Muslims are a heterogenous community operated by several cultural and customary practises in which women play significant roles and earn their livelihood through the labour of their performances. My paper closely studies Imrana, a mirasan residing on the outskirts of Lucknow. Imrana is a matriarch who supports her entire family by performing on various events.
Mirasans, which originated from the tradition of mir (lineage)—a community of Muslim women who sing in different life cycle events and are currently residing in the regions of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan— struggled immensely after the 19th century reform and revivalist movement in Islam. Mirasans follow the lineage of Amir Khusrow, a renowned Indian Sufi poet of the 13th century. Before Independence, they sang for their patrons at mehfils (gatherings) and enjoyed social and economic status. However, their patronage suffered a huge decline post-independence, and they were relegated to the margins. Mirasans once glorified the mehfils through their singing. They specialised in singing the songs of joy and sorrow during weddings, childbirth, and yearly commemorations. The major socio-political and religious shift in 19th-century India adversely affected their practise.
My paper examines how marginalised Muslim women performers have been silenced in order to uphold the idea of piety by Islamic scholars, which has impacted their livelihood and source of survival. As in the case of Imrana, her Muslim identity persecutes her due to her profession. However, the same performances also, therefore, contain possibilities of resistance to imposed religious gendered norms, thereby creating sites of transgression in the act of performing itself for her and other Mirasans. The paper will finally shed light on the existing challenges faced by these women and the reason(s) behind their extinction.
