reason, in qualitative studies, researchers
stop gathering information once data collection stops revealing new things and their
evidence starts to repeat itself. To accomplish this thesis, I followed Lincoln and
Guba’s (1985, cited in Deacon et al., 1999, p.43) advice and I interviewed 13 people to
attain the saturation point in the collection of data. I could not interview all of them in
the same depth: in fact, this question depended more on the interviewee’s availability
than on my research objectives. Three of them were artists participating in the Mumbai
Kabir Festival, and the other 10, had attended many events related to the Kabir Project
and were able to give signifying testimonies.

I contacted some of them in Mumbai, during the festival, and some of them in
Bangalore, through the Kabir Project’s manager, who sent a request by e mail to the
whole Kabir community in Bangalore asking for volunteers to participate in my
research.

As identified by Wren-Lewis (1983), it is important to be careful when defining the

sample, as the “design of the selection process may inadvertently shape the nature of
the conclusions reached” (cited in Deacon et al., 1999, p.56).
Even if my population was formed by Indian people exposed to the Kabir Project and
other urban related events in Bangalore and Mumbai, the questionnaires revealed that
they only reach a section of Indian society that could be considered an elite (see pp. 46-
48). As a consequence, it is a mirror of one of the countries in the world with the
biggest social divides between rich and poor. Thereby, all my interviewees and survey

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

questionnaire respondents belong to well-off families and have college degrees; in

other words, they belong to Indian middle and upper-classes.
In this sense, it could be considered too limited. But this is not caused by a sample
error, as the values from the sample did not differ from the actual values of the
population (Deacon et al., 1999, p. 41). Instead, this is the true profile of the audience
in the Kabir Project and related urban events. And for this reason, I had no access to
low-class audiences, who participate in the yatra: the folk music events where different
populations interact in villages.

Unfortunately, I had no chance of attending the yatra. On the one hand, it could have
been a great opportunity to witness the processes that are experienced in them, and on
the other, not speaking any local language would have hindered me to engage with the
humble sector. The fact of requiring the essential role of a translator to conduct most of
the interviews would have been too time consuming for a volunteer and too demanding
for one of the participants in the event. In addition, having an intermediary could have
hampered me to build rapport with them.
Those problems would have been the same in the case of the survey questionnaires, not
only due to the language problem, but also to the illiteracy which is common in rural
areas.

In order to overcome the lack of a main group of Indian society in my research, and
therefore, of an important perspective, through these intellectual urban populations
attending the events, I have tried to analyse indirectly the interactions that are lived in
the yatra by these two different groups of people. Their accounts have revealed them to
be one of the most interesting communication for development results of the whole
Kabir Project and its related festivals, by the way boundaries are broken and
communication and understanding emerge between both groups by creating common
spaces.

I recognise the fact that having access to these events only through the interviews to
one of both sectors of the population is a constraint, but at the same time, the
information that I obtained from them about the yatra completes and improves my
research in a meaningful way.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Interviewer and interview guide

I was both the interviewer and the researcher, which ensured that the dialogue was
pertinent for the objectives of the study, but at the same time, it implied a danger of
steering responses in the directions which fit my preconceived expectations for the
research (Cottle et al, 1998, p. 273). In this sense, I tried to be open to new subjects and
perspectives, and to seek out inconsistencies just as much as consistencies in the
interview questions to avoid limiting and determining the results of the research. For
instance, I had not considered the study of the yatra previously, but through the in-
depth interviews, I discovered the interest and relevance of this sort of events as places
where deep and meaningful transformations take place within the privileged group
towards their relation with the unprivileged.

The interview outline is a menu of topics, issues and thematic areas to be covered,
which should also give the sequence of the conversation. For setting it, I raised a
standardised set of issues, ensuring a degree of comparability across interviewees
(Cottle et al, 1998, p. 274, 5). But I was flexible and adapted it to every interview
context and according to the specificities of every dialogue (Halloran in Cottle et al,
1998, p. 19).

I tried to approximate the natural flow of conversation, starting by general,

unthreatening and easy questions to make people feel at ease and relaxed, to follow
with more personal, complex or problematic matters, such as violence, once they felt
more confident in the situation and were more committed to answer in a detailed and
accurate way (Deacon et al, 1999, p.74).

In relation to the interviewer control of the order of questions, it entails the risk of
witting or unwitting bias, such as encouraging certain types of responses. Moreover, the
non-standardized nature of the delivery intensifies concerns about the validity of
comparisons (ibid, pp.66-69). But in less structured questioning techniques, the
interviewer can rephrase the questions when necessary to ensure they have been
properly understood.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Survey
Quantitative evidence and statistics are important due to their rhetorical power, as
numbers are believed to be more objective and scientific than other kinds of evidence
(Deacon et al, 2007, p. 82). But statistics should never be taken at face value: their
objectivity relies on the legitimacy of the questions asked (Gadamer, 1975, cited in
Deacon et al, 2007, p. 83). And it is necessary to acknowledge their constructed nature
(Pickering, 2008, p.100). Their validity depends on “the competence of its
conceptualization, the meticulousness of its collation and the rigor in its interpretation”
(Deacon et al, 2007, p. 81-2).
In addition, quantitative methods are adequate to address questions of power, central to
many development researches. Theoretical and methodological orientation exclusively
focused on “micro agency and complexity can easily lead to a negation of the structural
forces and inequalities that circumscribe these activities” (Ferguson and Golding, cited
in Pickering, 2008, p.101).

Design of the questionnaire

Survey questionnaires are mainly divided between open-answer and closed-answer
formats. The first one is accurate when it is required to study a particular topic deeply,
and it is necessary when beginning work in a new area, in order to explore all its related
aspects (Sudman & Bradburn, 1983, p. 150). For these two reasons I considered this
format as the most appropriate for my research.

Open and closed versions of the same questions have been found to typically generate
quite different response distributions (Schuman & Presser, 1979a, cited in Foddy, 1993,
p.151) but it is not obvious which format produces the most valid data. In the case of
open questions, respondents are allowed to wander from the topic, which is an endemic
problem of this modality (Campbell, 1945; Dohrenwend, 1965, cited in Foody, 1993,
p.151). In addition, answers are often less complete than those corresponding closed
questions. But the central issue in relation to both formats is whether respondents are
told what kind of answers the researcher requires (Foody, 1993, pp.151-2).

In the case of closed-answer formats, the respondent is given alternatives which use
precoded question answers, along with the topic and the dimensions in which they are

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

wanted, so that they make the task easier for them. But pretesting is essential, because
if the questions are not well formulated, it can lead to biases in the answers. Precoding
appears to guarantee comparability of responses across individuals, but in fact,
questions can be interpreted differently by respondents or the categories could not be
congenial to them (Sudman & Bradburn, 1983, p.153-4).

The most important claims that have been made regarding open questions are that they
do not suggest answers and indicate what is salient for respondents, being a prerequisite
for the proper development of sets of response options for closed questions. But many
observations can be made to these assumptions. For instance, respondents can forget
appropriate answers, and there is little evidence that they mention the things that are
most important to them first (Foddy, 1993, p.131).
Along with the tendency of respondents to stray from the topic, other open questions
main problems are probing inadequate answers, great individual variation caused by
carelessness and verbal facility of respondents and incomplete answers or not detailed
or specific enough, so that they are not meaningful for the research. Some of them
could be solved by some probing from an interviewer, but in this case, the risk of
conditioning the answers might increase, as already pointed out in relation to the closed
format, unless the interviewer interventions were not directive at all, which is not an
easy task (William Foddy, 1993, pp. 128-38).

For this research, I have elaborated and distributed questionnaires to be self-completed,

which are a convenient and cost-effective means of questioning large populations if
compared to face-to-face questioning. The fact that there is no personal contact limits
the opportunities to persuade people to participate, so when using this method, it is
important to think of ways to maximize the chances for people to complete and return
the questionnaires. Besides, in terms of comprehension, it is not possible to rephrase
the questions to ensure they have been properly understood or to adapt its content and
wording depending on any variable, which constitutes a relevant disadvantage.
Therefore, the pre-test of the questionnaire is very important in order to identify and
rectify glaring problems with terminology and design (Deacon et al., 1999, p.66-7).
After testing my initial version of the questionnaire, I realized that I had to modify my
focus to a smaller extent and leave it more open-ended to explore what the responses
and feelings were between those people attending the Kabir Project activities. The

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

subject could not be addressed in a direct and obvious way, so I opted to ask open
questions and tried to let respondents explain in their own words their impressions and
feelings in relation to the events.

With both, open and closed formats, respondents can misunderstand the questions, but
in the open, the inconvenient might be bigger, as a frame of responses is not given and
the required kinds of answers are not specified. So they increase the risk of receiving
such a variety of responses that they might be too difficult to compare and to codify
(ibid, p.138).

When analysing relevant amounts of responses, a computer program may be used, as

recommended by Cottle et al. (1999). But it can only deal with figures, not with
statements or opinions, so a coding system is necessary for the analysis. It is important
that the coding was clear so that no answer could be included under more than one code
or that more than two codes refer to a similar answer (ibid, p.252-4).

Open-answer formats take longer to respondents to answer and to researchers to

elaborate the coding pre-response materials for statistical use, by reducing it into simple
categories. Moreover, this coding process increases the risk of coding error (Sudman &
Bradburn, 1983, pp.150-1) as it is supposed to be more subjective and determined by
the researcher.

Sampling

The population of my sample for this part of the research were audiences at the Kabir
Festival in Mumbai.

From the 9th until the 13th January 2013, I attended the festival in the economic capital
of India, which offered 20 events, all free and most of them open to the general public.
The sessions were developed in different areas of the city, in order to reach different
audiences, from the morning until the night. I tried to attend as much events as
possible, considering that some of them took place at the same time, and all were
carried out in very distant neighbourhoods of a huge city. I could attend ten of them,
two by day, and I distributed a total amount of 150 questionnaires to be self-completed

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

by the respondents during the sessions. Not all of them were given back to me properly
filled by respondents, but a total amount of 130.

At the beginning, I thought of using the quota sampling frame: a non random sampling
method mainly used by qualitative studies (Deacon et al.,1999, pp.50-1), as I wanted
my sample to be representative. But I realised that I would not have information about
the characteristics of my population, as it was a spontaneous gathering of people at
every event, so it was not possible. Then, the sampling frame that I defined for this
thesis is convenience sampling: a non-random qualitative kind, in which the selection
of the sample is not directed by the research agenda; instead, it is “the product of
expediency, chance and opportunity more than of deliberate intent”. Thereby,
“sampling focuses around natural clusters of social groups and individuals”, in this
case, because people attending the events were assembled in precise times and places,
giving me the chance of researching their reactions and feelings (ibid, p.54).

L. Das Baul, from Bengal, after the concert at Sophia College, Breach Candy.

Distribution of the questionnaires

The sort of question, respondents’ interpretation of the researcher’s goals and the
contexts in which questions are asked condition the answers (Foddy, 1993, p.192).
Sometimes audiences were in a hurry to attend the next event and had no time or
interest in filling the form. But in some occasions, I could present my research to the
audience and it was receptive, as the film screenings at the Digital Academy in Andheri

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

East or in the folk music workshop at the Music School in Juhu. In both cases, there
was a break where the audience was relaxed and able to answer my questions, which
influenced in their positive attitude to collaborate. In addition, the events were
developed in the afternoon and in the morning, so that people were not in a hurry to
come back home, like it happened in the case of the evening concerts.

Another event where the audience was helpful was the concert and film screening at the
Sofia Communication College. But the fact that the attendance was compulsory for the
students as part of their learning itinerary decreased the quality of the answers because
their interest in the events was very low. In this case, I found some problems, as one of
the professors was offended by my presence there and the fact that I was collecting
information from the students without official permission from the University.
She underlined that I was distributing questionnaires in a private institution, but it was
an open to the public event, and part of a broad festival in which many institutions were
involved. I showed her the questionnaire, which asked no personal information or
contact details. Nevertheless, the respondents, as university students, were more than
18 years old, so I never thought that it could be a problem. This incident made me think
about the cultural differences between Europe and India in this respect.

The coding process

Coding is a vital part of the research (Cottle et al, 1998, p.254). As underlined by
Foddy (1993), researchers impose their own view of reality, or their guesses about their
respondents’ views of reality, upon their respondents’ answers. The core issue is how
conscious they are about this and how they specify the perspective that should be
employed (p.189).

To codify the questionnaire answers, I have followed the premise that a good coding
schema can be formulated by reading the responses several times to get a sense of the
sort of categories the respondents have given (Silvey, 1975; Montgomery and
Crittendon, 1977; Mostyn, 1985, cited in Foddy, 1993, p.138). Thereby, in order to be
able to compare the answers, I read carefully all of them and took notes about the most
repeated ideas, to create different categories in which I could classify most of the
answers.

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‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Workshop in Juhu by M. Ali, from Rajasthan. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

Audiences at M. Ali’s workshop in Juhu. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

4. Analysis

Interviews

I will present an extract of the main statements and arguments which emerged in the
interviews, classified in relation to the research questions and other meaningful subjects
which were revealed unexpectedly through them.

Interviews generate topics and frames that can be new but are focused around topics
determined by the research. The first step to be done is categorizing them and analyzing
the types of responses in a systematic fashion. First come the theme and subthemes
defined by the research, often combined with new additional categories presented in the
interviews. And also, at a more detailed level, the classification will be concerned with
causes and evaluations (Cottle et al., 1999, pp.279-80).

1. Potential for social change of Kabir mediated messages in the world-views of

today’s Indian citizens exposed to the Kabir Project and related events in
Mumbai and Bangalore.

Interviewees point out a personal transformation, introspection and self-knowledge in

which they discover violence and hypocrisy; which makes them see the world
differently and be fearless, boundless; losing control and opening themselves to the
world; letting egos, boundaries and identities left behind, and feeling fulfillment, joy
and stillness. Some of them explain specifically how they are more open to different
people and to engage in a dialogue with them. Another relevant fact they mention is the
sense of belonging to a community.

Moreover, many of the interviewees believe strongly in the potential of Kabir verses to
make people aware and appeal to the inner conscience against violence and divisions
such as caste, gender, religion or poverty.

I will quote some relevant testimonies that illustrate these questions.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

In one of the interviewee’s opinion, violence and divisions need more than legal
measures: “an appeal to your conscience: that is where Kabir comes in 100%. I believe
his voice can benefit society and I would like it to be given in bigger publicity: at
school, university, politicians and bureaucrats. (…) Kabir is the need of today, today is
more relevant than it was when alive”, he claims. For him, Kabir’s most important
message is the search for “self reflection, introspection, self belief (…). Kabir can make
people aware, but the change can be only done by them”, he concludes.

Two of the interviewees, who are married, attended together the Rajasthan Kabir yatra
in February 2012 in the Bikaner district, visiting five villages. It was their first real
experience with Kabir. “We were moving in 3 or 4 buses with about 150 people from
other regions, even foreign, even school children from Kashmir, to 70 years old people.
(…) In the concerts, everybody tries to come, local organizations are also involved.
There is a lot of interest in villagers (…). The concerts are in the open until 2 or 3 a.m.
They start singing Kabir while brushing the teeth; that is the best thing: it is no formal”,
he explains.

For her, “the yatra was the way to Kabir. It has changed us. Before, we, my husband
and me, were isolated. Now we are more open. We mix with different people more than
before: with all kind of people”, she affirms. In the yatra, they met participants from all
over the country. “We forgot everything: we had no proper bed, no food, no hot water,
but everything was fine because of Kabir. It started changing the way we think; we
were not able to grasp everything, we were very new in relation to religion or
spirituality. We used to give more importance to external and outside things instead of
internal things, before our relation with Kabir”, she assures. “All human beings are
themselves divine, happy, pure, love; we need no look for happiness outside. You have
to learn how to manifest that”, she concludes.
After the yatra, they went to ashrams and joined the Kabir community in Bangalore:
“every week, there is a charity program in somebody’s home”, they explain.

“Distance between the other members of the community is vanishing: rich, poor,
Indian, Spanish, if you live in a beautiful home… are not important things, because
God is the same in everybody. The thought ‘I cannot mix with you’ disappears”, she
explains. “It changed our thinking pattern. The negative thinking is going away: only

35
 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

more thoughts come. Distances are narrowing between our family members, our office
colleagues, our servants, our neighbors. Our perspective, how we think and look at the
situation of the person, is different now. (…) Other people told us same”, he adds.

They also attended the Kabir festival in Auroville, Pondicherry, where accommodation
was good, the place was comfortable, but there were “just events, in one place in the
ashram, while participants exchanged thoughts about Kabir. The audience was
educated, with a lot of foreigners, intellectuals; and there were talks in the afternoon,
questions and answers sessions and films discussions”, she explains.

He assures that, in the development sector, Kabir “can bring about the big change.
Today we think that doing something external things will change: that is the big
difference. We have to take out divides from our minds- we will come closer to
everybody’s situation; it becomes very easy to implement and it is good”, he predicts.
In fact, here the word Kabir could be changed by the term ‘communication for
development’. “We have to keep on, to strengthen; to bring his thought into our
activities, and it should change our behavior to become better human beings”, he adds.
She, on her behalf, thinks that “change takes a lot of time; it’s very difficult to live”.

Finally, the best impact of the Kabir Project for Virmani was personal. “You
understand yourself: how violent you are. It gave me new lens to understand myself
and the world. The first gift was beginning to sing. And the stillness, joyful, not mind-
driven body, as a media to share films and singing with people. I let it go through my
own identity; lose my grip of me”, she says.

1.1 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to religion. 1.1.1 In which ways?

Interviewees show their admiration and identification with Kabir in his role against
Hindu and Muslim fundamental attitudes in relation to religion, as he rejected religious
discrimination, promoted benevolence and non-violence and deplored social and
religious man-made differences.

36
 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Some of them go for spirituality instead of for religion; some others think that people
should strive for a place transcending Allah and Ram as they see spirituality, not
religiosity, as something essential for human existence.

During the yatra, in villages, everybody, Hindu and Muslim, attend the events, which
are spiritual rather than religious, they posit. In fact, one of the interviewees thinks that
people go to the villages because Kabir talks no religion and helps them break away
from idols and rituals.

1.2 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to caste. 1.2.1 In which ways?

The yatra are especially attended by people from low castes because as interviewees
describe them, there’s no discrimination. Instead, there is a big sense of communication
and belonging, as the love for music and poetry from Kabir creates a sense of unity.
One of the interviewees points out that in the yatra, people can change their minds in
relation to caste because they are able to meet each other and diminish differences as
they share a common physical and mental space. “Low class can become stronger and
upper, softer”, she says.
And she describes how in the yatra, Kabir and his principles are alive; the artists are
humble and accessible, and the events, very inclusive. She attended two: in Madhya
Pradesh and Rajasthan. “It was like a family wedding: we were excited to meet and see
the artists”, she remembers. “We spent all night singing until 5 a.m. We woke up and
interact with musicians: it was fun. Small villages in Malwa were overwhelmed. There
were people even from 60 to 80 years old, with blankets, many dancing, some sleeping,
clapping, (...). They are very warm and want to interact with you”, she explains. “In
villages, they have an understanding of Kabir: it speaks to them, and they like it. The
artists are not pretending. There is no discrimination (...). I think this is why people like
it”, she explains.

Another interviewee volunteers in human rights in relation to caste and believes in

social change in this respect. It was in the yatra that he got in touch with the reality of
the caste system and he understood what it means. “I’ve taken a militant position in

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

issues of caste, I am very assertive about my beliefs, but not everybody is happy with
me. The Kabir Project definitely sensitized me, but it is not responsible (...). Before, I
had dealt with caste superficially. I learned how to engage the subject in a healthy, not
aggressive way”, he explains. Then, he started asking difficult questions. “In the office
there is an equal opportunities program, and I asked how many dalits had they hired. At
home: why our servant vessels couldn’t be mixed with ours. Kabir said: what can
happen to you? It’s possible to change”, he explains. “I was confused about a lot of
issues: I found clarity. I said: now I have to engage it. I volunteer in human rights in
relation to caste. Kabir is helpful to push the conviction”, he declares.

Another one assures that the Kabir community he joined through the yatra gave him a
sense of belonging he was lacking since he left his upper class family due to ideological
differences in relation to caste and rituals. The experience was so strong that he
changed his life completely: left his job and the city where he was living to look for
personal fulfillment. He highlights “the power of Kabir couplets to open you”.

1.3 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to socioeconomic class? 1.3.1 In which ways?

Some interviewees think that the Kabir Project needs to spread deeper as the audiences
of the urban festivals are formed by middle class people, and consider that organizers
should take it to smaller towns and villages, like Prahlad Tipanya does. He is one of the
folk musicians of the Kabir Project, who is already doing these efforts to reach lower
classes also through the yatra in Malwa, in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Some others think that it is fine if audiences are only formed by urban middle classes in
the festivals, as yatra “are addressed to everyone”. Their argument is that in cities, the
events are “like any other event because the messages cannot be direct”.
In one of the interviewee’s opinion, as government is the one who is corrupted, the
message is needed “in the top”, because “if upper classes get the message right, it will
reach the low classes” (…). There is a lack of education, proper administration, health
care, etc. that results in frustration as people have no job, no money; so it is necessary
to solve the basic needs first”, he says.

38
 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Another interviewee declares that he won’t go to an urban festival of Kabir, due to the
cold relations which are generated if compared to the harmonious coexistence that
flourishes in the yatra, and the unique profile of urban middle class audiences who
attend this sort of events.

But the yatra allow different sorts of people to interact. This way, in the audience,
different social classes are unified by the music and the Kabir verses. One of the
interviewees, who attended the Malwa yatra in 2010, explains that “Prahlad Tipanya
was doing it ahead. For the first time, it was joined by different people: it was the first
effort to bring middle class and upper class together”. He, as many other interviewees,
was impressed by the environment they found in the yatra, as they could recognize
people living Kabir and “its unlimited, unconditional love”. And he describes how they
“have no walls in Kabir”, and relate each other as ‘limitless’.

2. Why has the Kabir Project had such an impact and been spread all over the
country?

One of the interviewees underlines that musicians explain the Kabir verses at the
events, and “that helps to understand metaphors and old, ancient Hindi”. Another one
explains how at school, she never felt attracted by Kabir verses, as they are “very
philosophical, very high; but in the Kabir Project events, the musicians explain the
meaning. Music and words are more powerful”, she says. For a third one, Virmani’s
personality as a good organizer, and her mixture of different good human and
professional qualities is a key factor in its success.

A new interviewee explains that, in the festivals, every session is different. “Attending
one session we cannot comprehend. That is why I go again and again, strengthening my
belief with a value addition. What the organizers present is not repetitive: they come
out with something different. And they are also learning: they are not experts; they are
gaining experience every day. Every time I go, I find a more redefined product”, he
says.
In addition, he considers that the Kabir Project documentaries use different messengers
who appeal different kind of people to good effect. For instance, Prahladi Tipanya, the

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

dalit musician, who has no education, appeals to ordinary people by his humility and
integrity, while Virmani, who also appears in the films, appeals to an urban educated
profile.
Anyway, in his opinion, what is really important is the message. For him, through
audiovisual media, the messages of Kabir have much more impact: everyone in the
audience can identify him or herself and apply the arguments to his or her own life,
which “can help anyone to be a better human being”, he says. “Instead of teaching,
through a sermon, entertainment messages are received better. Through documentaries
and a variety of music by singers from different regions”, audiences “don’t get bored
and want more. It is very simple; one doesn’t have to brain to understand it: the whole
approach is different”, he remarks.

Shabnam Virmani, on her part, never anticipated the impact the Kabir Project had and
its rapid spread. In her opinion, some factors are relevant in this sense: “people are in
distress: there is a loss of meaning in our society; consumerism deep need; deep
yearning to connect something larger than themselves”, she explains. “The spirit of
Kabir makes feel less isolated. The Kabir communities are connected through
satsaangs (which in Hindi means celebrations with spiritual music), workshops and
concerts (…). Kabir voice is healing but challenges, and makes you interrogate yourself
about who you are. (…) It is soothing, and it wakes you up”, she adds.
Another key factor in Virmani’s opinion is the “disillusion by mainstream religion:
which is sectarian, divisive, fear-based, burdened with nonsense; and the voice of Kabir
speaks to people”, she concludes.

3. Divisions and violence in Indian society. Causes.

One of the interviewees has been part of the core committee of the Kabir festival in
Mumbai, which initiated the project. She points out that this initiative “is especially
important today, when religion is tarnishing the peace in society, and there is need for
communal harmony and peace”.

Another one attributes the cause of increasing violence in India, including the brutal
attacks to women, to the disparity in income. “The divide is getting bigger, the
imbalanced materialism and frustration can be the reasons”, he says. He also relates

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

violence to corruption in society. And so does another respondent. He also relates

media to violence, as they are “not very constructive” in their representations of it and
“only care about money”. “It is necessary to reduce the divide and rules created by the
politicians and religious leaders; they should become more ethical and responsible”, he
says. And he identifies fear of death and insecurity as the biggest problems that lead to
violence. Finally, he believes that, through education, divisions in Indian society can be
improved.

For another one, the main divisions in Indian society are caste, gender, religion,
economic differences, the city and the village, and the education level. But “in the
Kabir thought, all these things become meaningless and the happiness starts coming.
(…) In villages people have time to think in relation to caste; in cities, the divisions are
between rich and poor, educated and non educated”, he lists.

Workshop with musicians from Madhya Pradesh. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

The true award

Shabnam Virmani initiated her activity as promoter of the Kabir Project in 2002, after
the Gujarat pogrom. 10 years later, she admits that nothing has changed in Indian
society. When asked whether Kabir voice could contribute to improve this fact and
bring peace to the country, she gave me a revealing letter from Naran Bhai Siju, a
village weaver from Bhujodi, in Gujarat, that she calls “the true award for the Kabir
Project”. As the letter was handwritten in the local language, she translated it to
English. I will share some extracts of the document below. The poems in italics are
Kabir verses.

“To Shabnam ji,

Saheb! (...)
On the 30th of December 2007, in the Abhiyan Office Campus in Bhuj, quite suddenly
without much forewarning, I came with Chaman Bhai (another weaver from Bhujodi)
to watch the documentary film Had Anhad. At that point, I had no particular
attachment to or knowledge of Kabir. To tell the truth, I actually had some contempt for
Kabir. My spiritual understanding was quite poor. My mind was drawn to every god,
every idol and every temple. But I couldn’t find stillness anywhere (...).
I was happy about the demolition of the Babri Masjid. I was aggrieved by the breaking
of the Ram Setu. But when the "wound" of "Had Anhad" struck me, a new seed of
spirituality was sown inside me. After that there was a lot of churning and thinking
within me, which grew more and more powerful, and my narrow-minded ideas began
to melt. I began to see Ram, Krishna, Allah, Akbar, Jesus within myself. Instead of
only in temples and mosques I began to see God in everything. I began to witness Ram,
Krishna and Shiv within my own body. (...)

My experiences become more and more strong. My wife and 22-year-old son have also
drawn a lot about Kabir's ideas from your documentary films and bhajan CDs. The
films "Had Anhad" and "Koi Sunta Hai" struck a deep chord. (...).

It's an experience that is perhaps difficult to express through words. (...).

All bogus rites, rituals, blind faiths and superstitions are shedding themselves. Now it's
only

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

My lord gave me such an intoxicating drink!

A redness descends in my eyes!

The redness of my Beloved is such,

wherever I look I see red!

Wherever I search, I find!

I have found an extraordinary peace. In the limitless universe, and within my body, I
have seen Him only. In myself I have found Shiv and Shakti. I have seen my Kul Devi
not in any temple, but in my mother, sister, daughter and in my wife. Awaiting your
trip to Kutch in August,

Narayan M. Siju
Village Bhujodi, Taluka Bhuj, Kutch, Gujarat

In every swan-soul, Ram resides

There is no place without Ram

Looking in the world for evil

I found no evil one
I searched within my self
And found none as wicked as I”

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Survey

Sample characteristics:

During the festival, I realised very soon that its audiences were not representative at all
of the city population. To find out the reasons, I discussed about this aspect of the
Kabir Project urban events with some of my interviewees and I will explore the reasons
later.

Audiences in Khar West. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

Often, the most effective way of presenting quantitative data is visually. A well
designed graphic can demonstrate the prominence of an attribute or the strength of a
relationship far more dramatically and intuitively than plain statistics (Deacon et al,
2007, p.93). I will present the graphics that show the results of this survey by using pie
charts.

My sample is formed by 48% of men and 52% of women. As the percentage of women
in the province of Maharashtra, whose capital is Mumbai, is slightly smaller than the
one of men (Census of India, 2001), it probably means that women attendance to the
events is proportionally bigger than the one of men.

44
 ‘The
The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Gender

Male Female
48% 52%

Mumbai is one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of 20,500,000
inhabitants, which receives domestic immigration from the whole country. Considering
the place of birth, 60% of informants were born in Maharashtra, while 40% had come
from
rom other Indian provinces. Only three foreign people from Europe and Africa, out of
130 respondents, participated in the survey, so the amount is irrelevant.

In relation to their age, 27% of respondents are between 16 and 25 years old; 24%,
between 26 andd 35; 21%, between 36 and 45; 8%, between 46 and 55; and 20% are
older than 55.

Age
+55 16-25
20% 27%
46
46-55
8%

36-45 26-35
21% 24%

Religion
In India, 80% of the population is Hindu and 13%, Muslim (Census of India, 2001).
20 In
the case of this survey respondents: 62% are Hindu, including those following the
Hindu sect Jainism; only 5%, Muslim; 14% belong to religious minorities as
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Sikhism and Buddhism, but also, many of them defined
themselves as ‘human being’ or ‘free thinker’, while 19% did not answer.

45
 ‘The
The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Religion
Others
14%
Hindu
No answer (including
19% Jain)
62%
Muslim
5%

The two last figures are especially revealing in a country like India, where the convivial
coexistence of different religious groups is considered the equivalence of secularity in
the Western world (Mander, 2009, p. 2). These sorts of answers would be common in
Europe, where religion is supposed to be a private area, not necessarily manifested in
the public sphere. But, as this is not the case in India, they might be related to the fact
that Kabir was spiritual but did not ascribe himself to any particular religion. Instead,
Ins
he believed in humanity and rejected temples and rituals, and above all, religious
divisions and hypocrisy.

Socioeconomic class and education

Even if I was not looking for specific profiles, almost all of them belong to well-off
well
classes, have collegee degrees and high qualified positions.

Considering
nsidering the educational level of respondents, 92% are university graduates, when
less than 4% (Census of India, 2001) of Indian population have college degrees, and
only 4% have secondary studies or another kind
kind of professional studies.
Therefore, the socio-economic
economic and educational background of the questionnaires
respondents made my research question, involving the whole Indian society, difficult to
answer.

46
 ‘The
The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Education
professional
4%
secondary
4%

university
92%

And focusing on their occupation, 22% are students;

students; 52% have a professional position
for which college degrees are required; 11% work for NGOs or other sort of social
services; and 8% are artists.

Occupation
service other student
NGO 7% 22%
artist 11%
8%

prof-
university
degree
52%

The Mumbai Festival is not consciously addressed to the elite of Indian society, but the
fact is that only they attend these urban events.
During the in-depth
depth interviews, I was informed that this imbalance happens in every
urban Kabir related event all over
ov the country.

One day, in Andheri East: a modest neighbourhood of Mumbai’s outskirts, I invited the
school teacher of a tribal community that I had just met to come with me to the Digital
Academy to attend one of the film screenings offered by the Kabir festival. I was very
surprised when she told me that it was the first time she attended a festival event. When
I asked her why, she replied that she thought this sort of events ‘were not for her’ and
even that she did not feel they were addressed to people ‘like her’.

47
 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Audiences of the film screenings at the Digital Academy, in Andheri East.

Anyway, the fact is that disadvantaged sections of society did not attend the events, and
most probably, did not even know about them. As one of my interviewees says, poor
and illiterate people do not read newspapers and therefore, they miss the advertisements
where they are announced.

I have tried to reach a different section that participates in the yatra: the Kabir Project
related events developed in villages, with the participation of these urban well-off
groups, through their accounts during the interviews. Interaction between urban and
rural population is very interesting, but unfortunately, I had no direct access to these
events.
So I only have the chance of analyzing the impact of people attending Kabir Project
related activities in urban spaces, through their audiences: well-off university graduates
and university students.

For the first question: ‘Why do you come to the Kabir Festival?’ I defined the following
set of categories: music; music & Kabir; Kabir/the Kabir Project; to connect with the
self; curiosity; and other reasons.

28% of respondents went attracted by the music and Kabir; another 28%, only by Kabir
verses; while 22% were attracted by the music. 10% went to the events seeking to

48
 ‘The
The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

connect with themselves. This concrete expectation is interesting as Kabir identified the
need of self-comprehension
comprehension and self-confidence
self confidence as the way to know and connect with
the world without egos and insecurities, therefore with no boundaries between different
identities that lead to violence. Finally, 6% attended the events driven by curiosity and
7%,
%, for other different reasons.

1. Why do you come to the Kabir

Festival?
to connect curiosity music
with the self 6% 22%
10%
other
7%

Kabir/ Kabir music & Kabir

Project 28%
28%

For the second question: ‘What

‘ drew you here?’ I defined the following: friends/
family; teachers; the Kabir poetry; compulsory activity; music and Kabir; the music;
and the sense of belonging to the Kabir community.

26% were attracted by the music along with the Kabir verses; 25%, by Kabir; 14%,
only by the music; 13% went to accompany friends or family, and 11%, following the
recommendations of a teacher. 6% were seeking for the sense of belonging to the Kabir
community; and for 5%, in the case of a concert and film screening developed at a
university
rsity college, the activity was compulsory.

49
 ‘The
The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

2. What drew you here?

sense of friends, family
music belonging 13%
14% 6% teacher
11%

music & Kabir Kabir poetry

26% 25%
compulsory
5%

For the third: ‘What

What feelings arose in the festival?’ I found these recurrent answers:
peace; harmony; joy/grace; brotherhood/togetherness; and others.

In relation to the feeling perceived by respondents

respondents during the events, 41% answered
that joy and spiritual grace; 25%, peace; 6%, brotherhood and togetherness; 26%
answered different options; and 2% did not answer.

3. Feelings in the festival.

others peace
26% 25%
noanswer
2%

brotherhood; joy / grace

togetherness 41%
6%

So 31% of respondents of an open question like this one, without a given set of
categories
egories to choice, experienced and identified in the events of the festival peace and
brotherhood: the opposite feeling to violence or division. Besides, 41% were feeling
joy or grace, both states which are associated with wellbeing or harmony, the opposite
opposit
to anger, frustration or rage which can generate violence. Instead, this sort of feelings is
more associated with communication, openness to other individuals and to the world.
In addition, no negative feelings were registered out of the total amount of 130

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

respondents, what is more relevant if considering that respondents were asked an open-
answer question.

Audiences during the workshop by M. Ali, in Juhu. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

For the fourth: ‘What messages have you got from the events/music/films?’ I identified:
inclusivity/oneness/no discrimination; self-knowledge/look within for answers; love;
timeless messages; and others.

Interestingly, 32% of respondents got messages of inclusivity, oneness or no

discrimination in relation to main divides in Indian society such as gender, borders,
language, religion or caste. 15% got the message of the relevance of self-knowledge or
looking within for answers; and 5% underlined one characteristic which, even if is not
exactly the answer to the question, gives some relevant information: they consider
Kabir messages as timeless. Another 5% did not answer. And 43% gave other answers,
not relevant for the research, or not shared by the rest of respondents. In many cases,
the answers were too general, and instead of giving concrete messages they had got
from the events, as the questions specified, they just answered that they had got the
philosophy or teachings from Kabir.

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4. What messages have you

got from the events?
inclusivity,
32%
others
43%

timeless self-
messages knowledge
5% 15%

no answer
5%

For the fifth: ‘What

What are you taking back from here?’ I identified: a new perspective;
wish to learn more about Kabir; oneness through art, music and film; spiritual feeling;
and others.

27% of respondents would like to learn more about Kabir; 20% took back a spiritual
feeling; 14%, oneness of audiences through art, music and film screenings; and 9%, a
new perspective. 6% did not answer; and 24 % gave different answers, not relevant for
this research.

Then, almost 1/3 of respondents were willing to learn more about Kabir teachings,
which means that after having attended the events, they were receptive and had a
positive attitude towards his messages and values of tolerance and understanding
between confronted identity categories and different sections of society.

The answers reflect the capability of the messages spread in the festival to change
audience’s mind in the cases they took back a new perspective. This is not a massive
answer in the questionnaires, but it is significant, even more if considering that the
question was open. On its part, the sense of oneness through
through art is also a meaningful
answer in the frame of this research, as it gives a sense of unity and belonging within
audiences who do not know each other, underlining the capability of art, in the form of
poetry, music and films, to tear down mental boundaries
boundaries between human beings.

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Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

5. What are you taking back from

here? a new
others perspective
24% 9%
wish to learn
about Kabir
na 27%
6%

spiritual oneness
feeling through art
20% 14%

For the sixth: ‘Why

Why do you keep coming back year after year (if you do)’? I found the
following categories: enjoy the music; learn about/experience Kabir; heart touching
festival; first time; and others.

For 39% of respondents, it was their first time attending an event of the festival; 21%
came back because they wanted to learn more about or experience Kabir; and 9%
repeated their attendance because their hearts had been touched in previous years. 22%
did not answer;; and 9% did not give a relevant answer for the research or their answers
were not shared by other members of the audience participating in the survey.

6. Why do you keep coming year

after year (if you do)?
others
experience
9%
na Kabir
22% 21%
heart
touching
festival
9%
first time
39%

For the seventh question: ‘Why do you try to stay connected with the voice of Kabir’? I
identified the following set of categories: the modern thinking of Kabir; that it brings

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The Kabir Project’,
Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

peace and love; the equality spread by his verses; for self-knowledge;
self knowledge; oneness of mind,
body and soul; to open his/her mind; others; and don't stay connected.

15% of respondents stay connected with the voice of Kabir because it brings them
peace and love; 12%, because his modern thinking is timeless, everlasting and therefore
useful for daily living; 10%, looking for self-knowledge;
self knowledge; 5%, because they seek
oneness of mind, body and soul; 5%, for opening their minds; and 2%, for the equality
values spread in his philosophy. 5% recognised that they are not connected with the
voice of Kabir; 17% did not answer; and 30% gave other kind of answer.

7. Why do you try to stay

connected with Kabir?
don't stay brings peace
connected and love modern
na 15%
5% thinking of
17%
Kabir
equality 12%
1%
self-knowledge
knowledge
others 10%
30%
oneness
open my mind 5%
5%

And finally, I used thee eighth question: ‘Would you like to comment or add something
else?’’ to identify more possible answers to the rest of the questions, add nuances and
any other relevant information for the research that respondents could give.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

A gender perspective
One of the most meaningful elements of statistical analysis can be to consider how
different variables interact with each other (Deacon et al, 2007, pp.88-9; Durant,
Hansen and Bauer, 1996, cited in Cottle et al, 1998, p.266). Thereby, I will analyse the
survey from a gender perspective.

It is relevant to highlight that 48% of women got the message of inclusivity, oneness
and no discrimination in relation to women, borders, language, religion or caste, when
only the 14% of men did it; and 57% of men gave answers not relevant for the research
or not shared by the rest of respondents for the same question.
In this direction, 18% of women took back from the events the oneness of audiences
through art, music and film screenings, while only 10% of men did; and 24% of women
took back spirituality while only 16 % of men did.

And when they were asked about their reasons for staying connected with the voice of
Kabir, for 13% of men it was self-knowledge, while only half of this percentage (7%)
of women stay connected for this reason.

I. Ancín, P. Tipaniya and P. Turakhia, the festival organiser, in Borivali West.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

5. Conclusion

Kabir Project potential for social change

In relation to the potential for social change of the Kabir Project in the world-views of
today’s Indian citizens exposed to the events in Mumbai and Bangalore, interviewees
give meaningful testimonies of deep personal transformations. Through introspection
and self-knowledge, they have discovered their own violence and hypocrisy; it makes
them look at the world differently: fearless, boundless, opening themselves to the world
and letting boundaries and identities behind, feeling fulfillment, joy and stillness. Some
of them underline specifically how they are more open to different people and to
engage in a dialogue with them.

Moreover, they believe strongly in the potential of Kabir verses to make people aware
and appeal to the inner conscience against violence and divides such as caste, gender,
religion or poverty and posit that Kabir values are needed today as they can benefit
society.

What produced the deepest changes in audiences was their participation in the yatra.
Interviewees talk about isolation and lack of belonging before they got in touch with
Kabir communities. After their experience in these rural journeys, they became more
open and started mixing with different people without prejudices. They changed the
ways they think and look at the situation of other people, and differences between other
members of their communities are not important, once they realized that God is the
same in everybody. And finally, which is essential from a communication for
development perspective: they have understood that these divides have to be overcome
in the minds, and after that, the new ideals, put into practice to produce social change
(Castells, 2009, p. 298).

In relation to the Kabir Project capability of generating interreligious dialogue in Indian

audiences exposed to the events, in the yatra, everybody, Hindu and Muslim, attend the
activities, which are spiritual rather than religious. Kabir talks no religion and helps
audiences to break away from hypocrisy in relation to religion, encouraging them to
strive for a place transcending every single faith.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

As already discussed in the literature chapter, religious divisions in Indian society are,
on the one hand, the consequence of colonial strategies to divide the country, and, on
the other, of the manipulation of the Hindu privileged minority in order to distract the
Hindu unprivileged majority from their real social and economic problems (Appadurai,
2006, pp. 111; 74-5). Therefore, the true divide has to be found between privileged and
disadvantaged. The others: caste, gender or religion, are culturally constructed through
dangerous ‘otherization’ processes that try to justify discrimination and violence.

But the aforementioned achievements are not attained in urban festivals, where the
main divides in Indian society are put into question in theory, but remain unchallenged
in practice.

Interviewees describe the yatra as inclusive events where people from all castes and
social background meet and interact, and where the love for music and poetry from
Kabir creates a sense of unity, communication and belonging. Their accountings show
how, in the yatra, people can change their minds in relation to caste because they are
able to meet each other, diminishing differences between them.

In this sense, while the yatra are shared spaces where the teachings of the saint become
a reality, conducive for social change in relation to caste, festivals in urban spaces do
not reach these interaction goals in practical ways, as audiences just belong to the
privileged sociocultural minority.

But these middle and upper classes who join the Kabir communities through the urban
events of the Project, can attend the yatra in the villages, where they have the chance to
sympathise and therefore identify themselves with people from different castes. This
approach enables them to understand what caste discrimination means, which has
resulted in taking militant positions in this respect in some cases. So it can be said that
the Kabir Project has real capability of sensitizing urban middle and upper classes
about Indian socioeconomic divides through the aforementioned interaction with
disadvantaged groups in rural areas.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

The Mumbai Festival is not exclusively addressed to the elite. The events are free,
which could make it easier to disadvantaged groups to attend, but the fact is that only
socioeconomic and cultural elites do. During the in-depth interviews, I was informed
that this imbalance usually happens in the urban Kabir festivals all over the country.
Therefore, when considering the capability of the Kabir Project of generating dialogue
between different socioeconomic sectors in Indian society, the key problem is that
organizers do not involve disadvantaged groups.

M. Ali’s performance at Dadar West. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

It is true that, historically, elites have promoted hatred towards minorities; therefore,
they are responsible for the massacres that took place in India in 1947, 1992 and 2002
(Appadurai, 2006, pp. 66-67; 74-5). Then, the messages might be needed “in the top”.
But, at the same time, humble people welcoming urban middle classes in their villages
should not be more relevant than well-off classes receiving villagers, or their
disadvantaged neighbors, in their own urban spaces. Therefore, why should not they
mix and interact in urban locations as well?

In villages, as interviewees explained to me, organizers go to the streets and markets to

announce the events in order to invite all kind of audiences. But similar actions are not
taken in the cities to reach all sectors of Indian society. In order to make disadvantaged
people feel they would be welcome in this sort of events, and that they are actually
addressed to them, bigger and different efforts might be undertaken. For instance, they

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

could be developed in the streets instead of in smart auditoriums where poor people
could feel uncomfortable. It is true that some Kabir Festival events in Mumbai are
developed in the open air, but not in modest neighborhoods, but in posh areas. Some
others were developed in modest neighbourhoods’ music or cinema education centres,
which did not attract poor and illiterate audiences.

The fact is that organizers do not succeed in inviting and encouraging the attendance of
all the diverse groups that form Indian society. My recommendation, from an inclusive
and social change perspective, is that they might look for places where disadvantaged
groups could feel they belong to. Asking them and inviting them to join the
organization could be good options to solve this problem.

As I only had the chance of analyzing the impact of the Kabir Project on well-off
university graduates attending activities in urban spaces, a direct analysis of the yatra
in the villages could be an interesting research in the future. It would allow comparing
how these events are perceived and lived by both, privileged and disadvantaged
communities in rural areas, where caste divisions are deeper than they are in urban
communities.

Reasons for the success of the Kabir Project

The Kabir Project impact and its spread all over the country are related to many factors.
In the festivals, every session is different, offering a variety of music by singers from
multiple Indian regions. Musicians’ explanations about the Kabir verses help to
understand metaphors and ancient Hindi in Kabir verses. And through artistic forms,
such as folk music and documentaries, messages are stronger and their impact in
audiences is bigger.

Moreover, the Project documentaries use messengers who appeal different kind of
people to good effect. Thereby, the dalit musician appeals to ordinary people by his
humility and integrity, while Virmani appeals to an urban educated profile, in ways that
everyone in the audience can identify him or herself with one of them, and relate the
arguments to their own lives.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

In addition, some sociocultural factors are relevant for the success of the Kabir Project,
like a loss of meaning in contemporary society; disillusion by mainstream religion,
which is sectarian, divisive and fear-based; and a deep need of connecting to something
larger than the individual. Finally, audiences get a sense of belonging in the Kabir
communities.

Divisions and violence in Indian society

During the Kabir Festival Mumbai, 10% of the audiences went to the events seeking to
connect with themselves. This expectation is interesting as Kabir identified the need of
self-knowledge as the way to connect with the world without egos and insecurities, as
insecure identities tend to protect themselves and delimit boundaries between different
identity groups, even through violence.

In relation to the feelings perceived by respondents during the events, 31% of answers
pointed peace and brotherhood: the opposite feeling to violence or division. It is quite
revealing, taking into account that it was an open-answer question. Besides, 41% of
respondents felt joy or grace, both states which are associated with wellbeing and
harmony, the opposite of anger, frustration or rage, which can prejudice towards
violence. Instead, this sort of feelings is more associated with communication,
openness to other individuals and to the world.

It is also meaningful that 32% of respondents got messages of inclusivity, oneness or

no discrimination in relation to main divides in Indian society, such as gender, borders,
language, religion or caste. 15% got the message of the relevance of self-knowledge;
and 5% underlined that they consider Kabir messages as timeless and useful for daily
life.

Almost 1/3 of respondents were willing to learn more about Kabir teachings: after
having attended the events, they were receptive and had a positive attitude towards his
messages and values of tolerance and understanding between confronted identity
categories and different sections of society.
The fact that 9% of respondents expressed that they took back a new perspective
reflects the capability of the messages spread in the festival to change audience’s mind,
which is significant if considering that the question was open.

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On its part, 14% pointed at the sense of oneness created

created through art within audiences
who do not know each other, underlining the capability of art, in the form of poetry,
music and films to tear down mental boundaries between human beings.

A gender perspective
From a gender perspective, 48% of women got back from the events messages of
inclusivity, oneness and no discrimination, when only 14% of men did it.
4. What messages have you got from the events?

Female
others inclusivity
30% 48%

timeless
messages
5%
self-
knowledge
no answer 13%
4%

Male
inclusivity
others 14%
57% self-
knowledge
18%

timeless
no messages
answer 5%
6%

And 18% of women took back from the events the oneness of audiences through art,
music and film screenings, while only 10% of men did. These figures might be
meaningful as women are categorised and discriminated more often than men, and are
the specific target
rget of horrendous crimes in Indian society.

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 ‘The
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Project India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

5. What are you taking back from here?

Female a new
perspective wish to
others 8% learn about
25% Kabir
25%

spiritual oneness
feeling through art
24% 18%

Male a new
wish to
perspective
learn about
others 11%
Kabir
22%
29%

na
13%

spiritual oneness
feeling through art
16% 9%

The atrocious degree of violence against women that exists in India has been revealed
through mainstream media and spread all over the world recently, since the end of
2012, with the case of gang rape and brutal murder of a young woman in a public bus
in New Delhi (“Rape and murder...”,
murder...”, 2013). But the only new thing about the case was
the fact that middle classes felt in danger. Unfortunately, this violence is usually
suffered
uffered by Indian women from disadvantaged minorities, without the social response
that generated that horrendous crime. But this
his time, she was not a disempowered dalit
or a Muslim, but a doctor, which reveals that the violence level that Indian society
tolerates
lerates differs depending on the social, economic and cultural background of the
victim. That is why many more efforts are necessary to diminish differences between
social classes and other different groups.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Finally, the testimony of the Gujarati weaver who supported the destruction of the
Babri Masjid and changed his mind after watching the documentary film Had Anhad, is
an evidence of the Kabir Project communication for development power, which no
doubt constitutes the true award of all its healing efforts.

Audiences at the Brahmakumari Garden. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

Musicians from Madhya Pradesh, after the last event. Kabir Festival Mumbai.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

References

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Cottle, S. and Anders, H. et al (eds) (1998) Mass Communication Research Methods.

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Deacon, David, Michael Pickering, Peter Golding & Graham Murdock (1999)
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Hall, S., (ed.) (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying

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Kethineni, S., & Humiston, G. (2010). Dalits, the “oppressed people” of India: How
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Keen, S. (1991). Faces of the Enemy, Essays that Classify and Divide (pp. 71-75).
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Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative Interviewing. In May, T. (Ed.), Qualitative Research in

Action (pp. 225-241). London: Sage.

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Mouffe, Ch. (2002). ‘Democracy – Radical and Plural’, CSD Bulletin, Winter 2001-
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dialogue/tana-bana/articles/city-of-mirrors.html

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edition. London: Sage.

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India’s women [Electronic version] (2013). The Economist. January 5, 2013. Retrieved
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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Appendix I:
Survey questionnaire
Kabir Project
Itziar Ancín: itziarancin@hotmail.com
Master in Communication for Development, Malmö University
10-1-2013 (last version)

Survey questionnaire:
1. Why do you come to the Kabir Festival?

2. What drew you here?

3. What feelings arose in the festival?

4. What messages have you got from the events/music/films?

5. What are you taking back from here?

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

6. Why do you keep coming back year after year (if you do)?

7. Why do you try to stay connected with the voice of Kabir?

8. Would you like to comment or add something else?

Personal information:

Age: 0-15 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 +55 (more than…)

Gender: Male Female

Place of birth: City: _________________________

Region:________________________

Education: without studies primary secondary professional university

Religion: ________________________

Occupation: ________________________

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Appendix II:
Interview outline
1. How and when was born your relation with the Kabir Project/ Kabir
community?
2. What drew you there?
3. What activities of the Kabir Project have you attended?
4. What messages have you get from the events/music/films?
5. What are you taking back from them?
6. Why do you keep attending the events year after year (if you do)?
7. Why do you try to stay connected with the voice of Kabir?
8. What feelings arose in the festivals/yatras that you have attended?
9. What kind of audiences did you find there?
10. Why you think this/these kind/s of audience/s attended the events?
11. What was the relation between them and the artists?
12. What is the meaning of the Kabir Project for you?
13. Do you perceive divisions/ violence in contemporary Indian society?
14. What kind of divisions/violence?
15. What do you think are the reasons for this violence?
16. Do you think that the messages of Kabir, spread through the Project, could
contribute to improve this situation?
17. Would you like to comment or add something else?

Personal information:
Age: 0-15 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 +55 (more than…)
Gender: Male Female
Place of birth: City: _________________________
Region:________________________
Education: without studies primary secondary professional university
Religion:________________________
Occupation:________________________

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Appendix III:
Field work- Extracts of in-depth interviews

This is the personal information, in the terms they define themselves, of 9 out of 13 of
my interviewees, whose testimonies I have used in the research analysis for being most
relevant.
I will refer to them as a capital I and a number, in order to preserve their anonymity,
except in the case of Shabnam Virmani, Kabir Project’s manager.

I1: 43 years old, female, born in Buffalo, New York, USA with Indian origins, living in
Bangalore.
University studies. Jain. Food consultant.

I2: 52 years old, male, from Bangalore, in Karnataka.

Professional studies. Hindu. Jeweler.

I3: 66 years old, male, from Prna, in Bihar.

Ex-Army, now facilitator in leadership programs. Hindu.

I4: 62 years old, male, from Akoda, in Maharashtra.

University studies. Hindu. Development sector.

I5: 58 years old, female, from Amroreoti, in Maharashtra.

University studies. Hindu. Housewife.

I6: 42 years old, female, from Amritsar, in Punjab.

University studies. Religion: humanity. Kractivist, feminist, human rights activist.

I7: 37 years old, male, from Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh.

Undergraduate. Religion: “scratches head and wonders”. Salesman.

I8: 68 years old, male, from Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh.

University studies. Religion: humanity. Development worker in Indian villages.

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 ‘The Kabir Project’, India, by Itziar Ancín. D.P. June, 2013. ComDev, Malmö University.

Interviews extracts:

1. Social change potential of the mediated messages of Kabir in the world-views of

contemporary Indian citizens, exposed to the Kabir Project and related events in
Mumbai and Bangalore.
The first impact of the Kabir Project for its ‘mother’ is a transformative personal
experience. “You understand yourself: how violent you are. It gave me new lens to
understand myself and the world. The first gift was beginning to sing. And the stillness,
joyful, not mind-driven body, as a media to share films and singing with people. I let it
go through my own identity; lose my grip of me”, Virmani says.
For I1, the most important gift of the Kabir Project, through the yatra, is “the joy, the
freedom, my take away and the sense of community. It’s like I have another big family
around the festivals and yatra, apart from my own family”, she says. “Most important
messages for me are the spirit of not to be scared, of fearlessness. (…) Satsaangs,
understanding the songs, singing, made me look inside me, stronger, freer”, she adds.
In I3’s opinion, violence and divisions as caste, religion, rich and poor, sexual abuse…
need more than legal measures: “an appeal to your inner conscience: that is where
Kabir comes in 100%. I believe his voice can benefit society and I would like it to be
given in bigger publicity: at school, university, politicians and bureaucrats. (…) Kabir
is the need of today, today is more relevant than it was when alive”, he claims. For him,
Kabir’s most important message is “self reflection, introspection, self belief. Don’t be
academic theoretical, but be academic, be practical (…). Kabir can make people aware,
but the change can be only done by them. (…) Kabir further strengthens and reinforces
my beliefs”, he exposes.
I5 and I4 attended the Rajasthan Kabir yatra in February 2012 in the Bikaner district,
visiting five villages until Pugal, the village of one the Kabir Project musicians, which
is deep in the dessert. It was their first real experience for Kabir.
“We were moving in 3 or 4 buses with about 150 people from other regions, even
foreign, even school children from Kashmir, to 70 years old people. (…) In the
concerts, everybody tries to come, local organizations are also involved. There is a lot
of interest in villagers (…). The concerts are in the open until 2 or 3 o’clock.
Sometimes there is no room for everybody (…). They start singing Kabir while
brushing the tooth; that is the best thing: it is no formal”, explains I4.

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For I5, “the yatra was the way to Kabir. It has changed us. Before, we, my husband and
me, were isolated. Now we are more open. We mix with different people more than
before: with all kind of people”, she affirms. In the yatra, they met people from all over
the country. “We forgot everything: we had no proper bed, no food, no hot water, but
everything was fine because of Kabir. It started changing the way we think; we were
not able to grasp everything, we were very new in relation to religion or spirituality,
and giving more importance to external and outside things instead of internal things,
before our relation with Kabir”, she assures. And she understood that they had to be
positive, give importance to everything: “even to small insects, and everything which is
alive”, she adds. “All human beings are themselves divine, happy, pure, love; we need
no look for happiness outside. You have to learn how to manifest that”, she concludes.
After the yatra, they went to ashrams and joined the Kabir community in Bangalore:
“every week, there is a charity program in somebody’s home”, they say.
“My whole belief system got reinforced. The Kabir though touches your heart: shows
you what you should be doing”, says I4. “Distance between the other members of the
community is vanishing: rich, poor, Indian, Spanish, if you live in a beautiful home…
these are not important things, because God is the same in everybody. The thought ‘I
cannot mix with you’ disappears”, she explains.
“It changed our thinking pattern. The negative thinking is going away: only more
thoughts come. Distances are narrowing between our family members, our office
colleagues, our servants, our neighbors. Our perspective, how we think and look at the
situation of the person, is different now. (…) Other people told us same”, he adds.
“People say the world was better and now it is bad, but this is not true: it has always
been the same. It depends on how you look at it. Even illiterate people: if everybody
follows Kabir thought, (…) there would be no problems between people and
countries”, he concludes.
They also attended the festival in Auroville, Pondicherry, where accommodation was
good, the place was comfortable, but there were “just events, in one place in the
ashram. Participants in the festival exchanged thoughts about Kabir. The audience was
educated, a lot of foreigners, intellectuals; and there were talks in the afternoon,
questions and answers sessions, films discussions…”, explains I5.
I4 assures that, in the development sector, Kabir “can bring about the big change.
Today we think that doing something external things will change: that is the big
difference. We have to take out divides from our minds- we will come closer to

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everybody’s situation; and it becomes very easy to implement and it is good”, he

predicts. “We have to keep on, to strengthen; to bring his thought into our activities,
and it should change our behavior, to become better human beings. If we are good
human beings, we will become God. That means that we will reach good qualities:
love, no hatred, no jealousy: there is a sort of enlightenment”, he adds.
I5, on her behalf, thinks that “change takes a lot of time; it’s very difficult to live”.

I2 discovered Kabir in the festivals, and his voice changed him: “now I am able to deal
better with other people, other points of view and also appreciate them. Why? Because
Kabir talks about universal God which is there, within everybody”, he explains. As he
highlights, in the events “your mind is uplifted even if I don’t understand Hindi, Urdu,
but music touches your heart”. The main messages for him are “to look at ourselves, to
understand to ourselves better, in order to see our inherent hypocrisy”.

1.1 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to religion.
I8, from childhood, was fond of Kabir as a revolutionary against Hindu and Muslim
fundamental attitudes in relation to religion and society.
I6 underlines the fact that “Kabir’s simple and straightforward principles, emphasizing
equality among kings and paupers, and negating religious discrimination, instilled
lessons of benevolence and non-violence in the people. He deplored social and
religious man-made differences. Pilgrimage is source of religious discrimination.
People should strive for a place transcending Allah and Ram. Spirituality, not
religiosity is essential for human existence”, she declares.
1.1.1 In which ways?
I1 went to the yatra in the villages of Rajasthan, and witnessed how everybody
attended the events: Muslim and Hindu. “The events are not religious: they are
spiritual. People come to the villages because Kabir talks no religion, and helps you
break away from idols, rituals and everything which comes”, she explains.

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1.2 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to caste.
I1 underlines the fact that, in the yatra, “especially people from low caste go because
there’s no discrimination, but a big sense of communication and belonging. Everybody
is there because they like the music and the poetry and there is a sense of unity”. She
believes that, in the yatra, “people can change their minds in relation to caste because
they are able to meet. Low class can become stronger and upper, softer”.
I6 defines Kabir “as a philosopher, social reformer and revolutionary. He emphasized
the unity of thought and action, theory and practice. His birth in a low status family
motivated him to uplift Dalit communities. He preached supremacy of knowledge over
ignorance, superstition and artificiality of castes. His philosophy of equality and unity
inspired the oppressed communities, especially dalits/lowercastes”.

“The overflow of humanism in his poetry, paved the way for heralding a new society.
Kabir challenged the unequal caste system and racial division and segregation. He gave
the utmost importance to human equality and freedom, communal harmony and
universal tolerance. He struck at the very roots of Brahminical orthodoxy by rejecting
superstition and ritualism. So for me, Kabir is a human rights campaigner, who did not
need education, but (…) poetry to reach out to people and instantly stuck a chord”, she
claims.

“I forced myself to see differently”, explains I7. “I wondered: what am I doing to

encourage equality? Then I started asking difficult questions to people. In the office
there is an equal opportunities program, and I asked how many dalits had they hired. At
home: why our servant vessels couldn’t be mixed with ours. Kabir said: what can
happen to you? It’s possible to change”, he posits. “I try to reduce the rituals. (…) I was
confused about a lot of issues: I found clarity. The Kabir Project sensitizes you. I said:
now I have to engage it. I volunteer in human rights in relation to caste. Kabir is helpful
to push the conviction”, he declares.

1.2.1 In which ways?

I1 went to two yatra in Malwa and Rajasthan. “It was like a family wedding: we were
excited to meet, see the artists... Everybody was dying to meet each other after the first

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one”, she remembers. “We spent all night singing until 5 a.m. We wake up and interact
with musicians: it was fun. In Malwa: there were overwhelmed by people: even
villagers from 60 to 80 years old attended, with blankets, many dancing, some sleeping,
clapping, and very alive: Kabir is alive. In villages, people are very warm and want to
interact with you”, she explains. In addition, “they have an understanding of Kabir: it
speaks to them, and they like it. The artists are not pretending; there is no
discrimination: this is so inclusive. I think this is why people like it”, she explains.
I7 is involved in a group which works with caste related issues. “I’ve taken a militant
position in issues of caste, I am very assertive about my beliefs, but not everybody is
happy with me. The Kabir Project definitely sensitized me, but it is not responsible.
There was a practical reality in the yatra and I understood it. Before, I had dealt with
caste superficially. I learned how to engage the subject in a healthy, not aggressive
way, and I disengaged with people with different ideas”, he explains.

1.3 Capability of the Kabir Project of generating positive attitudes towards

dialogue between confronted identities in Indian audiences exposed to the Kabir
Project and related events in relation to socioeconomic class?
In I2’s opinion, the Kabir Project needs to spread deeper. The audience of the
Bangalore festival in 2009 was formed by middle class people, and he considers that
organizers should take it to town and small villages. He adds that Prahlad Tipanya, one
of the musicians of the Kabir Project, is already doing these efforts to reach lower
classes also. He observes that the festival events in cities are announced in newspapers.
“The problem is that the poor don’t read newspapers”, he explains.
Nevertheless, in I3’s perspective, the point is “quality and not quantity”. For him it is
fine if audiences are only formed by middle class and urban people in the festivals. He
posits that the yatra are addressed to everyone: “Kabir has a mass appeal in the
villages: they follow their values very high. In cities, it is more like any other event;
like a play, but it is good to leave it like this: the message cannot be direct. Kabir
messages are franc, mild. He is allowing you to find your own space”, he says.
He also says that the audiences to be expected in auditoriums are middle class people,
but this is not a critic. “We, middle classes, need to take the message; government more
than the people. There is a lack of education, proper administration, health care that
result in frustration as people have not job, no money… First, it is necessary to solve

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the basic needs. Who is corrupted? Government, so the message is needed in the top. If
upper classes get the message right, it will reach the law classes”, he explains.

1.3.1 In which ways?

In 2010, I8 attended the Malwa yatra. “Prahlad Tipanya was doing it ahead. For the
first time, it was joined by different people: it was the first effort to bring middle class
and upper class together. I met on the ground a wider community where humanity is in
practice. That gave me a sense of belonging. It’s amazing how the couplets open you”,
he says. He belonged to a Brahman family related to many rituals with which he
disagreed fundamentally. Then, he left home and became a community worker.
“Before, I was lonely. Now, I don’t have walls in Kabir. The limitless ‘you to me’: this
is Kabir. In the yatra, I was really looked after. Kabir is a way. I won’t go to an urban
festival: this is not my cup of tea”, he says, referring to the kind of audiences who
attend this sort of events.
I7 calls the Kabir yatra the “Indian Woodstock”. “From concert to another, musicians
were jamming in the bus: we felt privileged. It was fun and connected me to a lot of
people: these relations were very important to me”, he claims.
I8 assures that he “met people living Kabir” and “unlimited, unconditional love”. The
experience was that strong that he was pushed to left behind his life in Auroville, and
the work he was doing, which was not satisfying him.

2. Why has the Kabir Project had such an impact and been spread all over the
country?
When Shabnam Virmani, manager of the project, wondered whether would it touch
other people or not, she never anticipated the huge impact it had and its rapid spread. In
her opinion, some factors are relevant in this sense: “people are in distress: there is a
loss of meaning in our society; consumerism deep need, unsatisfying, deep yearning to
connect something larger than themselves”, she explains.
“The spirit of Kabir makes feel less isolated. The Kabir communities are connected
through satsaangs, workshops and concerts. (…) Kabir voice is healing but challenges,
and makes you interrogate yourself about who you are. (…) It is soothing, and it wakes
you up”, she adds.

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Another key factor, in Virmani’s opinion, is the “disillusion by mainstream religion,

which is sectarian, divisive, fearbased, burdened with nonsense; the voice of Kabir
speaks to them”, she concludes.

I2 underlines that musicians explain the Kabir verses at the beginning of the events,
and “that helps: metaphors and old, ancient Hindi, difficult to understand”.

I4 says that he has always loved Kabir, but his verses are difficult to find. So the
Project spread his voice.
I5 explains how at school, she never felt attracted by Kabir verses, as they are “very
philosophical, very high, but in the Kabir Project events, the musicians explain the
meaning. Music and words are more powerful”, she says.
For I8, Virmani’s personality as a good organizer, mixture of different good personal
and professional qualities, is one of the Project’s main reasons for success.
I3 explains that, in the festivals, every session is different. “Attending one session, we
cannot comprehend. That is why I go again and again, strengthening my belief with a
value addition. What they present is not repetitive: they come out with something
different. And they are also learning; they are not experts. They are gaining experience
every day, refining them. Every time I go, I find a more redefined product”, he says.
In addition, he considers that Virmani’s documentaries use different messengers who
appeal different kind of people: for instance, Tipanya, the dalit musician, who has no
education, appeals to ordinary people by his humility and integrity, while Virmani
appeals another different kind of urban educated people. Anyway, in his opinion,
“which is really important is the message”.
For him, “through audiovisual media, the messages of Kabir have much more impact:
everyone in the audience can identify him or herself to his or her own life, and it can
help anyone to be a better human being. (…) Instead of teaching, through a sermon,
entertainment messages are received better (…). Through documentaries and a variety
of music by singers from different regions, audiences “don’t get bored and want more”,
he admits. “It is very simple; one doesn’t have to brain to understand it: the whole
approach is different”, he underlines.

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3. Divisions and violence in Indian society. Causes.

I6, who has been part of the core committee which started the first Kabir festival in
Mumbai and initiated the project, points out that this initiative “is especially important
today, when religion is tarnishing the peace in society, there is need for communal
harmony and peace”, she assures. She remarks that the feelings that arose in the
Mumbai festival are “peace, love, respect, equality. Feeling of being totally intoxicated
with Kabir music and dancing, without knowledge of physical existence. This is an
event which unites physical and inner self, completely. Kabir voice resonates in me and
as one listens to him, the sitar inside starts playing the music of love and feet start
dancing with pure love and happiness, its juts bliss…pure bliss”, she describes.

I3 and I2 find the cause of increasing violence in India, including the recent women
attacks, in incomes disparity. “The divide is getting bigger, the imbalanced materialism
and frustration can be the reasons”, I2 says. “Kabir will help at looking at yourself: you
watch your breath and feel ecstasy”, he adds. He also relates violence to corruption in
society.

And so does I3. He also finds the role of media in relation to violence, as “not very
constructive” in their representations of it and as they might be only worried about
money. He finds a huge divide between rich and poor: “it is necessary to reduce the
divide and rules created by the politicians and religious leaders; they should become
more ethical and responsible”, he says. Moreover, he identifies “fear of death and
insecurity as the biggest problems”, and believes that, by education, Indian society and
its divisions can be improved.
For I4, the main divisions in Indian society are “caste, gender, religion, economic
differences, the city and the village, people who are smart and are not, educated and not
educated. (…) In the Kabir thought, all these things become meaningless and the
happiness starts coming. In villages people have time to think in relation to caste; in
cities, the divisions are between rich and poor, educated and non educated”, he lists.
I1 also admits that in cities, the divisions are related to money; in villages, to caste,
towards drinking water in the same glasses or getting into temples.
For I5, caste and gender are still rigid divisions in the rural areas, but she does not
know the caste of other people in the city.

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Appendix IV:

Kabir Festival Mumbai programme

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