The chant of these Assembly elections has been “change”. Political parties have been competing with each other as to who can deliver the real change, the better change, the catchier paribartan. The legions of trolls have been amplifying the messages and also playing watchdog for their designated masters. One slip-up by a rival and the dog whistle is sounded, and they are at someone’s throat. So much so that Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed this troll constituency in one of his speeches earlier this year. “Reel banane waale” is how he referred to them.
Are trolls new? Are they not exactly like the sawngs that roamed the streets of Calcutta in the 19th and early 20th centuries, minus smartphone and social media? Singer and archivist Devajit Bandyopadhyay fields the questions. His reply: “They were not exactly meant to troll, but to serve a sharp corrective.” He continues, “They would come out in groups and through the songs highlighted the loopholes of law, the foibles of society. It was a kind of public broadcast.”
Sawnger gaan was primarily a tradition of neighbourhoods in north Calcutta and Howrah. And it was from these neighbourhoods that the individual groups got their name — Jeleparar Sawng, Ahiritolar Sawng, Shibpurer Sawng, Khuruter Sawng, Kasundiar Sawng, Shyambazarer Sawng, Sonagachhir Sawng. There were groups that took their name from their professions — Kanshariparar Sawng, Chashar Sawng. The kansharis are braziers, professionals who make metal utensils. Chasha is Bengali for farmer.
Just ahead of Poila Baisakh, in the Bengali month of Chaitra, comes charak or charak puja. It is the culmination of gajan, a pre harvest festival. In the mid-19th century, it was celebrated in rural Bengal and Calcutta alike. The municipal gazettes of the time report processions of sadhus and sawngs.
Bandyopadhyay draws attention to the different usages of the word sawng and also its generic meaning — to perform a spectacle. He points out that while the
figure of the sawng is derived from Bengal’s own folk culture, “this sawng, who is the so-called predecessor of the troll, is not the sawng of gajan”.
Unlike the sawng of gajan, the urban sawng did not dress up like a Hindu god or goddess. A lot of the time, they were just singing out loud criticism of institutional gaffes. When the corporation tried to bring in regulation to end the practice of goat slaughter within the city limits in 1880, the sawngs descended on the homes of the municipal commissioners.
News reports from the 1870s make references to the sawngs critiquing Mr Stephen’s Act which is also known as the Native Marriage Act of 1872. The Act was primarily used for marriages between persons of different religions
or for those who are irreligious or have renounced their religion.
According to one report in The Hindoo Patriot, social customs such as the Kulin marriage was lampooned by the sawngs. There was a performance with a bridegroom in “pantaloon and chapkan and the bride in the costume of a Hindustani nautch girl and in top boots holding a book in her hands”. The officiating priest called himself “Juggut Guru” and the couple declared they were neither Hindu nor Muslim, nor Christian, Jain or Buddhist.
There are other occasions when the sawngs acted out, like that time in 1917 when a set of question papers were reported stolen from Calcutta University. And when historian Katherine Mayo’s book Mother India was published in 1927 with her outsider’s scathing take on Indian society.
Not in virtual spaces, the sawngs whipped the air of Calcutta till it buzzed with excitement. Most of the time they walked through the neighbourhoods, but sometimes they rode bullock carts. Even the British were wary of them.
Says Bandyopadhyay, “Their patrons were the clubs as they used to be, a mix of people from across ideologies. And mostly, you could get them on hire.” The songs, depending on the issue at hand, were often written by luminaries. The playwright Amritalal Basu had penned many such compositions, so had Girish Ghosh.
“The songs themselves did not have much variety in terms of tune, but they were catchy,” says Bandyopadhyay. “Some business-savvy people compiled them and sold them as booklets.”
Bandyopadhyay ends with an anecdote about Asutosh Mookerjee. When it came to be known that he had decided to marry off his daughter, a young woman who had been widowed, the sawngs arrived at his doorstep.
Widow remarriage was legal then but the taboo was yet to wear off. The posse of sawngs was led by Mookerjee’s favourite student. When he heard the ruckus, Sir Asutosh went down to meet them. With tears in his eyes he told his student, “Baba, you will understand my decision when you become a father.”
The sawng songs refuse to be translated into English, but then what is a story about songs of change without an example. Sample this by the Shibpur Sawngs from the 1880s, “Charidike dekhi shudhu eki,/Khnati nei shob dekhi meki... I look around and what do I spy/None true, all fake, my oh my.”
There’s that thing they say — the more things change, the more they remain the same.