Nationalist messaging in H-pop and Modi support fuel India’s Hindu-Muslim divide
Wearing an ornate turban and a saffron dress, Laxmi Dubey urges her YouTube followers to press the “lotus” button on voting machines to re-elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who she calls the “Lion of India”.
She then sings: “Every child in the country will sing Modi, Modi.”
This song has attracted tens of thousands of views within just three weeks of its release on Ms Dubey’s YouTube channel, which has about half a million subscribers.
“Governments come and go but the reason to support Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party is that only they have embraced saffron,” she told The National.
“It is our duty as a Hindu to support him.”
The colour saffron, long associated with Hinduism, has been adopted by Hindu nationalists as a symbol of their growing influence during the past 10 years of BJP rule.
“Because of Mr Modi, Lord Ram found his house,” she said, referring to a grand temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram that is being built on the site of a 16th-century mosque razed by a Hindu mob in 1992.
Ms Dubey, 30, is one of the stars of a booming music genre known as “H-pop” – Hindutva pop – featuring songs with hypnotic beats inspired by electronic dance music and incendiary lyrics that promote Hindu supremacy and anti-Muslim bias.
Hindutva, often likened to white supremacy, is an ideology that asserts primacy for Hinduism over other faiths in religiously diverse India, a constitutionally secular democracy of 1.4 billion people.
Critics accuse the BJP of colluding with Hindutva groups that increasingly use pop culture to rally support for the Hindu nationalist ruling party while demonising the Muslim community, India’s largest religious minority, with about 200 million followers.
Ms Dubey’s latest song, which lasts more than six minutes, is not the only tune that the journalist-turned-singer has produced in praise of Mr Modi and his brand of Hindu politics.
In one music video, she fervently urges listeners to help make India a “Hindu state”.
The lyrics from one of her most popular songs go: “Every child will repeat only one slogan, the saffron flag will fly in