Amar Singh Chamkila: Bawdy songs and radical obscenity

During a musical tour of Canada in 1987, Punjabi singer Amar Singh Chamkila, played by Diljit Dosanjh in the recently released biopic, is summoned by a committee of Sikh religious leaders. Musician and ethnomusicologist Gibb Schreffler classifies the popular duo of Chamkila and Amarjot as a subcategory of “commercial folk music” that reached a peak in the 1970s and ’80s. Their popularity peaked with duet singers, such as Chamkila and Amarjot, whose performances were often, writes Schreffler, “a sort of risqué banter, which was reminiscent of certain wedding songs of jousting between the bride and groom’s families.” Bawdy songs are a part of Punjabi folk culture, as they are in many other parts of India such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, or Maharashtra. American philosopher Abraham Kalpan links “obscenity”, etymologically, to “obscures – what is concealed.” He argues that art makes meaning through symbols, and at the heart of each symbol lies something that is concealed. Legal scholar Latika Vashist studies several cases between 1860 and 2015, and shows that the law dealing with obscenity “mobilises the emotions of disgust and fear to strengthen the dominant normative sexual order.” An allegation of obscenity functions like a self-fulfilling prophecy, following a predetermined trajectory.