https://indiafolkheritageofbengal.weebly.com/cultural-misappropriation.html
Cultural Mis-Appropriation = Indigenous Genocide
Baul is not random Umbrella name for just anybody, that is like saying Acharya is a random name for anybody who has no where to go, for anybody who does not have a designation.
Baul has been used as an umbrella name for Fakir, Sai, Shah, Dervish, Aul, Kartabija, you name if is someone does not know, they label themselves as Baul.
No, BAUL is NOT an umbrella name for the above, NO you are wrong.
Baul is distinct and different, today Baul is extinct and many scholars believe just because someone tells them something or sings a Baba Pagla song, it is Baul, Baba Pagla was not a Baul he was a poet, he loved Baul and this family, he followed this family and because they were well connected he was near them. They did not follow Baba Pagla? Bauls sing some of his songs because Babu Kishan composed music for them?
Do you know which ones he composed music for, ah ha right, I bet you did not even know that? Did you know that Baba Pagla was a regular guest staying at this lineages homes in Birbhum (Lakshman Das Baul) and Purna Das Baul's home in Calcutta? Did you know he used to baby sit and watch Purna Das Baul's children?
Anything related to Baul comes from this family, there is no other lineage, that is a bold faced lie. Qualify it, you can't because you do not know enough. Talk to Babu Kishan he is the only person that preserved Baul, and if anybody is collecting funds to preserve Baul, they are cheating, they do not know anything except what they have read and repeated from Babukishan.com or from this blog. I can prove everything because I have documented everything ever written about Baul, omg all the users fakers and cultural appropriators is beyond your imagination.
Do not follow anybody that says they are a Baul, they are NOT, do not follow us. Do not donate to people who want to preserve Baul, it has been preserved already decades ago by Babu Kishan.
Baul are not cross dressers either, how dare you write that? Maybe people you think are Baul are cross dressers but not Baul. Maybe your ancestors were cross dressers or trans and I suggest you go and write about your own ancestors, what a mess you are making of something that does not belong to you? This will be qualified by Babu Kishan.
Today 'Baul singers' sing everything even Bollywood songs, the difference is they haven't got a clue what they are singing and neither do you?
Today's 'fake Bauls' steal Baul songs from this lineage, take the names off and then have the gaul to say, Bauls do not care who wrote the poetry??
I say very loudly, hey, Bauls absolutely care, but when your Guru is not a Baul Guru, and you already know that but you have created a job for yourself posing as a Baul they of course you would say that Bauls do not care who wrote the poetry especially when you are singing the songs from this lineage?
When in fact a true authentic Baul knows who wrote what poetry. Seriously fake Bauls make it up as they go, to what ever will make them a famous Baba or Ma. Seriously messed up and then this same person has the gaul to say they composed something, double talk, be careful what you steal? Watering down and destroying Baul.
One scholar writes that Kartabija is a sect of Baul, 100% WRONG, Baul is not! Neither is Aul, Aul and Kartabija they are different sects. Where on earth do you get this from? They are not connected to Baul, they are not sub sects of Baul, they are completely different?
Then these things are copied as truth by other scholars, Babu Kishan knew most if not all of the earlier scholars and what they have written is wrong, and it is copied and pasted over and over as truth. This is how Baul and other south Asian Indian subjects become deluded and watered down. What gives you the right to write about any 'indigenous peoples' when nothing is true that you write but they make a career off of indigenous peoples, twisting and then getting paid for it? This is happening to all indigenous peoples and their need to be some accounting of this.
You may ask how? By the deconstruction of Baul cultural teachings, the deconstruction of the history and her-story of the indigenous Bauls. By using and abusing, watering down and twisting what doe not belong to you, by people who want to be Purna Das Baul following everything Babu Kishan has ever done, where he goes, even his work in Bollywood, seriously?
No one in this world would know anything about Baul if not for this one and only lineage. They are the pioneers of Baul. They brought Baul from the villages of Birbhum to India and then to the world. No one travelled around the world except this family, no one, they brought some randoms along, those randoms thought they were smart, and went on their own the next time even though they were not Baul, but hey no one was watching? Now someone is watching and documenting all the fake and false teachings watering down and reductionism that is happening, the social media fake famous is alive and well in Baul.
Deconstruction by making stories up, by making lineages up, by taking the name off of history and adding your own?
'Deconstruction of faking it til you make'. Deconstruction by using what does not belong to you?
You can not make this up, the demise of the authentic Lineage of Bauls ! The Essence the living lineage, is not in who can get the most likes on facebook.
Nor is it in being a facebook Marketing Master?
Baul is in the 'Essence of a living lineage' (from a line that is as old as when Krishna walked the earth some 5,000 years ago).
The essence is not in Baul actors, tourist attraction jokers (the fake it til you make it ones), the exotic dress and hair, do not make a Baul! The one who says, Baul is not from Family, is 1000% wrong and trying to usurp Baul to fit their lack of respect and lack of Baul Wisdom.
Baul is not about a fake crying devotion, or a twirling jata performance. Baul is a lived tradition, from an authentic lineage, not a fake made up lineage?? A lineage that has in it a shakti so strong, a mystical lineage, not an acting lineage of one generation that never existed until Babu started talking about his lineage?
Commandeering, expropriation, seizure, takeover, usurpation, annexation, attachment, confiscation, grab, reductionism, watering down, reducing, riding on the coat tails, of the ones who created a road. This one and only pioneering lineage who did all the leg work, who wrote the books from inside the tradition way before any of todays modern drama actors were even born!! Who wrote the poetry, who started to travel all of India for decades. Baul is only from Birbhum, when Babu Kishan went to Bangladesh in the 1970's there were no Bauls in Bangladesh.Intellectual Property Theft (Songs from this Lineage, used without giving credit, songs cut down and the singing style changed, singing and dancing Ektara, Baya, and Nupoor - Nabani Das Khyapa Baul style without any understanding that they are copying his style. Nabani created and danced a certain way, all Bauls follow Nabani Das Khyapa Baul and make like it has come from another made up lineage. This is hurtful and it is cultural appropriation. Baul is extinct and this has to stop, please be respectful.
Adopting a elements of a minority culture for fame, gain, using trickery, creating harmful stereotypes that dilute the truth of who the Bauls are, this destroys the Essence of Baul. Cultural Appropriation by fetishizing Baul Culture, making it about a bunch of fools singing and acting foolishly, making Baul an over sexualized community, a bunch of fake tantric teachers, this has reduced and watered down the true meaning of Baul.
By others attaching themselves to Baul such and the so called Bauls of Bangladesh, there is a long story how this happened, they do not exist, but yet all the fake bauls perpetuate this because they do not have any other stories. They do not know.
The dilution and erasure of these indigenous practices, all because of poverty and a need to ride on the coat tail of this lineage, while diluting the songs and the spiritual practices of the Bauls of Bengal.
The diluting of a small group of people from Birbhum, the appropriation by from Bangladesh and outsiders who erase names and stories, claiming them as their own, repeating wrong things scholars have written about Baul and singing folk songs calling them Baul songs.
