Ferraris,dope and misogyny in global village of Punjabi music

Rapper Honey Singh is leading this new wave with his album,‘International Villager’. In the song Dope shope,he tells boys to make do with whoever they can lay their hands on because they are not going to get anything “fresh”. This feudal obsession with sexual virginity that refuses to fade away even in cosmopolitan contexts has drawn criticism. Though he defended himself,saying the song was inspired by his vodka-swigging,dope-snorting British girlfriend and was not about Punjabi girls,few would believe him.

Another singer,Diljit Dosanjh,who too features in the album,“dedicated” a song to girls under 15 years of age. He tells them to stay away from drugs,liquor and “love”,but the music video rather seems to encourage them. A single by Honey Singh is titled after a female body part,and his rap often strays into double meaning.

A few years ago,another singer,Babbu Mann,now the superstar of Punjabi pop,shot to fame with a song that celebrated,of all things,land-grabbing. Recently,one of his songs in which he says he needs his love as badly as he needs his “crack” (cocaine),became a big hit.

Gurinder Kaur,who got dizzyingly famous as Miss Pooja,fancies a boy who drives around in a red Ferrari in one of her hit songs. In fact,there isn’t a car brand that hasn’t figured in recent Punjabi songs.

The trend started a few years ago with a song on Pajero — Yaar tere ne number le liya triple zero one,wich Pajero de rakh li desi gun —which talks about VIP registration numbers and illegal guns. Punjabi music’s car fetish can be traced to the green revolution,when heavy mechanisation of agriculture led to prosperity. The car is the new tractor — for,a little over a decade ago,girls in songs fancied boys on tractors. Rising land prices in Punjab drove a surge of liquidity,which might explain the craze for gobal car brands in villages.

“The issue of vulgarity is too stretched. Artists are the mirror of society,” says Honey Singh,whose popularity now goes beyond geographies and languages. He has been offered Rs 70 lakh to sing a song in the Naseeruddin Shah starrer Mastan,the most ever for a Bollywood singer. Babbu Mann is all the rage with youth in both the state and abroad.

But Aman Deol of Istri Jagrati Manch,Patiala,which holds protests against singers,says representation of women in songs spawns a politics which devalues them. Surjit Singh Jhabelwali,who led protests against the new music in Toronto last month,agrees with both Deol and Honey Singh: “Of course,the representation reinforces old stereotypes,but we must not forget that these singers have a mass following. It says less about these singers and more about our society where devaluation of women is more apparent in widespread female foeticide. Instead of merely blaming these singers,we must try to spread awareness in our society.”

You could dismiss these singers as Punjab’s own version of the angst-ridden Beat Generation,but they represent a certain turn that popular culture has taken. Band and album names such as ‘International Villager’,‘Mafia Mundeer’ and ‘Urban Pendu’ signify the tribalisation of global culture,rather than the globalisation of Punjabi youth. Their music retells feudal themes in cosmopolitan terms.

Political scientist Harish Puri says the youth in Punjab have nothing to do and no one to look up to. “Self-esteem of our people is at the lowest ever. Society as a whole,governments,and even so-called spiritual leaders,all have failed our young generation,” Puri says.

Surinder S Jodhka,who teaches sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University,calls it the music of the lost youth,who lack leadership and jobs. He says the vulgarity and violence in music is anomic,arising out of alienation and purposelessness.

In his song Brown Rang,a cosmopolitan Honey Singh doesn’t like “white chicks” any more,a break from the traditional Punjabi obsession with the gora rang. He likes the brown girl who wears Prada and Gucci. In the slick music video,the camera slides down the Dubai skyline and chases a Bugatti that slowly rolls down lit-up streets. That’s Honey Singh the ‘international’. Midway through the song,the register changes. Honey Singh tells the brown girl he could handle her father if she says yes just once. He wants her to become his whore. He utters the Punjabi slang for it — purja. That’s Honey Singh the ‘villager’.