This doctoral thesis undertakes a comprehensive examination of Hindustani Classical Music as a living cultural institution, tracing its historical roots from the ancient Vedic period through the Mughal synthesis to its contemporary practice in urban India and the global diaspora. Employing a multidisciplinary methodology that draws on ethnomusicology, cultural sociology, postcolonial theory, and oral history, this research interrogates the ways in which Hindustani Classical Music has functioned not merely as an aesthetic system but as a vehicle of social identity, caste negotiation, spiritual practice, and national belonging.

The thesis is structured around five thematic pillars. The first examines the historical formation of the gharana system and its role in transmitting both musical knowledge and social hierarchies across generations. The second analyses the colonial encounter and the complex processes by which Hindustani music was both threatened and paradoxically revitalised through nationalist discourse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.