CANCELLED: Dalit Performativity and Masculine Normativity? Considering the life and works of Sant Ram Udasi and Amar Singh Chamkila

In exploring the lives and works of two Punjabi singers who came from Dalit backgrounds, the accuracy and relevance of this caste positioning is put into question. Udasi as a Naxalite revolutionary with some sympathy to Sikh separatist forces in the early 1980s and Chamkila, was known for his lascivious lyrics and died in a violent encounter, blamed on Khalistanis. Perhaps in relation to Paash, the renowned leftist poet of the 1980s these two characters are neglected repeating caste privilege and thus justifying the appellation Dalit in relation to caste. In exploring these poet-performers the question of gender is prominent, as Iqbal Kaur (Udasi’s daughter) continues his legacy in propagating his ideology and the emergence of Ginni Mahi asserting a positive ‘Chamar’ identity through Ravidas and Ambedkar disrupting the hypermasculine overtones of Punajabi pop aesthetics.

Professor Virinder S Kalra is head of the Sociology department at the University of Warwick. His research interests are in the popular culture of Punjab and its diaspora.