When All Else Fails, There's Music

AS a teenager, Dhammrakshit idolised Bhagat Singh. He remembers watching the Ajay Devgn-fronted Bollywood film on the late freedom fighter and revolutionary hero on loop, when it released in 2002, telling himself that this is what he wanted to be. “Main desh ke liye humesha se kuch karna chahta tha (I always wanted to do something for my country),” says Dhammrakshit, when we meet him at the Nirmik Cultural Centre, an arts and theatre space, situated on the mezzanine of a shop, in the quiet residential suburb of Kandivali East in Mumbai.

Now 36, the theatre artist/composer/singer, better known by his stage name Dhamma, looks back at his teenage years as a significant chapter in his life. Even at that age, he knew that the “freedom of the nation” had to be protected and was worth fighting (even dying) for.

Four years ago, just weeks before the pandemic-induced nationwide lockdown was announced, the opportunity presented itself. Dhammrakshit and his musical troupe Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch arrived at Morland Road in Nagpada — now famously known as Mumbai Bagh — where a sit-in protest was being spearheaded by women against the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The Act, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim religious minorities in neighboring countries, was opposed for being exclusionary. At Mumbai Bagh, Dhammrakshit raised a fervent cri de coeur through a song written and composed by him and his friends. “CAA-NRC laaye jaane kyon? Food, job, education, health de do naa lagaon curfew. (Why are you bringing CAA-NRC? What we need is food, job, education, and health. Stop imposing curfews),” Dhammrakshit sang in Hindi.

This was the time when several anti-CAA demonstrators were being detained and arrested by the police. But Dhammrakshit remained undeterred, visiting Mumbai Bagh at least thrice a week. On February 6, 2020, when the police stopped them from using the guitar and dafli during the protest, Dhammrakshit and Co continued singing sans the instruments. “Bharatwasi… desh bachao (Indians… save your country),” he appealed, amidst loud cheering and claps.

An artist who has lived on the fringes rarely takes art for granted. They dwell on purpose, constantly thinking of newer ways of being, in order to create art that helps them find meaning and their place in the world. In a growingly unjust world, where power is consolidated, hate entrenched, and social differences more stark, their art is also revolutionary. Dhammrakshit Randive’s protest music was born out of both his marginalization as a Dalit and the uncertainty of living in a fast-changing India.

Today, Dhamma describes himself as a “defender of the Constitution” and uses music to make people and communities aware of their rights. “There is a need for us to raise our voices through our art,” he says.

What compels an artist to demand space, to put themselves on the line, and to be physically present at the scene to lament the country’s many losses – and resist what we may yet lose?

The Nirmik Cultural Centre in Kandivali has become the epicenter of Dhamma’s activism — it’s here that he and his friends organize intimate musical performances and plays and also host other artists and troupes that align with their causes.

A quick glance at the metal bookshelf in the Centre’s library – which also doubles as an editing studio and warehouse for their music instruments – reveals an assortment of literature. There are books on the teachings of Gandhi, Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Annabhau Sathe, writings by contemporary Marathi poets as well as those from the Bhakti tradition like Sant Kabir and Sant Tukaram, who condemned discrimination based on Varna and untouchability, and religious fanaticism. Dhammrakshit says he wants to make room for other texts too, especially those related to feminism and gender. “How we as people deal with these issues, will determine the future of our country.”

Dhammrakshit’s family originally hailed from the village of Itkur, Osmanabad, in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. As landless farm laborers, they were badly hit when the drought of 1972 gripped the state. Forced to migrate, Dhammrakshit grew up in the basti of Laxmi Tekdi in Satara, where his Dalit identity was fostered through the arts. Babasaheb Ambedkar pervaded his consciousness, because of his father Shrirang, who had converted to Buddhism in following in the late leader and reformist’s footsteps. “My father was an artist,” says Dhamma. “He would write songs and poems about Ambedkar’s struggles, and even stories on migration and drought.” In school, Dhamma won an award and an opportunity to sing for the All India Radio for performing a powada (a traditional Marathi ballad) on Subhas Chandra Bose written by his father. “My father’s literature was my first source of knowledge.”

But the seeds for his future work as an anti-caste artist were sown when Satara-based educationist-thinker Devdatta Dabholkar, ex-vice chancellor of the University of Pune, and his wife Suman took him under their wings after seeing one of his performances. “When they found out that I was living in a basti, they convinced my father to allow me to stay with them for two years till I completed my Class X.” It was here that he also came in contact with Devdatta’s brother Dr Narendra Dabholkar, an anti-superstition campaigner and social activist. “Despite being Brahmins, the Dabholkars treated me as an equal. They opened my mind in more ways than one; they exposed me to intellectual thinking, and how we could rise above casteism.”

Quite early on, Dhammrakshit affiliated himself with a social organization called Muktiwadi Sangathan in Satara that brought the youth together to fight caste- and gender-based discrimination, and religious intolerance. “I was very patriotic, but I didn’t know what and how to channel this emotion,” he says, “The sangathan structuralized my ‘desh-bhakti’ and showed me how I could implement it at the ground-level.”

While pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Dhammrakshit traveled to Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, where he learnt first-hand the kind of discrimination the marginalized sections of the society face there. Closer home in Maharashtra, he saw the Muktiwadi Sangathan respond to the brutal murders of four Scheduled Caste citizens in the village of Khairlanji, Bhandara district, which had already stirred up a storm in the country. The women had been sexually violated and paraded naked. The group highlighted caste-based atrocities and sang folk songs on brotherhood across villages.

Since then, Dhammrakshit’s music has also always been about the moment – where he finds himself in it and how he responds to it. But in 2013, it got personal.

This was the time that the country was in a flux, he recalls. On August 20, 2013, Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead by two men while on a morning walk. The following year, in 2014, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance came to power at the centre, with Narendra Modi becoming the new Prime Minister of India. This, he says, marked the beginning of the “saffron era” in the country. With a right-wing government at the helm, some of the deep-seated ideological and religious differences also began coming to the fore.

That same year, in June, Mohsin Shaikh, a young Muslim techie working with a private firm in Pune was lynched by a rioting mob from a radical Hindutva outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS), while returning from his evening prayers. The accused were acquitted in the case in January last year. “I was deeply affected by this particular incident,” says Dhammrakshit, “It was shocking how a young man had been killed in broad daylight in a city like Pune.”

Until then, Dhammrakshit had not overtly experienced any caste-based discrimination in his personal life. But this was also the time he began seriously introspecting about his Dalit identity. The mother of his then girlfriend, a Syrian Christian, had refused to acknowledge their relationship, claiming that “he was a Dalit and looked like one.” He remembers asking himself, “how does one look like a Dalit?”

All these incidents coalesced, pushing Dhammrakshit to start an alternative cultural movement that could give vent to his concerns. The urgency for it was further triggered by the murder of left-wing Indian politician Govind Pansare in February 2015. “People like Pansare and Dabholkar were non-violent, rational people. Their deaths felt like an immediate threat to our ‘loktantra’.”

In May 2015, he and his friends planned a two-day convention in Pune, where artists from all over were invited to perform on stage. “Artists also have a role to play in society, and we felt it was time for them to take charge and respond to all the issues affecting them.”

Many of these performers later joined hands with Dhammrakshit to launch Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch – a floating group of musicians striving for human liberation. Like its mother organization Muktiwadi Sangathan, Yalgaar also began traveling to villages across various districts of the state, Mumbai, Nanded, Nasik, and even outside to perform. For Yalgaar, the political was personal.

When the country experienced turmoil – by way of caste-atrocities or seismic legislative shifts – Dhamma was there to write, sing, and document it all. Yalgaar has been at the forefront of reviving the tradition of protest songs in Maharashtra. The troupe uses powadas, lok shahiri (the folk music of Marathi poets and saints), and street shows to discuss a wide range of problems ailing society today.

In early 2016, they led from the front at rallies demanding justice for Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, who died by suicide over alleged caste-based discrimination. Where people were sloganeering, they would sing in Marathi and Hindi to inspire the protesting crowds. They also sang during demonstrations held following the suicide of Dr. Payal Tadvi, a resident doctor at BYL Nair Hospital, who was allegedly mentally tortured and discriminated against because of her caste.

But Dhammrakshit makes it amply clear that casteism is a part of the juggernaut he is up against – and characterizing him as an artist who only takes up caste would be limiting. “We are here to protect our Constitution, and all the values enshrined in it. When you see it from that lens, you will realize that this movement we are leading is all-encompassing.”

They’ve participated in farmer rallies and CAA protests in Mumbai, written and performed songs on unemployment, women’s rights, religious ostracisation, authoritarianism, unchecked capitalism and freedom. Yalgaar member Pravin Khade says working with Dhamma and the movement has given artistes like him “the strength to talk, instead of simply staying silent.”

Dhammrakshit doesn’t believe in working in silos either. “For cultural movements to create an impact, you need to collaborate,” he says.

In 2017, Yalgaar teamed up with the protest group, The Banned, for Baar Baar Fenko, a parody on the popular Hindi song Baar Baar Dekho, released on the first anniversary of demonetisation. The five-minute-long song, which gained over 2ooK views on YouTube, highlighted the impact of PM Narendra Modi’s “thoughtless decision” to ban Rs 500- and Rs 1000-notes, to put an end to black money and counterfeit currency.

“There is a remarkable clarity in the ideological stance that Dhamma and Yalgaar has,” says filmmaker Elroy Pinto, who has cast Dhammrakshit in one of his soon-to-release films. “Politically they know where they stand, and understand what their work seeks to do.”

Of course, there are days when Dhammrakshit feels disillusioned. Yash Malviya’s poem “Dabe Pairon Se Ujala Aa Raha Hain” (“The Soft-footed Approaches the Light”), which they performed with indie folk band Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Café, is a hit among many of their listeners. “But these days, when people ask me to sing it, I tell them that I can’t. Because, where’s the light? I just can’t see it.”

But rather than impeding his art, these disenchantments have only strengthened his resolve to continue the work that he set out to do.

He is currently channeling his energy to rally artists for a new movement, tentatively titled Artist for Democracy to “counter the violence that has deepened in society.” “Today, all our institutions have been destroyed,” says Dhammrakshit, who believes that in the future, the arts will have an important role to play in keeping the society culturally engaged, and spreading the message of unity. As part of the new initiative, he is trying to build a network of artists across the city and perhaps even nationally, “who can work and collaborate together, support each other, and also help with knowledge sharing.”

Like his childhood hero Bhagat Singh, Dhammrakshit doesn’t fear wearing his patriotism on his sleeve. In a recent song, he chanted: “Azaadi, azaadi, azaadi. Jang abhi jaari hain dosto (Freedom, freedom, freedom. The fight is still on).” Freedom is what he’s going to continue to fight for, he says. “It’s a long-running battle.”