Neglected Music
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: January 21 2013 -

Like many Indian youths in late sixties and early seventies who were into everything western and going to an Indian musical concert would means looking at 'interesting people' coming to listen to the concert, Kiran Seth went to Columbia University, New York to do his masters and PhD after graduating from IIT Kharagpur in 1970.

There, he chanced to attend a Dhrupad concert by Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dadar and Ustad Zia Fariddudin Dagar at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

That was the day Kiran Seth realized the richness of Indian classical music which people of his generation had been looking upon with scorn.

Recalling the experience of that day, Kiran Seth later said, 'I went into the concert walking on ground but came out walking an inch above it… The 'black box' concept in science could describe it quite appropriately.

I knew the input to the box and the output, but not what took place inside. I realized, what had happened to me could happen to others too."

On his return to India in 1976, now Dr Kiran Seth started teaching and doing research work at IIT Delhi, where he got together with students and started a voluntary youth movement for promotion of Indian classical music, Indian classical dance and other aspects of Indian culture, especially among the school, college and university students for whom anything related to Indian culture is passé and not chic.

This was how the Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth, often known by its initials SPIC MACAY, started in 1977.

Over the years, the society has done phenomenal amount of work in the area of promotion of Indian classical music and culture among the youths not only in India but also recently in different parts of the world through its lecture cum demonstration series.

From the first SPIC MACAY concert series organized by Dr Kiran Seth and some of his students at IIT Delhi and some colleges by inviting six Delhi based six artistes namely Pandit Birju Maharaj, Sonal Mansingh, Ustad Asad Ali Khan, Dagar Bandhu and Ustad Munnawar Ali Khan, the Society has caught the imagination of youths and its movement grown geographically as well as numerically.

Today, there are over 500 SPIC MACAY centers in India and abroad and about 5000 events are conducted every year.

We are going at length over how the SPIC MACAY movement has succeeded in fighting not against westernization, which is inevitable in this age of globalization, but against the process of deculturisation, in the light of the fact that the once thriving indigenous Manipuri music is today losing its patronage among the people of the State.

The concern shared by Moirangthem Kanankumar, Assistant Director of Programme and Programme Head of All India Radio (AIR), Imphal over poor public response to broadcast of traditional Manipuri folk music and songs, while speaking at the inaugural of 'Folk music concert' organized by AIR Imphal in connection with its Golden Jubilee Year celebration on January 19 at the hall of MFDC, is a harsh reality that most of the indigenous Manipuri folk musical art forms are facing today in the wake of various cultural influences from outside.

It's high time for us to start a similar movement like the SPIC MACAY in Manipur for the promotion of the rich but dying indigenous Manipuri music.

To shut Manipuri society from the onslaught of outside influences in this age of globalization would be impossible, but we can at least encourage the youths to involve in the deculturisation process by ensuring proper venues for them to have easy access for understanding the cultural wealth of their forefathers.