Pitting music against religion is divisive

A refrain from a well-known old film song loops in my head: "Baba bole gelo/ Ar kono din gaan koro na/ Keno bole gelo/ Shey kotha ti bole gelo na/ Gaan jodi prithibi te nai thakto/'sa re ga ma pa dha nisa' ki kore hoto!

- AASHA MEHREEN AMIN

Written by Amjad Hossain, composed by Alauddin Ali and sung by Shamima Yasmin Diba, this catchy tune from Jonmo Theke Jolchhi once seemed silly to me as a child, fuel for parody and inside jokes in the family. Only now do I understand its quiet heartbreak.

The song grieves the imagined loss of music, asking: if singing is forbidden, why have so many songs been written about the children we have lost? It insists that songs are not just entertainment but a vehicle for mourning, protest, inspiration, and memory. The message of that film song is that music is vital to human expression and resistance; without it, the world loses something fundamental. Without music, the soul becomes a desert.

I remember the overwhelming emotion when thousands sang "Dhono Dhanne Pushpe Bhora" during the protests in July-August last year. I think of the brave voices of the Bangladesh Mukti Sangrami Shilpi Sangstha in 1971, the young artistes singing in the refugee camps and on the battlefronts to lift spirits and unify a nation. Their work, captured in Muktir Gaan, a

documentary by Catherine and Tareq Masud based on footage captured by American filmmaker Lear Levin, remains a testament to music's power in the fight against oppression.