Political song and dance

October 20, 2013, 9:33 pm IST in Addictions | India | TOI

Graffiti, slogans, jingles, and now, also the chatter and twitter of social media, there are many ways of locating a nation’s mood, getting a sense of its political pulse. But the Bombay film song has perhaps been the most enduring stethoscope of India’s heartbeat; it travels deeper than most places we go to and impacts us in more ways than we know. For every occasion in the life of a people and the nation, the film song has been eloquent — often standing in as a voice for the less articulate.

In post-independent India, political songs in Hindi cinema looked at the nation in two divergent ways. Some engaged with nation-building, subconsciously making the masses internalise the idea of India as envisioned by its leaders — democratic, industrialised and secular — without appearing to be overtly political. Songs such as ‘Saathi haath badhana’ (lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi, Naya Daur, 1957), ‘Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega’ (Sahir, Dhool Ka Phool, 1959), ‘Chhodo kal ki batein’ (Prem Dhavan, Hum Hindustani, 1960) illustrated how the state and popular film tracks were in sync with each other. These and other overtly patriotic songs such as ‘Aao bachchon tumhe dikhayen’ (Pradeep, Jagriti), formed the dominant narrative.

The second category underlined the feeling of being let down by the state with songs such as, ‘Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hai’ (Sahir, Pyasa, 1957) and ‘Chin-o-Arab hamara, Hindustan hamara/Rahne ko ghar nahi hai, sara jahaan hamara’ — ‘China and the Arab is ours, India is ours/there’s no home to stay, so the world is ours’ (Sahir, Phir Subah Hogi, 1958). They were part of a secondary and subsidiary narrative — a critique of the state.

On the surface, it appears that fecund days are back for the political song in Bollywood. In times when people’s protest movements have found their feet and when scams such as 2G, CWG, Adarsh and Coalgate have rocked the nation, movies such as Shanghai, Gali Gali Chor Hai, Peepli Live, Gulaal, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Aarakshan, Chakravyuh and, more recently, Satyagraha, offer songs that critique as well as lampoon corruption, scam, inflation, reservation, the US invasion of Iraq and other issues that engage the politically alive. Unlike the past, few, if any, of these songs are a paean to the shining side of India; rather there is a running streak of disillusionment with the India project, especially its political leaders.

The contemporary folk of Peepli Live (2010), ‘Hai sakhi saiyaan toh khoob hi kamaat hai mehangai dayan, khaye jaat hai’ (O friend, my husband earns a lot but the inflation witch gobbles up everything) is marked by its absence of anger. Despite being mowed down by poverty, the singer mocks at the world with the wisdom of someone who knows the importance of humour in surviving hard times.

Another song from Welcome To Sajjanpur could be great campaign material for Arvind Kejriwal’s agit-prop, anti-corruption campaigns: ‘Arre jiski laathi uski bhains aap ne bana diya/note ki khan khan sunake vote ko goonga kiya/party fund yagya kund, ghotala mantra hai/ab to prajatantra hai’ — ‘Might is right, this is what you have done/with money, you have bought the voters’ silence/the party fund is a sort of offering, scam is the mantra/now you have demo-cracy’ (lyrics: Ashok Mishra). Similarly, in Satyagraha, the song ‘Janta Rocks’ uses cricket, Swiss banks, red beacon cars, black money stuffed in pillows to talk about corruption and urges for power to the people.

Several songs in Anurag Kashyap’s dark and political, Gulaal, blend folk, satire and politics. The lyricist uses political metaphors to describe love and anger in a lover’s eyes. In one stanza, it compares love with the way the US blatantly ensconced itself in Iraq (‘Jaise sare aam Irak mein jaake jam gaye Uncle Sam’).

In another number, songwriter Piyush Mishra parodies the famous patriotic track, ‘Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhna hai zor kitna bazooe qatil mein hai’ (The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts/We shall now see how much strength the enemy has.) He writes, ‘Aaj ka launda yeh kehta, hum to Bismil thak gaye/Apni aazaadi to bhaiya laundiya ke til mein hai’ (Today’s youth says Bismil we are tired/our independence lies in the mole of a babe).

Barring songs from Peepli Live and Gulaal, however, most of these songs failed to make any popular impact. In the past, protest tracks became chartbusters; ‘Baki kuch bacha to mehngai maar gayee’ (Roti, Kapda aur Makaan, 1974) topped the Binaca Geet Mala’s annual countdown charts. But the new political tracks have failed to move the masses. Is it because we live in more transient times where nothing endures? Or is it because politics, even in popular culture, is anathema to many of us? Simply put, the political film song is back but is anyone listening?

Ironically, a song always gets politically discussed when it touches upon caste identity. That’s what happened with ‘Til til tala mera teli ka tel’ in Kaminey (2009) and with ‘Mohalle mein kaisi maara-mar hai; bole mochi bhi khud ko sunar hai’ (There is chaos in the colony, even the cobbler calls himself a goldsmith, film: Aaja Nachle, 2007). If nothing that’s an indicator that the times are no longer a-changing; they have changed.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
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