Many Didn’t See This Star

Fifty-two-year-old Zubeen Garg died after scuba-diving in Singapore on Friday September 19. The open, uninhibited, and united grieving by the people of Assam in northeastern India at the death of their kind-hearted, courageous, and universally-loved songster-hero suggests that humanity’s heart responds to frankness offered by a gifted artist. 

The grieving has also shown that years of state-sponsored propaganda aimed at dividing communities cannot destroy human beings’ ability to recognize the real deal -- to know what is fair, what is false, what is beautiful. 

Assam is far from Delhi. Only a narrow strip of land between Bhutan and Bangladesh connects the large state to the rest of India. Assam’s rhinoceros, its mighty Brahmaputra River, its tea gardens, its landscapes and its distinctive yet diverse people have given it the character of a nation within the wider Indian nation. And from time to time it has been easy for the wider nation’s immense numbers to ignore Assam’s existence.

After Zubeen died in Singapore and hundreds of thousands came out on the streets to receive his body that was flown to Assam and openly sobbed, the rest of India sat up and took notice. Not everyone. Establishment India and the godi media found it hard to rise to the occasion. However, Ravish Kumar, the independent YouTuber watched by millions, presented the scale and depth of Assam’s love for Zubeen in a video that is more powerful than I can describe.

UNPRECEDENTED SCENES 

Another fearless YouTuber, Abhisar Sharma, also conveyed Zubeen’s place in Assam to viewers well before every TV channel in India was obliged to present scenes of the unprecedented crowds that on September 23 attended the singer’s last rites in Guwahati, Assam’s largest city.

With an honesty that matched his vision, Ravish (pronounced Ra-veesh) admitted at his video’s start that until the outpouring of grief at Zubeen’s death, he had not heard of him. It was an admission that even in our brilliantly connected times a wall of ignorance may exist between one genius and another (Ravish too is indisputably a genius), and between different parts of one nation. 

The story that Ravish then gathered and presented of Zubeen’s place in the hearts of the people of Assam and of the entire Northeast, and of how Zubeen won that place not only with his irresistible singing but also with acts of courage and giving, including during the Covid years, is one that people in Assam and the rest of India will be reciting to one another for a long time to come. It’s a story that will unite, inspire, embolden.

BBC too has reported on Assam’s love for Zubeen. Among other things it quotes Bimugdha Goswami, “a fan who was part of a large gathering in Guwahati.” Said Goswami about Zubeen to BBC: “He feared nobody. He spoke his heart out. And he was extremely generous. Can you think of any other celebrity like that?” 

Born in 1972 into an Assamese Brahmin family in Tura in Meghalaya (one of Assam’s neighboring states), Zubeen was given his first name after the composer, Zubin Mehta. The last name Garg was evidently given by Zubeen himself, in order, it would seem, to avoid a caste-disclosing word. 

ANTIDOTE TO FEAR

Surfacing before he was three, Zubeen’s bond with music would eventually result, we are told, in more than thirty thousand songs, mainly in Assamese, Bengali, and Hindi, but also in 40 other languages and dialects, including Manipuri, Boro, Dimasa, English, Karbi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Mising, Nepali, Bhojpuri, Odia, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, and Telugu. 

Some of these are languages of the Northeast, a place where noticing variations from one another within the region is as important as recognizing the region’s distinctiveness from “heartland” India.

In 2006, the popularity of Zubeen’s song “Ya Ali” in the film Gangster brought him fame and told the people of Assam that their native son was an honored figure on a much wider stage. 

If singing in Bengali and Hindi required courage in Assam, where pride in the Assamese language is deep, singing a seemingly “Islamic” song like “Ya Ali” demanded greater courage. Or at least so one might think, for alleged “illegal immigration” from adjacent Bangladesh, where Muslims form 85 percent of the population, has for years been presented to Assam (where Muslims are around 35 percent) and to the Northeast as a whole as “the greatest danger” to the region’s security. 

It appears that Zubeen brushed aside irrational fears even when drummed up by powerful people. An interest in those who live next to you, in those you run into or pass by, and a wish to assist them if they were in need and you could be of help, plus an ability to convey this goodwill in an unforgettable line of song, made Zubeen the vehicle of an antidote to fear.

In 2002, he married Garima Saikia, an Assamese fashion designer. After he died, one of the first to remind “heartland” India of Zubeen’s place in the hearts of the people of Assam was a writer or journalist called Anee Haralu. In his video, Ravish Kumar frequently quoted Anee Haralu. This writer’s last name suggests a connection with the Nagas of the Northeast, neighbors with whom the Assamese have not always seen eye to eye. Those who know their Northeast will appreciate what it means when one who is probably a Naga brings an Assamese to the attention of all of India.

ADORED AND UNRULY 

In Haralu’s words, Zubeen was “unruly, adored, and perpetually half in defiance. He entered protest, then stepped away from it. He spoke against the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the crowd answered like thunder. He later said Assam would not accept the Act and asked for calm. He liked the street more than the halls. But he liked the stage most of all.”

Widely seen as discriminatory against Muslims, the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 was criticized by opposition parties in the Northeast and also in West Bengal. One of the Act’s most vocal champions was and is Assam’s BJP chief minister, 56-year-old Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Sarma is a driven politician with, we are told, higher ambitions. The “Muslim threat” to Assam has been his ceaseless theme. Still, Sarma announced a four-day mourning for Zubeen. Neighboring Assam and bordering China, the state of Arunachal too is BJP-run. Arunachal also was to observe three days of mourning for Zubeen’s passing.

Perhaps the Zubeen Garg story is one answer to a question asked across the world. Is hope visible anywhere?

On September 21 and 22, ten more countries recognized Palestine. These included Australia, Canada, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal and the UK. By now virtually the whole world has recognized Palestine. The US, Japan, Germany, and Italy are among the few countries yet to do so.

MORE ANNEXATIONS 

Netanyahu’s invasion-destruction of Gaza continues without pause, and the Israeli prime minister has declared that the latest wave of recognition will result in a spurt in the exercise of seizing the West Bank. “There will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River,” he said on September 21, according to the Jerusalem Post. The Post’s story added that the Americans have said they would not object to Israeli expansion.

It will be interesting to see what shape this major split within the Atlantic power bloc takes. Will France, the UK, and Canada respond to Israel’s advancing annexation with verbal expressions of regret, or will practical steps be taken? Much may depend on how the American public reacts.

According to the Washington Post, the Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen (Democrat) has said: “The United States is completely isolated, and it really is undermining our influence around the world.” Admitting that the previous administration “was feckless on this,” Van Hollen added that “the Trump administration is just a complete rubber stamp for Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“MIGHT IS RIGHT” SHOW 

“Other countries around the world, especially in the Global South, can see American double standards on human rights, and our adversaries are exploiting that,” said Van Hollen.

There is no doubt about what Zubeen Garg would have said – or sung. The weak and the poorly armed are not allowed to be humiliated in the world he sought. Leaders like Macron and Starmer have to figure out what they want to be remembered for, which is also true for the political leadership of the US, which cannot be restricted to one individual.

What will Narendra Modi say? He has praised Zubeen Garg’s “contribution to music,” but does India’s prime minister have no comment on the unpleasant “might is right” show that Israel is putting on in Gaza and the West Bank?

The people of the world will also be looking at the leaders of Latin America and of Africa and in fact at the UN – the global body designed to safeguard the world’s peace and security. What stops a group of nations from sponsoring a UN proposal for the security of both Israel and Palestine, if need be with the involvement of a multinational peacekeeping force? 

With the Atlantic alliance currently in tatters, with Russia still involved in its war on Ukraine, and with China not knowing what may happen to its large economy, the Israel-Palestine ball is free for hitherto silent powers to pick up. They could coordinate with the UK, France, Canada, and Australia and come up with proposals for ending the torture of the Palestinians and the fears of the Israelis.

Maybe an initiative like this requires the Zubeen Gargs in different parts of our world to “speak their hearts out” and demand an end to the horror.