Chamkila, then Moosewala: Is the boldness of Punjabi singers intimidating the world?

Wed Apr 17 09:41:20 IST 2024

Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? It’s a debate as old and famous as the chicken and egg lore.

While you’ll find an equal number of people on both sides of the coin, I believe art and real life are in a symbiotic relationship — both feed off each other and none has the upper hand. Art draws inspiration from real life just as we draw inspiration from movies, songs or paintings in our own lives.

Hence, when artists are blamed for ‘misleading’ people or impacting them in a negative way with their art, it begs the same question again — are artists impacting people’s lives or is their art a representation of what’s happening in the world around them?

It’s the question that killed two talented Punjabi singers at the peak of their careers in their twenties — Amar Singh Chamkila and Sidhu Moosewala. While both come from completely different eras and represent different versions of Punjab, both were killed for their art.

As I watched Imtiaz Ali’s Chamkila, starring Diljit Dosanjh as the titular character and Parineeti Chopra as his wife Amarjyot Kaur, I couldn’t help but feel the similarities between their trajectory as artists and Sidhu Moosewala’s tragic story.

Amar Singh Chamkila rose to fame with his ‘ashleel’ (vulgar) songs that spoke about taboo relationships like extramarital affairs between jija-saali (brother-in-law and sister-in-law) or sahura-noonh

(father-in-law and daughter-in-law). These were serious transgressions in a patriarchal and feudal Punjabi society, but undoubtedly real. These were stories Chamkila saw around himself, which ultimately seeped into his songs.

And, boy, did people love his music.

As salacious as the lyrics were, people lapped it up. Remember, this was an era of no social media and internet so people paid to buy his cassettes and listen to them in private. Some even paid double or triple the price — such was his popularity. There were many who publicly supported his music, visiting akharas

to hear him sing live with his wife Amarjyot. Then there were those who heard his songs in secret, appeasing their base instincts in private while chastising Chamkila in public.

Amar Singh Chamkila’s boldness provoked the moral police of Punjab. Even though his music was rooted in social reality, people felt he was misleading the youth with his vulgarity instead of the other way around.

We all know how dissent works. The more you dissent, the more you polarise people. It was this polarisation that brought unidentified gunmen to his last performance where he was shot in broad daylight.

Sidhu Moosewala too faced a similar death — shot in broad daylight for his music and voice of dissent.

He was often accused of glorifying violence, drug use and gun culture through his songs. However, unlike Chamkila whose songs made the elites scrunch their noses, Moosewala’s songs were on international music charts, breaking records.

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Moosewala came from a generation that was struggling to find respectable jobs despite having degrees from shiny private universities. Many upper-caste families that relied on the agricultural sector for their livelihood felt failed by the government. Their kids went on to be failed by the education system. As a result, they sought employment in countries like Canada and the USA.

For an upper caste Punjabi to work menial jobs like a truck driver, grocery store staff or farmer in Punjab would be social suicide. But in the caste-free world of New York or Toronto, it wasn’t such a big deal as long as they earned a decent income to sustain themselves and their families back home.

However, for the unlucky lot who couldn’t afford greener pastures abroad, anger and frustration were a constant companion. This manifested itself through Punjab’s infamous drug and gun problem — a dangerous and temporary solution that the youth sought, solely to vent their agony.

Sidhu Moosewala used this pent-up anger to fuel his songs which offered a sort of catharsis to those in India trying to make sense of their lives, and those abroad who missed home and were frustrated about the home they had to give up to set shop in a new country.

While both singers presented different shades of dissent, both were silenced — quickly and mysteriously.

Other Punjabi singers like Parmish Varma, Gippy Grewal, and most recently, Shubh have been threatened with similar consequences if their music continues to spread ‘the wrong message’. People are getting offended enough to take the law into their own hands and getting triggered into pulling the trigger.

The threat of censorship looms large over Punjabi singers as their music continues to intimidate and polarise the world. But that hasn’t stopped them from singing their hearts out loud.

And it seems like they’ll continue to do so till the bullets stop their words from reaching their lips.

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