“Hum to bhai jaise hain waise rahenge” (I will remain the way I am).

This popular Hindi song continues to echo in my head ever since the recent death of prominent Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar at the age of 92.

I have loved this number that was sung by her for the Shah Rukh Khan– and Preity Zinta–starring Veer-Zaara, released in 2004.

The words in the song have remained close to my heart as they reflect the female embodiment of my personality. It was composed for a rebellious female Pakistani character played by Preity, who tries to break societal norms.

Even if it might be embarrassing for me to admit, I have been in tears after listening to it several times in the wake of Lata’s death. After all, my generation of Indians grew up listening to her melodious voice for all these years. She was a voice we could connect with.

That the United Nations also mourned the loss says a lot about her following across the globe.

So much so, the prime minister of Pakistan, which is often bashed by the current Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi, had words of praise for her.

How could we be not saddened over the end of an era?

That said, being a journalist and a critic of the Hindu right that continues to grow powerful—endangering the secular fabric of my home country—I cannot ignore what Lata represented in terms of the political reality of India.

Let’s face it—she sided with the Indian state’s propaganda to weaken the farmers’ protest.

Indian farmers camped outside New Delhi for a year from November 2020 to November 2021 to raise their voices against unjust farm laws that were eventually revoked.

When world-renowned figures such as Rihanna offered their support, the BJP government tried to rope in Indian film and entertainment celebrities to counter them. And Lata was one of them. She missed the bus by refusing to stand up for the toiling masses.

In the past, she praised controversial political figures such as Bal Thackeray, the founder of the Shiv Sena ultranationalist political party, which terrorized Muslims, as well as non-Maharashtrians in Mumbai.

https://twitter.com/mangeshkarlata/status/1220208771512725504?ref_src=tw...

She was also an admirer of V.D. Savarkar, a Hindu supremacist leader who was charged in the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—the towering leader of the passive resistance movement against the British.

Gandhi was murdered in 1948 for opposing the religious partition of India and Pakistan and challenging the ideology of Hindu chauvinism. Savarkar was acquitted despite testimony that he met with the killer on two occasions in the two weeks before the murder.

Savarkar is also unashamedly revered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who himself is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It's an ultranationalist organization that aspires to turn India into Hindu theocracy.

For the record, the BJP is a political wing of the RSS.

It is not surprising to see how some of Lata’s supporters trolled Shah Rukh Khan when he came to give her his last respects. His Muslim way of giving tribute to the departed soul was deliberately misinterpreted as disrespect.

Ever since the BJP came to power in 2014, not attacks on religious minorities, particularly Muslims, have spiked. And the toxic political environment all over the country has spilled over to Bollywood.

This was not the first time that a Muslim star was hounded in this manner. There have been numerous instances.

This is not to minimize the contributions of Lata as a singer. Apart from entertaining society, she aroused passions in all of us through her powerful voice and songs that inspired many for change. One example is when she sang “Aurat ne Janam Diya Mardon ko, Mardon ne Use Bazaar Dia” (woman gave birth to the men, but the men gave her a brothel) in the 1958 film Sadhna.

The evokes anger, which leads one to speak out against sexual abuse.

Obviously, Lata only lent her voice for the song—the lyrics were by Sahir Ludhianvi—but good poetry can remain alive only if it is sung with feelings.

We must give credit to Lata where it belongs, but not overlook where she lacked. And she could have done better by using her stature to question the powerful, at least for the sake of her followers and for the diversity of India.

If anyone takes this as an offence, please refer to the opening line of my column.