ABOUT

Dr Dipanjali Deka is a musician, scholar, and Assistant Professor in Global Arts at Krea University. She is a multilingual practitioner and researcher of Bhakti and Sufi musical traditions, and an All India Radio (AIR, Guwahati) artiste in Assamese Borgeet and Adhunik Geet. She continues her years of musical education in Hindustani Classical Music in the Rampur gharana tradition. Dipanjali’s work brings together performance, ethnography, and critical inquiry to explore how music and embodied artistic practices shape social, ethical, political, and philosophical life.

Dipanjali received her PhD from the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prior to joining Global Arts, she was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy at Krea University and worked at the Archive and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, American Institute of Indian Studies.

Her research examines the living traditions of Bhakti and Sufi devotional expression in South Asia through the interdisciplinary lenses of performance studies, ethnomusicology, oral traditions, critical ethnography, and Indian aesthetic thought. She is particularly interested in the interplay of text, voice, body, and sound as carriers of cultural memory, social meaning, and political ideology. Focusing on musical practices of devotion across Assam, North and Central India, and Kashmir, her work investigates how these traditions negotiate binaries such as saguna and nirguna, Hindu and Muslim, Sanskritic and vernacular, individual and collective, and spiritual and political.

Dipanjali continues to weave together her performance with academic and research work seamlessly in global and national platforms. She has performed at the Malwa Mahila Kabir Yatra, India Islamic Centre, Bangalore International Centre, Institute for Social Democracy, and has co-facilitated the retreat I Am in All, All Are in Me: Exploring Self, Other and the World through Buddhism, Bhakti Music and Art at the Deer Park Institute, Bir, Himachal.

She has presented her work at the World Conference of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) in Stockholm University, and in OP Jindal University, Hyderabad University etc.

She is deeply invested in the potential of indigenous wisdom traditions to create spaces for ethical, philosophical, and creative inquiry in contemporary times.

RESEARCH

Dr Deka’s doctoral research explores the philosophical, sociological, and musical dimensions of nirguna bhakti through the oral song and poetic traditions of Lal Ded, Kabir, and Azan Fakir. Her MPhil research focused on the musical and aesthetic dimensions of Vaishnavite Bhakti performance traditions in Assam.

Her broader research and methodological interests include South Asian devotional performance traditions; devotional poetry and vernacular literature; music and religion; music and politics; orality; gender; syncretism; ethnography and ethnomusicology; performance studies; voice studies and cultural studies. She is currently focussed on the archiving of endangered musical and performance traditions, as well as the study of voice in relation to gender, music practice, and pedagogy.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Book Chapters

• “Singing Nirgun Fearlessly: A Journey from Baahar (Outer) to Bheetar (Inner),” in Indian Knowledge System: A Creative Dialogue on Indian Intellectual Traditions, edited by Manindra Nath Thakur and Shailja Tandon (Routledge, 2026).
• “Wonder and Madness: The Ingredients in Seema Kohli’s Process of Creation,” in Restless Line in the Art of Seema Kohli, edited by Annapurna Garimella and Sindhura D.M. (Seema Kohli Foundation, 2024).
• “Dasya Bhava and Vatsalya Bhava in the Bhakti of Borgeet, a Vaishnavite Music Form of Assam,” in Shabd Aur Sangeet: Unravelling Song Text in India, edited by Shubha Mudgal, Aneesh Pradhan, and Kunal Ray (Three Essays Collective, 2019).

Journal Articles

• “Flow in the Living Tradition of Kabir in Malwa,” Hakara, August 2025.
• “Reading Resemblances and Fluidity Between the Zikir Songs of Azan Fakir and Other Song Genres in Assam,” Shodhkosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts, 2022.
• “Politics and Poetics of Syncretism: The Case Studies of the Bonbibi Cult, Mappila Teyyams and Three Poems of Bhakti Tradition from the Indian Subcontinent,” Global Performance Studies and Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 2021.
• “‘Folk’ Fusions and Its De-contextualizations: A Case Study of Papon’s Tokari Naam in Coke Studio,” Eastern Quarterly Journal, 2016.

Reviews and Essays

• “Kabir as a Phenomenon,” review of Vipul Rikhi’s Drunk on Love: The Life, Vision and Songs of Kabir, The Book Review, 2024.
• “Writing, Music and the Art of Close Reading,” Origin Stories, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University and Ashoka University, 2025.
• “Remembering Peers and Fakirs: The Torchbearers of Sufism in Assam,” Uttaran, 2021.
• “Sursamalaya’s Documentary Series ‘Folk Stories’: Assam Beyond Bihu, Borgeet and Sattriya,” Kafila, 2020.
• “Death in the Time of Corona,” Abhyas/Praxis Newsletter, 2020.
• “Your Ram Resides Within You, Why Wander Outside?” Café Dissensus, 2020.

Other Engagements

• Invited author-speaker at the Jaipur Literature Festival for the launch of Restless Line in the Art of Seema Kohli.

TEACHING

At Krea, Dipanjali teaches across music, performance, writing, and the arts. She has previously taught core and skills courses such as Writing and Oral Communication and Literature and the Arts, and currently teaches courses such as Creative Expressions, Exploring Arts, Understanding Cultures, and Music Practicum.

She also teaches the elective Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Social Dimensions of the Bhakti Movement: An Introduction, which engages students through poetry, song, performance, film, and reflective practice to explore Bhakti’s philosophical and social resonances. The course invites students to “listen” to Bhakti through reading, singing, and embodied participation, approaching it as a living aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical tradition.

Beyond the university, she serves as Music Mentor for the Dhai Akhar Kishori Initiative of Jan Sahas Social Development Society, where she conducts workshops on music, nirguni tatwa, and constitutional values.