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Title: H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars
Author: Kunal Purohit
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Pages: 306
Price: Rs. 499
“Autocrats and fascists see great value in using popular culture to disseminate their political agenda,” writes Kunal Purohit in his book H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, an engrossing study of how music, poetry, comedy, books, and social media are being leveraged to consolidate support for Hindutva politics and drown out criticism.
It is divided into three sections. Purohit builds each of these around a protagonist – Kavi Singh, Kamal Agney, and Sandeep Deo. The first of these is a woman who sings songs warning Hindu girls against the so-called love jihad, advocating for a law to control population growth among Muslims, and insisting that a Ram Mandir be built on the land in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid stood until 1992. The second is a man who composes and recites poetry reinforcing the Hindutva ideology at kavi sammelans and political rallies. The third is a man who makes YouTube videos, writes books on Hindutva ideologues, and runs an e-commerce platform to fight culture wars. They are presented as pop stars and foot soldiers of Hindutva, who have worked diligently to grow their following and encash it.
Purohit spent over three years getting to know them, and wrote the book with their consent. They knew of his identity as a journalist and the purpose of his interactions with them. His time in the field has led to thick descriptions and intimate details, adding colour to the book. As readers, we get the feeling that we are travelling with him to Gumla in Jharkhand, Patna in Bihar, Didwana in Rajasthan, Jiwanpur in Haryana, and Rasoolabad in Uttar Pradesh.
The book builds on his experience as a journalist tracking the ascent of Hindu nationalism in the country and reporting on hate crimes. He uses the term “H-Pop” – short for “Hindutva Pop” – to discuss the cultural forms through which propaganda “creeps up on unsuspecting victims, lodging itself deep inside their veins, eventually shaping their thoughts and beliefs.”
As is evident here, the author is blessed with a rich visual imagination and charming turn of phrase but unfortunately gives the impression that these viewers and listeners are a hapless mass of passive, uncritical consumers who lap it all up – the fear that Muslims will outnumber Hindus in India, anti-Pakistan rhetoric, lampooning of the Nehru-Gandhi family, tirades against Western culture – without resistance. The assumption that minds are like empty vessels or sponges ready to receive hate seems unconvincing. Surely, these people have other influences in their lives. There must be additional factors behind H-Pop’s success.
The book relies on examples from other parts of the world to drive home the point that “disguising propaganda as popular culture sweetens the poison pill, packaging hate and anger towards the perceived enemy in easily consumable, seemingly trivial ways.” It reminds us that the United States government entered into contracts with Walt Disney and the Warner Brothers to drum up support for the Second World War, the Fascists in Italy funded movies and theatre productions, Al Qaeda and far-right white nationalists have been disseminating their ideology through cultural forms, and the Nazi Party in Germany controlled cinema, music, literature, theatre, radio, and the fine arts by setting up the Reich Culture Chamber.
Oddly, the book does not acknowledge that the same cultural forms can be and have been deployed as vehicles of propaganda by ideologues across the political spectrum. Purohit is sharp with his political analysis but misses the golden opportunity to understand how art and entertainment produce catharsis and build community using the devices of language. Purohit quotes extensively from poems, song lyrics and speeches but does not offer a close reading of the metaphors, analogies, images and tropes that strike a chord among audiences.
The book gives us the lowdown on the personal and professional lives of the pop stars, their training and ambitions, but the audience comes across as faceless and homogenous. We do not get to know them as individuals with families and life stories, why they are susceptible to propaganda, whether they have Muslim friends or colleagues or neighbours, how they got inducted into H-Pop in the first place, whether peer pressure played a role, if they were paid to attend gatherings and circulate videos, the psychological needs that these cultural forms fulfil, and what they consume in addition to H-Pop. Quotes from the author’s conversations with them would have certainly enriched our understanding of them as citizens and voters.
Thankfully, Purohit opens up about a telling exchange with his London-based uncle, a second-generation immigrant from Uganda, who was keen to donate money to a fearless Indian journalist who told the truth as it is and always backed his assertions with research.
Purohit was surprised. “My uncle was a firm supporter of the BJP and a firmer supporter of the Hindu right-wing. He stopped being a fan of anti-establishment journalism, ever since the BJP became the establishment.” It turned out that Sandeep Deo was the journalist being referred to, and Purohit’s uncle wanted to verify the man’s credentials before transferring a few pounds.
This anecdote illustrates that the influence of these pop stars extends well beyond India’s villages and small towns, capturing the imagination of the Indian diaspora that is more than willing to fund the project of Hindu nationalism in the homeland.
