DHAMAL (Siddi Dhamal) Dance | Muslims | Gujarat | India

When Africa bloomed in the imagination of the Indians, a distant colonised mind, always brought differences about the huge continent. Be it language, or the colour of the skin, the genocide stories of the dense forest cover lured with the popular Lion King visuals. Only with the poem of Rabindranath Tagore, taught the Indians that even the fierce struggle can be a bond of love between the two Continents. Later, Kaahon learnt that even a dance form from the distant continent, have been nurtured and has a contribution to form the multifarious cultural tradition of India. The dance form is called Dhamal (Siddi Dhamal), of Gujarat, performed by the Siddis, who are originally from the African continent. No written records are available about them, but it is believed the Siddis of Africa travelled to India more than three hundred years ago and settled in Ratanpur near Bharuch, in Jambur near Junagadh, and in Ahmedabad. Most of the population of Siddis are Muslims by religion.
About 700 years old, Dhamal dance is today performed with many modifications although the flavour of African dance has been kept intact. The story goes that Hazrat Baba Gaur, along with his Siddi clan, migrated to the village of Ratanpur in Gujarat, from his home in East Africa. Travelling in search of business, the Siddis never went back to their home and Baba Hazrat who breathed his last in Ratanpur slowly gained the status of a Pir. On 28th October each year, this dance is performed as a gesture to pay homage to Hazrat Baba Gaur. As, this dance is a tribal dance, that too from a tribe who lived on the dense forests of East Africa, the dance steps, and the rhythmic tunes of Dhol to which this dance is performed, clearly still indicates the impressions of the celebrative mood emerged after a good hunt. The peacock costumes in the waist and head, and the community participation brings out this primitive ethos, though in India, this dance is performed to pay homage to a migrant community from East Africa in India and settling and creating a small individual kingdom.
This dance, through the history of a Sufi saint or Pir, and the history of assimilation and acceptance of a distant tribal community from another continent while setting up an individual ethnic kingdom can erase the far-off distance of an ocean, deserts, dense forests and can invoke new angles of soft power bilateral relations between India and Africa.

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