“Diljit Dosanjh’s Stardom Now Threatens the Gatekeepers of Indian Nationalism”: Sushant Singh

An interesting article in The Wire about the pushback Punjabi singer-actor Diljit Dosanjh has received since the release of his movie Sardaar Ji 3 which features Pakistani actress Hania Aamir.   It is important to note here that the film was completed in February, well before the Pahalgam terror attack.  The film’s producers, “citing significant financial stakes” decided to release the film exclusively overseas on June 27, foregoing an Indian release.

Some excerpts:

Dosanjh’s influence is not confined to the subcontinent. He is, by every measure, India’s first truly global music icon. From shutting down Coachella as the first Indian to headline the iconic festival, to selling out stadiums across North America and Europe with his record-breaking Dil-Luminati tour, Diljit has shattered every glass ceiling placed before Indian artists. His appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he was introduced as “the biggest Punjabi performer on the planet,” and his collaborations with international stars like Ed Sheeran and Sia have propelled him into a league previously reserved for Western pop royalty.

That Dosanjh, so recently feted by the prime minister and the country’s richest family, can be hounded as a traitor by the same establishment and media, is a damning indictment of the duplicity of India’s current political climate. His global journey, once a source of national pride, is now being weaponised against him by the very forces that celebrated and benefitted from his rise.

And:

While the immediate trigger for the outrage is the Pakistan connection, the deeper discomfort with a globally celebrated, unapologetically Sikh artist operating outside the boundaries of state-sanctioned nationalism cannot be dismissed. In today’s India, the space for complex, layered identities, especially those that assert India’s diversity rather than majoritarian assimilation, is rapidly shrinking. The Dosanjh affair is as much about the policing of national loyalty as it is about the discomfort with visible, assertive minority identities in the public sphere.

What is most damning is not the controversy itself, but the speed and ferocity with which admiration morphs into outrage, and the ease with which institutions and public figures capitulate to the loudest, most jingoistic voices. The consequences for creative work are chilling, and the message to the artistic community, particularly those proud of their non-majoritarian identity of language, culture and religion, is unmistakable. They are only one step away from being branded traitors by the ideological enforcers of Hindutva. The Dosanjh affair is a chilling reminder that in Modi’s India, the price of authenticity and minority pride is perpetual suspicion. And the only art that survives is that which bows to the will of the ruling regime.