Tanvi Jadwani

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will look into the performances of women during the Mahila Kabir Yatra. The research will involve a feminist point of view to understand the performer's journey on stage and trace how the stage transforms an artist while looking at the sacrifices that a female artist has to undertake. It will also look at how the Kabir Vaani is transformed as more women sing it, the role of organisations that program such Yatras, and if these performative spaces are also acting as safe spaces for women. Tanvi Jadwani will be the Coordinator for this project.

Tanvi Jadwani is a researcher, writer, and filmmaker who works at the intersection of media and community. Apart from scriptwriting, developing ideas for the screen, and directing films aimed at fostering community engagement, she has designed programs for the City Palace Museum, Udaipur, and Museum of Goa to engage students in art, history, and culture. In order to make art education accessible for government schools, Tanvi started a not-for-profit Children’s Art Association, which was incubated at IIM Bangalore. Given her efforts, understanding, and experience, she is best suited to be the Coordinator for this Foundation Project of IFA. The performers from the first Mahila Kabir Yatra, Eklavya Foundation, Bhopal, and independent researcher and musician Anubhuti Sharma will join her as collaborators.

Kabir is special for many reasons: his wish to be not identified as Hindu or Muslim, his anti-authoritarian yet critical voice of reason, and his unique following that extends beyond religious, social, and cultural boundaries. Yet the public performance and engagement of Kabir has remained largely with men. Women still find it difficult to choose spiritual inquiry as a way of life because of how closely their personal time is bound to the material world. In March 2023, the first-ever Mahila Kabir Yatra was organised in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, where a new group of female performers joined the body of poets that is Kabir. 

By closely engaging with these female performers, this research project, titled Women Singing Emptiness, hopes to bring to light the contradiction between the art and the artist. The life lived outside of performance, in the backdrop of violent and non-violent renegotiation to get women up on a stage and the verses being sung vis-à-vis the life being lived at the intersection of caste, class, and gender. Through a series of audio-visual documentation, case studies, and interviews of female Kabir performers in the Malwa region, Tanvi hopes to document the transformation and subversion of engagement with Kabir at multiple levels: gender participation, transformation of language, and reflection of constitutional values. 

The outcome of this project will be a short documentary film of about 20-25 minutes. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final reports, will be the documentary film and audiovisual documentation from the field, including stories and songs of resistance.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Research program in how it makes a critical inquiry about the songs of Kabir to document the experience of gender through performance, thereby highlighting the ongoing transformation of an art practice that has largely remained male-led.

 IFA will ensure that the project is implemented on time and that the funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is complete and deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with the Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India.