By Shiva Thorat, Twocircles.net
Revolt came early in the life of Geeta Bharti. Born in 1943 and married her early 20s, that event was also a form of revolt given the times: an inter-caste marriage. But the driving force for this 73-year old Maratha lady was, and remains, her love for singing Kirtans.
The origins of singing Kirtans, and protest, goes back to the days when her father, a worker in the mills of Bombay, would take her to the strikes organised by the trade unions. She started giving slogans in the rally. From that time onwards, her father gave her freedom to go out to the rallies,. Eventually she became part of Communists Party, but for some reason, she left the communists and started singing Kirtans. And for the past 50 years, she has sung Kirtans; documenting the lives of the great Shivaji and Babasaheb Ambedkar along with Sant Tukaram.
However, she also ensures that her Kirtans are not the Brahminised versions; instead, she has working hard to uphold the tradition of protest, and speaking the truth.
This was also evident in a recent performance, when she was singing on the eve of the birth anniversary of Jijamata, King Shivaji’s mother. As Bharti sang in Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra on King Shivaji and Babasaheb Ambedkar, people tried to stop her, saying that she was wrongfully depicting Shivaji. In her reply, she just laughed and said, “we all forget our ‘jatecha rayat’ (mass leader) and adopt Bramhani Shivaji”.
One can say that Bharti’s work may not be extremely famous, but her work has always been noticed in Ambekarite circles. Shambuk Sankalpana from Kalyan, Mumbai said, “We organised her performance last year. We were surprised because the way she presented radical Shivaji was enormously important. Her music mobilised people and they started thinking about the radical king that Shivaji was.”
In fact, it is her documentation of Shivaji that has brought the Maratha community’s ire upon her. Bharti mentioned that as someone from Maratha community, she commented that Maratha always follow the wrong people and had made their own lives worse. She faced gender discrimination in her own house and after that, she started revolting against the male dominated society. She was opposed by her family and society too, whenever she presented radical King Shivaji. But at the same time, she praises her family too for the kind of surrounding she got.
She was inspired by the work of revolutionary Krantiba Phule and the way he presented Shivaji. She told Twocircles.net, “The way Shivaji was represented by Phule has linkages with Vidrohi Tukaram and that’s why it is important to put Shivaji one more time with reality attached to it”. She added, “Comrade Pansare and Sharad Patil too mentioned radical Shivaji; my form is little different but radical King Shivaji must continue to be presented in society”.
Keeping in line with the themes of presenting radical thinkers, Bharti also makes it a point to sing of other, equally important personalities too. Her Kirtans sing of Vidrohi Tukaram, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Annabhau Sathe, and has sung against the BJP-led NDA Government. She said, “this government cannot be expected to give justice to the Pansare and Narendra Dhabholkar”.
She also mentioned that the nature of Kirtan has also changed over time, and become more suited to the Brahminical system. “Kirtan was for revolt, it was a form of expression against structural power but has been overtaken by Brahmanism. I will try to show what Kirtan was meant for in my life”. Recently she was threatened a lot of time to stop her performances. She was facilitating training to the ten various people to start the radical form of kirtan but people from Maratha community who believes Brahmanical Shivaji stop her to facilitate radical Shivaji.
Talking about her personal beliefs, she said, “I converted into Bashweshar Dharma after visiting the Devdasis in Karnataka. It is painful to look at their situation, which has been made even worse by superstition and caste system. So I decided to talk about Devdasi and their lives”. She mentioned that “when I was in Paithan (One of the cultural city of Maharashtra) I opposed when people donated goods to Brahmans. People opposed them and Brahmans got angry and they tried to throw me out of the village. But the villagers told the Brahmins that I will live in Paithan”.
Geeta Bharti never interacts much with the media because she believes that media is a form of exploitation and its in hand of Brahmanical corporates. She was sad and angry when Comrade Govind Pansare, Narendra Dhabolkar killed and media was not giving the right information. For Bharti, the path or Kirtan and protesting against caste go hand in hand, and nothing will change this aspect of her life.