American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellow and graduate student at the University of Chicago Rehanna Kheshgi has been studying Bihu music – a formerly stigmatized rural music genre, now becoming popular via mass media. This spring Ms. Kheshgi was invited to perform with a musician who is the son of Khagen Mahanta, the "King of Bihu," on his April/May 2015 tour of Assam, India. She learned a great deal about language politics and about the stakes of performing traditional music in new styles. Ms. Kheshgi also served as a guest judge on a Bihu reality television show and was interviewed by a local Assamese newspaper about her research.
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