Why performing arts are vanishing from Anupriya’s homehttps://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/why-performing-arts-are-vanishing-from-anupriyas-home/

Why performing arts are vanishing from Anupriya’s home

Congress member Shashi Tharoor flagged the issue of a fast extinction of tribal languages.

Minister of State for Culture Sripad Yesso Naik cited lack of remuneration and a shift to popular means of entertainment as the reasons for the decline of performing artforms and traditional dances in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The minister informed Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal in the Lok Sabha that some performing artforms from eastern UP are on the decline in the age of globalisation due to changing lifestyles and livelihood and shift of popular means of entertainment. He said tribal dances of Mirzapur and eastern UP are getting rare. “They are not very remunerative and the practitioners are gradually decreasing.”

Anupriya, raising supplementaries during question hour, expressed her concern about the fate of “Kajari,” a form of singing that is linked to the rainy season, which had originated from the Vindhyavasini temple of Mirzapur, her home district.

Congress member Shashi Tharoor flagged the issue of a fast extinction of tribal languages. He cited the case of the language spoken by the Cholanaikkan tribe of Kerala, which was faced with the danger of extinction. He sought to know if any measures were possible for the preservation of audiovisual records of such languages.


Naik was, however, unable to field supplementaries from Anupriya, Tharoor, Veerendra Kumar (BJP) and Ramchandra Hansdah (BJD). In most cases, he either promised to send details to members or asked them to give their proposals if they had any suggestions for action. Each time he came up with this response, there was a flutter in the House. “I am not satisfied,” Anupriya shouted at one point, saying he had not replied to her question about the tussle for the control of Vindhyavasini temple.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan observed it seemed members wanted to ask “a lot of questions”. “It is very good because our values get reinforced through culture,” she added. She quickly suggested to Naik that he invite members belonging to each state, listen to their issues and ensure that various schemes run by the ministry were are implemented effectively.