“Hate bundled with so-called faith has become at par with music, within the hindutva narrative of the day” states T.M. Krishna, one of India’s renowned south-indian classical singers. He adds “The masks are off, and what we are seeing should deeply worry us.” What is clearly disturbing and at times sick and perverse, is the rise of fanatical xenophobic pop music from India - especially the north and central part of the country. The soundtrack of hate, emitting from the 'cowbelt' of India, is worrying, is hideous, sometimes hilarious yet at the same time surging in numbers. The malicious rhymes, horrific imagery, false history and jarring audio is incoming like fundamentalist napalm! Millions are consuming, sharing and celebrating 'hindutva pop' believing that the content is patriotic. Less we forget the millions more who are cowering in mortal fear, subverted under this deafening and garish sound. Is hate a genre? Can pop music be mediated to celebrate racism and nationalism? Does xenophobia count on the charts? Yes it does by all means, and especially on YouTube. This feature is a brief narrative about the proliferation and popularity of Hindu nationalist music. How xenophobia, racism and hatred hosted on YouTube accrues lots of money, consequently fuels violence, radicalism, hatred towards minorities and 'cultural terror' within Indian society.
Make India Great Again!
Meet Laxmi Dubey, a cult figure of hindu nationalist pop. She cannot sing in key yet her islamophobic limericks have travelled far and wide in India. The NY Times reports "her extremist values show in her devotion, as she vowed to remain single for life". Her fan-base, the extreme hindu right counting in millions. Ms. Dubey, a gleeful provocateur, travels India with a 28-person crew and is in such demand, that rich hindu families invite her to bless newborn babies or for high profile weddings. She has been booked by various political leaders (mostly belonging to the BJP) as the closing act for many rallies and speeches in the hinterland of northern India. Miss Dubey also believes that muslim men will reconquer India, by marrying all the beautiful hindu women. Less we forget the hindu population accounts for 78% of the total 1.3 billion demographic of India. Call it the heart of darkness or a vast region where most women, girls, children and minorities live like 2nd class citizens, in perennial fear of persecution and or violation. Terrorised citizens of the 'largest democracy in the world'.
“I will come to Pakistan and make marbles out of your eyes!”. " I am waiting for my leader to command, I am ready to bomb every mosque in Pakistan" sings Sanjay Faizabadi, a popular Hindutva based singer, boasting a verse, about waging a campaign of sexual conquest in Pakistan. Dressed in military attire, and brandishing a plastic (made in China) weapon he rants "Kashmir is our life!". Yet it's not just a few singers and a moving bedlam. The singers, composers and key distributors are spread allover Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Haryana and Rajasthan. The internet and YouTube their principle outlet. "Every house will be saffron. Every child will salute lord Ram... " harks Rang Maurya, a self-styled religious warrior, who believes that India's golden era is making a comeback - as long as all muslim folks are driven off the land and all their architecture smashed to the ground. The regional stars of this patriotic and xenophobic sound have become YouTube cash cows, but that is just the gateway into the hate-mill, which is banging away tunes in the name god and nationalism. And while the wave is on the up, there's also a lot of patriotic money to be made - as singers, lyricists, bed-room producers, DJs, record labels and videographers. The sound systems are huge railing down highways of north and central India. The demagoguery goes way up, embraced by political leaders, cops and vernacular press, the cadence moving right up to the prime minister of the nation. It's legit business and the payrolls are swelling. In less than 5 years the staggering notoriety of this music, now places itself 2nd to Bollywood, leaving all the rock, hip-hop, electronica and even classical music far behind.
Soundtrack of Hate!
Hate-Tubes
Recently Youtube celebrated anti-discrimination day, an international pledge to end racism and xenophobia in the world. YouTube did so by purging dozens of white supremacy channels. Twitter and Facebook quickly followed suite to ban a few extremists propagating racism or racist content. Imagine shutting down Donald Trump's twitter page, which is all but made of thousands of racist and hateful tweets. In order to appease the European Parliament, Google owner of YouTube vowed to remove all pro-Nazi and white-pride based content. All these liberal and progressive gestures barely covers 15% of the world's population. A set of slapdash 'woke' moves. Outside that white circle of good ethics, it's business as usual. A recent study done by IISA states that over 92,000 hindutva songs are hosted on YouTube. Most of which contains islamophobic lyrics, racial slurs, open threats and even cases of misogynistic content. The hit-count adds up to roughly 300 million. Similar is the case with Facebook and Twitter, which hosts thousands of users practicing platformed racism and xenophobia, even posting misogynist and homophobic content on a daily basis. The multi-page guidelines, of conduct and fairness, vetted by top lawyers adds up to a charade.
YouTube says homophobic taunts don’t violate its policies. It says racist content does not conflict with it's 'child-safe' guidelines. It also claims to monitor all content under American and European guidelines which duly protects human rights for all races. Pitiful lies, since there is ample counter evidence. What is mediated by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp is a matter of personal bias or codes which mediate what shows and what doesn't. What's right or wrong. What gets monetised or what doesn't. The social media giants fail to control hate and discrimination inside many online communities across the world. What's worse is the negation of responsibility and repercussions. The tacit principle behind the business is that all content, however violent in nature, and in contempt of international laws, equates to revenues and consequently profit. Like Amazon has no problems selling teenage girl sex-dolls, YouTube has no issues monetising and propagating hate based music. Google's Hate Speech Policy is hilarious and hypocritical, which in reality does not control, less capture, the amount of hate-based content that exists inside it's global garrison. YouTube is the world's largest audio-visual repository of hate based content, videos which propagate xenophobia, nationalism and racism. Nationalist Indians contributing to that global pandemic in significant numbers. The likes of Laxmi Dubey and other hindutva pop-stars seem shocking yet transitional, as we barely begin to discover the expanse of hate based music. Is it music then? Not to hate it, but in awe and shock, we witness the proliferation and power of negative, self-destructive music.
Make India Great Again!
Meet Laxmi Dubey, a cult figure of hindu nationalist pop. She cannot sing in key yet her islamophobic limericks have travelled far and wide in India. The NY Times reports "her extremist values show in her devotion, as she vowed to remain single for life". Her fan-base, the extreme hindu right counting in millions. Ms. Dubey, a gleeful provocateur, travels India with a 28-person crew and is in such demand, that rich hindu families invite her to bless newborn babies or for high profile weddings. She has been booked by various political leaders (mostly belonging to the BJP) as the closing act for many rallies and speeches in the hinterland of northern India. Miss Dubey also believes that muslim men will reconquer India, by marrying all the beautiful hindu women. Less we forget the hindu population accounts for 78% of the total 1.3 billion demographic of India. Call it the heart of darkness or a vast region where most women, girls, children and minorities live like 2nd class citizens, in perennial fear of persecution and or violation. Terrorised citizens of the 'largest democracy in the world'.
“I will come to Pakistan and make marbles out of your eyes!”. " I am waiting for my leader to command, I am ready to bomb every mosque in Pakistan" sings Sanjay Faizabadi, a popular Hindutva based singer, boasting a verse, about waging a campaign of sexual conquest in Pakistan. Dressed in military attire, and brandishing a plastic (made in China) weapon he rants "Kashmir is our life!". Yet it's not just a few singers and a moving bedlam. The singers, composers and key distributors are spread allover Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Haryana and Rajasthan. The internet and YouTube their principle outlet. "Every house will be saffron. Every child will salute lord Ram... " harks Rang Maurya, a self-styled religious warrior, who believes that India's golden era is making a comeback - as long as all muslim folks are driven off the land and all their architecture smashed to the ground. The regional stars of this patriotic and xenophobic sound have become YouTube cash cows, but that is just the gateway into the hate-mill, which is banging away tunes in the name god and nationalism. And while the wave is on the up, there's also a lot of patriotic money to be made - as singers, lyricists, bed-room producers, DJs, record labels and videographers. The sound systems are huge railing down highways of north and central India. The demagoguery goes way up, embraced by political leaders, cops and vernacular press, the cadence moving right up to the prime minister of the nation. It's legit business and the payrolls are swelling. In less than 5 years the staggering notoriety of this music, now places itself 2nd to Bollywood, leaving all the rock, hip-hop, electronica and even classical music far behind.
Soundtrack of Hate!
The tunes do not reveal any musical direction or cultural intent, nor any emerging talent to be honest. Most of the tunes feature the infamous Antares Auto-Tune treatment, used excessively to animate and calibrate the out-of-tune singers. The principle melody at times is a copy of an existing folk hit. Sometimes an original limerick concocted locally. The voice takes up most of the audible spectrum. as heard in most Bollywood songs. The beats are fast, drilled uniformly from presets, a combination of north indian percussions and staple 909 808 kicks, claps, hats etc. The grooves are Bhojpuri styles which can be heard on thousands of bollywood tunes from the 80s and 90s. Frantic mix of electronic and acoustic parts, no more than four bars each, makes up the cadence of sounds to keep the jingle rolling. There's no room for ballads or ragas on this patriotic rampage. Most tunes feature rapid-fire gleeful keyboard solos between the versus. Theres lots of free unintended distortion in hindu nationalist music. The mixdown is tacky in terms of imagination, since it's quantity over quality. The final output is best enjoyed on cheap (made in china) speakers found inside auto-rickshaws throughout India. The one discerning feeling that we are exposed to after hearing dozens of these copy-cat tunes, is of morbidity. Hindutva Pop is a quixote outcome, made of mass hysteria, preset-pop and xenophobia. The anxiety of hate cannot be contained. The banality of evil has given birth to this type of music. The rhapsodies of a sick and gutted society.
Hate-Tubes
Recently Youtube celebrated anti-discrimination day, an international pledge to end racism and xenophobia in the world. YouTube did so by purging dozens of white supremacy channels. Twitter and Facebook quickly followed suite to ban a few extremists propagating racism or racist content. Imagine shutting down Donald Trump's twitter page, which is all but made of thousands of racist and hateful tweets. In order to appease the European Parliament, Google owner of YouTube vowed to remove all pro-Nazi and white-pride based content. All these liberal and progressive gestures barely covers 15% of the world's population. A set of slapdash 'woke' moves. Outside that white circle of good ethics, it's business as usual. A recent study done by IISA states that over 92,000 hindutva songs are hosted on YouTube. Most of which contains islamophobic lyrics, racial slurs, open threats and even cases of misogynistic content. The hit-count adds up to roughly 300 million. Similar is the case with Facebook and Twitter, which hosts thousands of users practicing platformed racism and xenophobia, even posting misogynist and homophobic content on a daily basis. The multi-page guidelines, of conduct and fairness, vetted by top lawyers adds up to a charade.
YouTube says homophobic taunts don’t violate its policies. It says racist content does not conflict with it's 'child-safe' guidelines. It also claims to monitor all content under American and European guidelines which duly protects human rights for all races. Pitiful lies, since there is ample counter evidence. What is mediated by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp is a matter of personal bias or codes which mediate what shows and what doesn't. What's right or wrong. What gets monetised or what doesn't. The social media giants fail to control hate and discrimination inside many online communities across the world. What's worse is the negation of responsibility and repercussions. The tacit principle behind the business is that all content, however violent in nature, and in contempt of international laws, equates to revenues and consequently profit. Like Amazon has no problems selling teenage girl sex-dolls, YouTube has no issues monetising and propagating hate based music. Google's Hate Speech Policy is hilarious and hypocritical, which in reality does not control, less capture, the amount of hate-based content that exists inside it's global garrison. YouTube is the world's largest audio-visual repository of hate based content, videos which propagate xenophobia, nationalism and racism. Nationalist Indians contributing to that global pandemic in significant numbers. The likes of Laxmi Dubey and other hindutva pop-stars seem shocking yet transitional, as we barely begin to discover the expanse of hate based music. Is it music then? Not to hate it, but in awe and shock, we witness the proliferation and power of negative, self-destructive music.
