London: In a plan to make students learn about music from diverse cultures, UK’s Education Department has included Indian classical music, Bollywood hits and Bhangra beats in school syllabus.
This was announced in the new music curriculum guidance for schools issued by the department on Friday. “It is important to recognise that modern British identity is rich and diverse,” the guidance was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Kishori Amonkar’s ‘Saheli Re’, Anoushka Shankar’s ‘Indian Summer’, AR Rahman’s ‘Jai Ho’ and the hit Bollywood track ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’ are among the musical references included in the guidance.
“Kishori Amonkar was one of the leading vocalists of Indian classical music in the 20th century,” the guidance said.
On ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’, it elaborated, “Item numbers feature without pertaining to the plot, While the protagonist, Chulbul, enters this song, the main performer, Malaika Arora, only appears in this number.”
