“Ethiopians Speaking Urdu” : Marfa, the Afro-Arabic Music of Hyderabad, India
Friday, June 13, 2025
16:15 - 18:00 GMT
Location: MFB-Nouvelle Salle
Presenter(s)
IC
Ipshita Chanda
The English and Foreign Languages University, India
Paper Abstract: This paper traces the formation of marfa music and dance used to celebrate everything from weddings to the Indian independence day, in contemporary Hyderabad , the capital of the state of Telengana in southern India. Marfa music and dance resulting from the dialogue between the African and Yemeni musical cultures , came to birth among the ranks of the army of the Nizam, the erstwhile ruler of Hyderabad. It was performed and introduced in the 19th century by the African cavalry guards, hired from east Africa and prized by the Nizam for their valour and loyalty. The paper contextualises their role and place in Hyderabadi society as asymmetrical to the Habshi community of slave soldiers of African descent who were integral to the political and cultural world of the medieval Deccan. These performances bring together the instruments, beats and rhythms derived from Africa with traditionally established Arabic repertoires, now arranged to accompany popular songs in Hindi and Telugu . They form a part of popular local life, reconfiguring the social and religious stratification common in the plural society of the subcontinent. This paper takes a comparative pluralist relational approach, differentiating between Hyderabadi marfa and the ngoma based music and dhamaal dance of the Siddis of African descent in rural Gujarat in western India . Situating the contemporary performers in the intersection of race, class and religion, we explore the nature of “popularity” and the dynamics of the survival of marfa as characteristic of the life “cosmopolitan” urban Hyderabad.
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