Indian Music in the Indian School in South Africa: The Use of Cultural Forms as a Political Tool

Abstract

music is primarily a means of release of psychological tension (1964:47). Within the context of South African society, these suggestions hold true in part, but are inadequate in other ways. In this paper, I address these inadequacies by wrestling with an apparent dichotomy: Indian music thrives through its viability for the Indian community; yet Indian music, as presently imposed by the South African state in Indian public school education, functions as a powerful political tool to Indianize the image of these institutions, thereby legitimizing larger apartheid structures.1 My preliminary findings resulted from my informal investigation, while I worked as a music teacher in the Indian South African public school system for three and a half years. My subsequent research, spanning eight months in 1986, took the form of informal interviews with Indian students, parents, and teachers.2 None of the interviews were tape recorded or written down in the presence of the respondents lest I be falsely deemed an informant of the South African government. As an insider among the group, I sensed that none of the people I spoke to would have shared their real views had I documented anything in their presence. Instead, when alone at the end of each interview, I quickly jotted down everything I could recall. Whether this methodology was successful, given the trying political circumstances at the time of research, is a question I raise at the end of the paper. Even more important than methodological success however, are the potent ethical issues which confronted me during the research process, including subsequent disclosures of my findings. Was it proper to conduct the research in