Peerzada Masarat Shah
In the noisy theatre of Indian public life, few sparks catch fire quicker than a celebrity dropping an uncomfortable observation. AR Rahman’s recent conversation with the BBC Asian Network did exactly that. He quietly noted that his work in Hindi cinema has tapered off, possibly because of “communal” currents and because the people now green-lighting projects often value connections over creativity. No names were named. No call to boycott. No sweeping condemnation of the country. Just one man reflecting on the arc of his own career. The reaction, though, was immediate and ferocious.
Within hours the usual machinery kicked in: social-media warriors, television panellists, and self-appointed guardians of national honour branded him ungrateful, divisive, even disloyal. His conversion decades ago—from Dileep Kumar to Allah Rakha Rahman—was dragged out again as a kind of permanent disqualification. The subtext was unmistakable: a Muslim who has tasted global success has no business complaining about bias in India. Never mind that his music—whether the soaring patriotism of “Vande Mataram” or the Sufi-tinged devotion of “Kun Faya Kun”—has moved millions across religious lines for thirty years.
Disagreement is healthy. Anyone can challenge Rahman’s perception, argue that Bollywood’s shifts have more to do with changing tastes, star dominance, or corporate risk-aversion than communal prejudice. That is legitimate debate. What crossed into uglier territory was the personal venom: the religious profiling, the insinuations of divided loyalty, the demand that material success should forever silence any sense of marginalisation.
This selective temperature reveals a deeper inconsistency. The same public sphere that erupts over Rahman’s mild remark has spent years normalising far sharper identity rhetoric when it flows the other way. Phrases like “Hindu khatre mein hai” have been broadcast, billboarded, and turned into electoral currency without triggering the same level of moral panic. When a Muslim artist shares a personal experience of exclusion, however, the word “communal” suddenly becomes explosive and patriotism is invoked as a shield.
The icons of India’s freedom struggle would recognise this pattern—and reject it. BR Ambedkar, who drafted the Constitution’s guarantee of free expression, insisted that real liberty begins in the mind. He wrote that a person whose thoughts are not free is still a slave, even without physical chains. He fought precisely so that voices from the margins could speak without fear of majoritarian reprisal. Rahman’s understated comment fits that tradition: a citizen exercising a hard-won right to describe the world as he sees it.
Mahatma Gandhi took a similar line. He believed freedom worthless if it excluded the freedom to err. “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes,” he said. He endured imprisonment, yet refused to let anyone imprison his mind. By that measure, the expectation that Rahman’s wealth and fame should buy permanent gratitude—and silence—is a form of mental chaining.
Bhagat Singh called freedom an “imperishable birthright” and argued that ideas, not just guns, drive real change. He would have seen through today’s asymmetry: political slogans built on fear and division are allowed to flourish, but a single artist’s reflection on structural bias is treated as sedition. The revolutionary understood that stifling uncomfortable speech weakens the very republic it claims to protect.
Swami Vivekananda, speaking at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions, proudly described India’s tradition of “universal toleration” and acceptance of all faiths as true. That spirit feels distant when a musician’s lived experience is met with accusations of playing the “communal card.” If the reaction would have been milder had the speaker been a Hindu artist voicing similar frustrations—as many candid observers privately admit—then the outrage is not about principle. It is about whose voice is deemed permissible.
The media ecosystem has played its part in turning a thoughtful remark into a national spectacle. Prime-time debates thrive on volume and simplification; nuance does not rate. Rahman’s soft-spoken insight is shouted down while polarisation packaged as patriotism gets prime airtime. This is not public service. It is entertainment dressed in the flag.
Rahman has never positioned himself as a perpetual victim. He has simply described a shift he feels in the rooms where decisions are made. Whether one agrees with his diagnosis or not, the principle remains: free expression is not a reward for loyalty or success. It is a right meant to survive discomfort. When it is extended generously to voices that flatter the majority mood but withdrawn the moment a minority perspective surfaces, the democracy itself shrinks.
The question that lingers is simple. If the same words had come from someone else, would the temperature have risen so high? The honest answer, for most people, is no. That single admission should force a pause and some real introspection.
India’s greatness has always rested on its willingness to hear inconvenient truths, not on manufacturing consensus through fear or fury. Rahman, through his music, has spent a lifetime building bridges. The least the nation can do is let him speak without drowning his voice in manufactured outrage.
Free speech is not the problem. Our selective intolerance of it is.
