Every year, musicians from Dalit communities in western Odisha gather at a square in Raipur, and wait to be hired by OBC dance groups from Chhattisgarh

The Adivasis of the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha won a victory in 2013 against mining, but the threats to their ancestral land remain. Rajkishor Sunani, poet-activist, sang about this at the recent Niyamgiri festival

Battling barbs from villagers, abusive husbands, and centuries-old caste prejudices, ten Dalit women in Dhibra village of Bihar have formed a band – and now have many marching and swaying to their beat

The Baul culture of music is distinctive, with a syncretic philosophy of life. In the film featured here, Basudeb Das Baul, a practitioner and teacher from Bolpur in Birbhum district, speaks of this way of life and art form

Choliya troupes in Uttarakhand integrate Scottish bagpipes into rural Indian music

Srilal Sahani is a fish-seller by day and an extraordinary musician by evening – he rides hands-off on a bicycle while playing a dhol and cymbals behind him – in Santiniketan, West Bengal

Two young girls at Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam play the mridangam

Barsha Garai of Shyambati village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district is the only girl of her age training with veteran Baul musician Basudeb Das, and singing philosophical Baul songs since she was four years old

This traditional drum is central to the culture of Manipur's Meitei community, and to music and dance