This is the second part of the three-part series on ‘how anti-caste rap and hip hop contribute to reclaiming mainstream cultural spaces for oppressed caste communities‘ as a part of the Justicemakers’ Writer’s Training Program, run in partnership with Agami and Ashoka’s Law For All Initiative. The first and third parts can be found here and here.
For a country that runs on the ideology of caste, India hasn’t had an official caste census since 1931; naturally, it remains the biggest elephant in the room that goes unaccounted for in every data, study, and culture.
Everywhere the caste system reaches, it manifests itself in myriad ways while taking multiple forms and identities. In the last article, we talked about the rise of anti-caste hip-hop artists, whose music, apart from being the voice of defiance to the casteist realm, is also representative of the identity of voiceless masses who were not formally talked about or represented.
For the scope of this article, caste, music, and representation constitute the locus of discussion.
In that vain, this is not just a story about hip-hop or the protest art form alone; it is about the youths who are transforming it by bringing caste to the centre of discussion in the mainstream.
The present article dwells on such perspectives that define Indian Hip Hop.
Mic Check 123…
I wanted to know the perception of hip-hop among the youth today and if they felt represented by it. I circulated a small survey that was responded to by about 57 people, most of whom were college students or school-goers, some working professionals, and some who were still figuring out career paths.
When asked if they listened to hip-hop, around 2/3rd of them said that they were regular listeners, remaining ones either listened to hip-hop occasionally or just not were into it.
I wanted to know how they learned about hip-hop; most people said it was through social media and the internet, and 1/4th were introduced through friends and social circles. The remaining people got to know only from the 2019 Bollywood film Gully Boy and some from the CAA/ NRC protests the following year.
Now, I was interested in the names of rappers that respondents follow or know about. Some said that they were actively into the Gully Boy ensemble at one point or the other. In the list, the most common recommendations; Divine, Seedhe Maut, Raftaar, Honey Singh, MC Stan, Arivu, Badshah, Prabh Deep, Ahmer, Naezy, Swadesi, Emiway Bantai.
Hip-Hop For Who?
This was an interesting list to follow, with many new underground artists making it over the traditional names of mainstream hip-hop. Talking about hip-hop and politics, one of the respondents, Rocky, a working professional in her 20s, said, “It’s sad how Indian hip-hop has hitherto been about the objectification of the female body predominantly. Guess it’s because when it came to India as a concept, upper-caste men could access it first and used it as a tool to perpetuate caste patriarchy. But now there’s a growing number of hip hop bands talking about human rights issues, and I hope more and more people could listen to liberating lyrics in their languages!”
One will be forced to consider that people have started acknowledging the fault lines in the current mainstream hip-hop that glorifies misogyny, objectification, flashy cars, drugs and party culture; of course, popularised by Bollywood and Desi/ Punjabi pop artists.
Last month, I met Rekoil Chafe, a 27-year-old rapper and a music producer from Mumbai, over a Zoom call. In conversations about growing up, politics, history, and hip-hop, he pointed out the farce existing in the present underground culture. He said this to me:
“It took a while for rappers to differentiate between rap and entertainment. From the industry that represents the Delhi, Mumbai underground scene (the predominantly Hindi and North Indian base), we still have no major players from the marginalised communities; very few dare to talk about it openly. Have the ‘gully’ artists or the industry figured out who exactly occupies these gullies yet?”
Hum Kya Chahte Azadi?
When I asked the respondents about the causes that hip-hop represented, the majority of them pointed at issues surrounding class and poverty. Indian hip-hop has overwhelmingly talked about it via songs and a whole movie surrounding it.
The 2019 release of Gully Boy broke open the mainstream doors for hip-hop in India, infusing a breath of fresh air in the genre and general Bollywood music. It was a rags-to-riches story of a working-class, struggling Muslim man making it big in the hip-hop music and cultural scene of Mumbai. The film takes us through the life of inequality and injustices but fails to name the elephant in the room – the politics of caste that controls it.
These caste-class barriers are profoundly interlinked and structurally deprive the access of the individuals and community. But the hip-hop community, just like Bollywood, has not yet addressed it. MTV gets credit for making hip-hop a familiar name in India to a more significant extent. Naturally, I wanted to hop on to MTV Hustle, a 2019 Indian hip-hop reality show.
Without going further into topics and running the risk of essentialising identities, out of the 15 final contestants, the majority belonged to the privileged caste category.
Even in the hip-hop of progressive artists, the acknowledgement of the caste question remains missing; it is an incomplete exercise to study hip-hop music without understanding its intricacies and intersections.
Hip-hop for anti-caste artists is not just a form of protest; protest only emerges in opposition to an immediate threat or an enemy, but what if your whole ‘birth itself is a fatal accident’.
Apart from being the voice of defiance to the casteist realm, the music of anti-caste rappers is also constitutive of the identity of voiceless masses who were not formally talked about or represented.
On such shallow representation through hip-hop, Salil, a college-goer, says, and I paraphrase, “It feels like reducing the power and potential of the revolutionary young generation to cater to the most palatable sensibility of masses, that ends up killing the radical possibilities of change and political action.”
Perils Of The Caste Question
This is unprecedented in the history of the Indian socio-cultural milieu; caste has never been the talking affair as much as it is now. Yet, talking of your identity out in the open risks the systemic erasure of your name and art.
The groundbreaking Tamil single, Enjoy Enjaami, which became a global sensation right upon its release, had its lyricist and singer sidelined and used as a mere prop in the whole song. Further on, Rolling Stone, an international culture and music magazine in its Indian edition, sidelined the role of Arivu, his complete story, family, and identity, replacing him with co-singer Dhee on the magazine’s August issue cover.
In the international remake of Enjoy-Enjaami by DJ Snake, the Billboards at the iconic New York Times Square featured only Dhee and DJ Snake. This is just one of the many instances of casteism veiled by ignorance and prejudice in the arts and cultural industry.
The work of Bahujan musicians is time and again copied, appropriated, and presented in the most sanitised or polished version. The traces of authenticity of its creators are removed as if their presence is still polluting the caste perpetrators.
Such forms of discrimination prevent many rappers and artists from embracing their identities openly.
It’s pretty apparent that the question of caste, affirmative action, and representation still troubles the industry deeply. There are hardly any women or LGBTQ+ representation in this music industry. The stories of rappers from marginalised backgrounds are still between far and few; for the artists from North-Eastern states, only a very handful have been able to attain pan-Indian appeal.
Manifesting Hope
However, so many respondents felt hopeful for the anti-caste and indigenous representation emerging from the corners of the country. Many respondents gave due credit to the Tamil industry and their underground hip-hop scene, thanks to artists like Arivu, Isaivani, and The Casteless Collective, which is starting to make waves across the country and even the globe. It is “doing away with North Indian hegemony, and focussing on Southern representation and various intersectional struggles.”
The individuals were hopeful and curious, as one respondent summed it up best – “reflective storytelling from the ground is precisely what our hip-hop scene needs. The community and street-based lyrics bring fresh perspectives to the oppressed-caste millennials, bringing them ever closer to hip-hop.”