Kathak and Social Communication
2012
The Story of Kathak Social Science and Communication
‘Kathak’ is one of the most popular forms of Indian classical dance. We have grown up watching it in movies from UmraoJaanuptoDevdas. Most young girls in India even start learning kathak right from the tender age of 5 years.
However is kathak just a simple cultural product of the country that can be counted among the artistic treasures of this land or is there a larger understanding to the same? Through this article we shall travel through the journey of time and see how a thing as simple and pure as an ancient dance form can tell us the stories of the cultural, religious, political transformations of the country.
The Fifth Veda
Traditionally the Hindu society was divided in five varnas – Brahmins (intellectuals), Kshatriya (warriors), vaishya (merchants), shudra (manual labourers), achoot (untouchables). The purpose of this form of division was to have a more organized society by distributing it on basis of the type of work performed. However with time this became a hierarchical division of the society which led to oppression of the lower caste (shudra& untouchables) by the upper caste members. In this entire struggle for power the holy hindu scriptures (the Vedas) remained as the sole possession of the Brahmins or the educated class. Any attempt to even touch these holy texts by members of the lower caste was considered a crime.
Even our holy text of Ramayana narrates an incident where lord Ram (mariyadapurushottam) chops of the head of a person from the lower caste when he attempts to read the Vedas. The shudra’s were forbidden to listen to these puranas (holy texts). (Massey, 1999)
It’s believed that looking at this state of the society gods asked Lord Brahma to devise something which would be accessible to all and bind this society together. This is how the fifth veda or Natya Veda was born. The Hindu epics have stories of brahma teaching Bharata (the then king of Bharat what
The Story of Kathak Social Science and Communication
‘Kathak’ is one of the most popular forms of Indian classical dance. We have grown up watching it in movies from UmraoJaanuptoDevdas. Most young girls in India even start learning kathak right from the tender age of 5 years.
However is kathak just a simple cultural product of the country that can be counted among the artistic treasures of this land or is there a larger understanding to the same? Through this article we shall travel through the journey of time and see how a thing as simple and pure as an ancient dance form can tell us the stories of the cultural, religious, political transformations of the country.
The Fifth Veda
Traditionally the Hindu society was divided in five varnas – Brahmins (intellectuals), Kshatriya (warriors), vaishya (merchants), shudra (manual labourers), achoot (untouchables). The purpose of this form of division was to have a more organized society by distributing it on basis of the type of work performed. However with time this became a hierarchical division of the society which led to oppression of the lower caste (shudra& untouchables) by the upper caste members. In this entire struggle for power the holy hindu scriptures (the Vedas) remained as the sole possession of the Brahmins or the educated class. Any attempt to even touch these holy texts by members of the lower caste was considered a crime.
Even our holy text of Ramayana narrates an incident where lord Ram (mariyadapurushottam) chops of the head of a person from the lower caste when he attempts to read the Vedas. The shudra’s were forbidden to listen to these puranas (holy texts). (Massey, 1999)
It’s believed that looking at this state of the society gods asked Lord Brahma to devise something which would be accessible to all and bind this society together. This is how the fifth veda or Natya Veda was born. The Hindu epics have stories of brahma teaching Bharata (the then king of Bharat what
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