It is heartening to see Imtiaz Ali’s movie Amar Singh Chamkila, a biopic of the renowned Punjabi folk singer that captures his life and struggles while preserving the raw graininess intact. The movie does justice to its protagonist by thoroughly researching various life stories gathered from multiple narratives and engaging with Chamkila’s music. The inclusion of Amar Singh’s original video footage and photographs, coupled with the brilliant performances by Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra, breathes life into this biographical portrayal.
However, despite being a good attempt at a biopic, Amar Singh Chamkila falls short in exploring the dichotomy between vulgarity and purity in art, which hold a much deeper meaning than what is depicted. The concept of vulgarity has been used too loosely. Moreover, the central issue of caste dynamics within the Punjabi music industry is obfuscated and sidelined in the film.
The film has several scenes depicting Chamkila’s constant struggle to choose or reject ‘vulgar’ songs. The narrative is constructed in a way that fixates this confusion onto Chamkila. This ventriloquising by the director silences Chamkila’s actual voice. The film never tries to look into reasons behind Chamkila’s decision to sing these ‘vulgar’ songs until the end of his life, despite facing threats.
The understanding of ‘vulgarity’ for the subaltern community means much more than a very immediate and literal meaning, which is what is discussed under the carpet. To render something vulgar is also to create the boundary of sacred and profane. The vulgar, unsanitised, and dirty become the metaphors to describe a worldview that stands antithetical to pious, sanitised, and sacred space. Thus, rendering something vulgar is to create a caste boundary, through which acceptability and non-acceptability of social values are determined.
Also read: Surinder Sonia made Chamkila famous but Imtiaz Ali’s film reduces her to a footnote
(Mis)representing Chamkila’s ambiguity
It is important to understand the meaning of vulgarity and what experimentation with vulgarity has meant for Dalit-Bahujan communities. Vulgarity stood as an antithesis to the sanitised modern spaces that the music industry was generating towards the 1980s. In his classic work Cassette Culture, Peter Manuel discusses the booming Bhakti music during this period. It was in the ’80s-’90s that figures like Anoop Jalota, Anuradha Paudwal, Gulshan Kumar, etc., saw the pinnacle of success by singing sanitised/sacred Bhajans. The growth story of the present-day giant T-Series actually began with the production of such devotional songs.
For Amar Singh Chamkila to choose vulgarity over the moral/devotional was also a creation of a counternarrative of vulgar music against the sanitised, middle-class devotional music.
For the Dalit-Bahujan community, experimenting with the ‘vulgar’ hasn’t been a new phenomenon. The works of scholars like Sharmila Rege and Shailaja Paik have discussed the usage of ‘Ashlil’ (vulgar) as a weapon to counter the mainstream narrative. Rege has referred to the emergence of popular forms like Lavani (a dance form belonging to the Dalit community) as a significant ‘cultural turn’, rather than just being a ‘culture of resistance’. The dance performance talks back to the dominant, hierarchised structures of high art.
Evidence of this ‘vulgarity’ is also seen in Dalit-Bahujan writings. Namdeo Dhasal’s Golpitha has an elaborate usage of phrases like ‘A**f**ker’s Park’, ‘shit’, ‘flesh ripped out’, etc. (in Dilip Chitre’s translation). Similarly, the Dalit autobiographies of Tulsiram (Murdhaiya) and Sushila Takhbhore (Shikanje ka Dard) have explicit depictions of so-called ‘profane’ spaces to discuss their everyday lived reality.
The ‘vulgar’ thus holds a loaded meaning for those at the receiving end of such spaces. Therefore, choosing to sing a song deemed vulgar is a reclamation of the humiliation that the Dalit-Bahujan community has been historically subjected to.
If Imtiaz Ali was genuinely interested in portraying the real Amar Singh Chamkila, he would have appreciated the singer’s choice to sing vulgar songs rather than depicting him as confused about whether to sing them or not. Chamkila consciously chose vulgarity. He claimed to emerge from his everyday lived experience as a Dalit by singing about his life and publicly speaking about the Dalit-Bahujan lifeworld.
Chamkila’s music is also anti-caste because it defies the existing dominant upper-caste devotional music industry and instead creates an alternative space that resonates with the masses.
Also read: Chamkila died over 3 decades ago but in his Punjab village bitterness, regret linger
Casteist reality of Punjabi music industry
In my conversation with several production houses, musicians, and singers, they have revealed the casteist reality of the music industry. Similar to the ritualised sacred and profane, the dichotomy of sanitised Bhajan and anti-caste music remains distinct.
Even if select production houses and singers can carefully navigate between the production of multiple genres of music, those from the Dalit community share stories of their struggles. The ability to transition between different song genres was possible for only a select few, contingent upon having upper-caste support to authenticate their work. The tycoons of the Punjabi music industry remain predominantly from dominant caste communities, who are well-networked with the mainstream music industry.
The caste divide in Punjab’s music industry is also evident in the different kinds of music produced. Artists like Ginni Mahi, Poonam Bala, Rajini Thakawal, Neelam Thakarwal, Satvinder Singh Azad, and many others are part of the anti-caste music movement, creating Ravidasiya songs, Bhimgeet, and other anti-caste compositions. Music has become a trope to talk about the caste realities of Punjab. Several production houses have dedicated channels producing anti-caste songs. The emergence of an anti-caste music industry is relatively new and closely tied to the rise of the anti-caste socio-political movement in the region.
While many songs by these artists are assertive at their outset, it is interesting to examine figures like Chamkila, who defied caste barriers in music and experimented with the ‘vulgar’. The question of caste assertion in Chamkila’s music manifests subtly through defiance and disobedience.
Who killed Chamkila?
This is not an investigative question, but rather an analytical one. There are different facets or arguments one could potentially consider regarding who killed Amar Singh Chamkila, something the movie also tries to explore.
However, the critical question one needs to ponder is: What made Chamkila’s death inevitable? From marrying a woman from a dominant caste (Amarjot Kaur) to seeking popularity in the music industry despite coming from the Dalit community, these were some of the caste contractions that Chamkila was prey to. The non-acceptance of a ‘low’ caste by the dominant caste manifests itself at multiple socio-cultural-political levels, not just in terms of economic relationship. Despite Chamkila’s popularity and economic accolades, the stickiness of caste never escaped him, and his death became the only ultimate pacification.
Thus, a Chamkila biopic that aims to represent truism will have to re-centre the caste question, something that Imtiaz Ali’s movie seems to miss out on. It will need to think critically that when many others were singing the same genre, why was it that only Chamkila who was cornered for being ‘vulgar’. The stickiness of caste needs to be read together with what constitutes the social meaning of being vulgar.
K Kalyani is is an anti-caste scholar and Assistant Professor at Azim Premji University. She tweets at @FiercelyBahujan.
Mukesh Kabir has done his doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is a scholar of Media Sociology and Communication. He tweets @mukesh_kabir.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)