PESHAWAR: Culture activists, artists and musicians have called for steps to enlist rabab in Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list.

They held a ceremony in a local music academy here on Tuesday to mark the world day of classical music. First started in France in 1981, the day is celebrated worldwide on June 21 every year with an objective to keep alive the traditional music and to make it more inclusive and praiseworthy.

The participants of the ceremony called for collective measures to include rabab, known as king of musical instruments, in the Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list.

“Rabab in accompaniment with mangai (pitcher) is still played in Pashtun hujras where folk singers sing songs, featuring centuries-old mass entertainment,” said Shazeb, a participant of the ceremony.

Folk artists including Afghan musicians attended the event. Shams Sanam, a young artist, performed a few old tunes on rabab and received applause from the audience. He later briefed the participants about Afghan version of rabab, saying he learnt classical tunes from a pupil of Ustad Mohammad Omar, who created over 100 symphonies on rabab.

Rashid Ahmad Khan, president of Hunari Tolana Welfare Society, said that most young folk singers kept themselves only to digital musical instruments and only a few tried to learn basics of classical music. He said that he learnt about six Raag from Ustad Nawab Ali Khan.

“Some time ago I wrote a research paper on the history of rabab and proved with evidence that rabab, a string instrument, has been an ethnic Pashtun origin which spread to Central Asia,” said Mr Khan.

Senior folk artist Ahmad Gul Ustad said that rabab fulfilled the criterion of eligibility to be enlisted on the inventory of Unseco intangible cultural heritage. He said that rabab survived in its original shape and got widespread popularity despite invention of a large number of digital and electronic musical instruments.

“Young artists should learn old melodies because they provide not only a firm basis for music but also help one do innovative experiments in playing and performing music. Digital music is short-lived while old tunes are everlasting,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2022