In one of A R Rahman’s searing compositions, Amar Singh Chamkila claims that the singer was a manifestation of Punjab itself. Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali has also repeatedly stated that he had sought to capture the contradictory impulses of this state through this biography. Any review has to contend with the central role played by Punjab’s turbulent politics of the 1980s and the akhara culture, which is the film’s explicit aim. But this article seeks to zoom in on the cycle of humiliation and intimidation Chamkila faced through the course of the film, a second layer that deserves its own separate engagement.
Amar Singh Chamkila could have been an aspirational rags-to-riches story, but it closes with snapshots of apathy and continuing disdain for the slain artiste and his partner/wife. Although the perceived vulgarity of his songs is the ostensible reason for his mistreatment, how the classes and the masses received his songs is inextricably linked to caste and stigma, a story that is replicated across the country.
Caste as sub-text
While Chamkila’s “lower” caste status is obliquely referenced throughout the film, some reviewers have noted that they had missed any meaningful engagement on this question. It is true that Chamkila explicitly speaks about his caste identity in only one scene. Amidst current discussions on whether caste is just a colonial construct, this isolated instance of naming is as fascinating as the context in which it occurs.
Caste may be sourced from the Spanish word casta, but it is, first and foremost, a lived reality in South Asia. Invocation of someone’s community name and its/their location in the social hierarchy are often subconscious processes with English words (or their Spanish roots) playing a marginal role in how we understand it — if at all. One’s position in the social hierarchy is also linked to access to symbols of modernity where sexuality continues to be heavily stigmatised.
When art is policed
Chamkila is portrayed as a man lacking in access and opportunity, grateful for the doors that had tentatively opened for him. His difference is his USP, the explicitness of his lyrics, a novelty back then. He is seen as content when he serves a singer who takes credit for his compositions and a manager who profits from his art. He only takes charge of his destiny to reclaim his dignity, a movement towards self-respect where he explicitly mentions his community name. But this quiet rebellion does not translate to him commanding respect in society.
The stigmatisation of artforms when practised by marginalised communities despite their popular appeal is a well-documented trend — whether it is the lavani dance from Maharashtra or the oppari music from Tamil Nadu. The appropriation of these artforms by members of dominant caste communities has also been chronicled. Chamkila’s origin story was, for example, reminiscent of how Tamil artiste Arivu, who gained popularity by fusing the genres of oppari and rap, could not claim ownership of the wildly popular composition, Enjoy Enjaami. While Arivu had only received credit for the lyrics and backing vocals, he later issued statements on social media that the piece had been entirely his creation.
Certain music and dance genres earn members of the upper caste communities wider recognition, but questions of who really owns the art and who is being left out are deeply contentious. The legacy of the devadasi culture, including the previously stigmatised dance genres such as sadhir, highlight how ideas of vulgarity overlap with caste biases. The ban of devadasi artforms, which were deemed erotic and amoral under the colonial regime, and their subsequent “sanitisation” and appropriation by upper caste communities as Indian classical dance also emphasise how coloniality and caste hierarchies worked in tandem when it came to cultural practices and expressions.
Stigmatising art – a colonial legacy
The destigmatisation of certain artistic expressions has the potential to become a form of decolonisation, but only if the oppressive structures that had deemed them vulgar are examined first. According to Ashis Nandy, the ideology of the colonial state worked by infantilising the colonised subject where the latter’s sexuality was stigmatised and weaponised to establish the moral authority of the coloniser. The civilisational project depended on deeming indigenous practices and expressions as depraved and bringing these “immature subjects” into modernity was seen as the coloniser’s burden.
In India, dominant castes served as local collaborators as a result of which colonial laws and norms of social behaviour became a representation of Victorian-Brahmin morality. Decolonising India would, hence, also require the dismantling of dominant caste and/or Brahminical sensibilities on questions of morality. It is, hence, not surprising that some of the champions of decolonisation have also spiritedly defended colonial laws on the criminalisation of homosexuality and adultery and fought against marriage equality and the criminalisation of marital rape. Dealing with coloniality would require a rigorous examination of prevailing sexual mores, which is ultimately also linked to social hierarchies.
In Imtiaz Ali’s film, Chamkila’s rising popularity did nothing to deter state and non-state actors from constantly policing him. By treating him as a truant child, the privileged in society betray not only their superiority complex but also their inherited colonial mindset that considers any public conversation on sexuality as vulgar indulgences of depraved, immature subjects. As a troupe member argues in a moment of rebellion, self-appointed custodians of morality try to determine what is permissible for everyone — essentially holding members of the dominant communities accountable for policing desires even when such forbidden urges thrive in their notoriety. But Chamkila, the man, according to the film at least, did not set out to be notorious. In a poignant scene towards the end, when he is served a cold roti, Chamkila wrestles with himself on whether he deserves any better. Perhaps the film, as a whole, is also asking us if Chamkila was simply seeking respect.
Srinivasan is an anthropologist and author of Courting Desire: Litigating for Love in North India
