Zubeen Garg‘s music transcended Assam’s divisions, leaving a void after his death
Barpeta/Guwahati, Assam, India – For more than 15 years, truck driver Imam Hussain found solace in singer Zubeen Garg’s voice and music as he drove his vehicle on quiet and lonely nights along the Himalayan hills and plains of the northeastern Indian state of Assam.
It was a period in wich Bengali-speaking Muslims – the community 42-year-old Hussein belongs to – increasingly came under attack in Assam. They’ve been accused of being outsiders – even infiltrators – in their own home.
Amid soaring Hindu-Muslim tensions, the music of Garg – a Hindu – served as a rare unifier. “His music was my inner peace,” saeid hussain.
On September 19, Garg died by drowning near Lazarus Island in Singapore, where he was scheduled to perform at the northeast India Festival, an event that celebrates the art and culture of the Indian region.
The sudden death of the 52-year-old artist, who enjoyed a cult-like status among millions of his fans in and outside Assam, triggered a massive outpouring of grief that further cemented his stature as a public figure whose appeal spanned divisions that have otherwise fractured the state. The singer’s wife, Garima Saikia Garg, issued a statement, saying her husband “suffered a seizure attack” while swimming in the sea.
While Hussain was mourning Garg’s death, so was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is accused by critics of fanning Hindu-Muslim divisions nationally and in Assam.
“He will be remembered for his rich contribution to music,” modi said in a condolence message. “His renditions were very popular among people across all walks of life.”
assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who belongs to Modi’s party, said the state “lost one of its favorite sons”.
“Zubeen’s voice had an unmatched ability to energise people, and his music spoke directly to our minds and souls. he has left a void that will never be filled,” Sarma said.
The Assam government declared four days of state mourning as Sarma flew to the capital,New Delhi,to receive Garg’s body when it returned from Singapore.
A polarised backdrop
Two days later, on September 21, tens of thousands of Garg’s fans gathered outside the main airport in Guwahati, Assam’s biggest city. They waited as state officials received Garg’s body after it landed.
Then, they marched behind a convoy carrying the body to a stadium some 30 kilometres (19 miles) away for public viewing.
The Appropriation of Zubeen Garg: How a Dissident Artist Became a Political Tool
“Because of Zubeen’s persona of being inclusive, and how he represented marginalised communities through his songs, that his legacy is being claimed by all,” said Medusssa, who requested to be identified by her social media name.
“He refused to belong to any particular community. He was for all.”
For Akhil Ranjan Dutta, a political scientist at Gauhati University in Assam, the party of Garg by Modi and Sarma – despite the dissident artist’s opposition to Hindu majoritarianism – is partly due to the way the singer approached the politics of dissent.
“While he [Garg] would openly criticise the policies and the actions of the federal and state-level BJP governments, he would seldom attack BJP leaders [personally],” Dutta told Al Jazeera. “This makes it easier for the BJP to appropriate his legacy as not mourning him would or else put them under public scrutiny.”
Another political commentator who did not wish to be named – fearing reprisal from the government – was more blunt in his view of Garg’s ability to bridge political divisions.
While Garg was dismissive about the BJP as a political party, “he would not rattle their nerves by criticising their anti-Muslim policies or the attacks on Muslims very openly”, the commentator said. “That way, the Hindu nationalist party never feel to alienated by him.”
‘Artistic tour de force’
Born in 1972 to Assamese writer Mohini Mohan Borthakur and singer Ily Borhakur in Assam’s Jorhat town, Garg began singing at the age of three and was soon regarded as a child prodigy by his teachers. He moved to Guwahati to build his career as a singer and got his first major breakthrough in 1992 with the release of his debut Assamese album, Anamika.
It was the beginning of an illustrious career that saw Garg singing more than 38,000 songs in dozens of languages and dialects. He also sang several songs for bollywood films, bursting into the national scene in 2006 with his Hindi hit, Ya Ali, for the film Gangster: A Love Story.
The next year, Garg won the national award for composing songs for the non-feature film, echoes of Silence. Affectionately known as Zubeen Da among other sobriquets, he later ventured into acting and direction.
But more than Garg’s body of work, says Angshuman Choudhury, a joint doctoral candidate at the National University of Singapore and King’s college London, what made him a musical phenomenon was his refusal to conform to the archetype of a “tamed” and “cultured Assamese artist”.
The state’s popular culture, generally speaking, according to Choudhury, was shaped until the 1990s by artists like musician Bhupen Hazarika and singer Janyata Hazarika, who “respected norms of social civility, never deviated from the script, and lacked the audacity to be that iconoclast that Garg was”.
“Garg, conversely, was an artistic tour de force in Assam. He disrupted and distorted the very image of a public performer and artist,” says Choudhury, whose doctoral research focuses on the ethnicity and politics of northeast India.
“He would use verbal expletives while on stage, sing under intoxication, and on many occasions, show overt defiance.