Punjab in renewed bid to crack down on songs glorifying guns

"I have five bullets in my gun for your five brothers," sings a young man padded up in a fashionable black leather jacket and brandishing a double-barrelled gun. It is a scene drawn from a music video that has garnered more than 18 million views on YouTube.

- Debarshi Dasgupta

Another, with 24 million views, is replete with gang violence and menacing pit bulls straining at their leashes. Its singer, his hands stretched outwards as if they were pointed guns, shoots out these words: "It is where weapons are banned that the Jatt (a dominant caste in Punjab) fires proudly." 

Contemporary Punjabi music's addiction to guns and violence, something these two hit songs illustrate, is back in the news.

On Nov 13, the Aam Aadmi Party's state government in Punjab imposed a ban on songs promoting guns and violence, besides prohibiting weapons from being flaunted publicly and ordering a review of existing arms licences in the north Indian state.

This is not the first time the government has tried to deal with this rampant problem in a state where owning a gun is regarded as a status symbol by many, and pop songs frequently glorify gun culture, drugs and caste-based violence, besides sexually objectifying women.

In February 2020, the preceding Congress government had announced it would "not allow release of any movie/songs promoting gangsters and violence".