Building fear song by song, video by video

Kunal Purohit's debut book of non-fiction, 'H-Pop' is a searing account of how hate and paranoia are spread through pop culture

- Akshaya Mukul

Kunal Purohit has made my tiny life as a part-time teacher simpler. Over two semesters, students of two different batches have come up with questions on how the pot of everyday communalism, bigotry and hatred against Muslims is kept on the boil. We have discussed and analysed videos and pamphlets. But nothing the way Purohit has.

He presents before us an India, or its dangerous slice, whose moral universe is built entirely upon hate and paranoia. A universe of propaganda as pop, which is accessible to ordinary citizens through a few clicks. Purohit highlights the sheer ordinariness through which poetry, music and books are used to attack critics by using alternative forms of distribution like YouTube and Facebook to reach audiences. His cast of characters, Kamal Agney, a poet, Kavi Singh, a singer, and Sandeep Deo, a journalist-turned-YouTuber, are all social media stars who have been fed hate which they spew with greater vigour. They represent a north India that looks at the political calculus only through the prism of hate, built through bazaar history where facts are on a permanent vacation and imaginary fear rules the roost. Or as my historian friend Aparna Vaidik says, the past is not past but the past is a smoking gun.

H-Pop: The Secretive World Of Hindutva Pop Stars is a searing read on how majoritarian anger and paranoia built entirely on falsehood is being injected into the veins of ordinary citizens through the smart use of technology directly and freely available on mobile phones. The book also makes us wonder why the antidote of mohabbat (love) being bandied about needs to be way stronger than mere rhetoric.