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‘Terrible atrocities continue’: Kapil Seshasayee, the Scottish musician calling out casteism | Music


In 2000, pregnant 19-year-old Harpreet Kaur was found dead in mysterious circumstances. Her mother, the then chief of the committee that manages Sikh places of worship across India, cited severe food poisoning as the cause. The truth was much more sinister. Kaur was murdered following her secret marriage to 21-year-old Kamaljeet Singh – a lower-caste man – against the wishes of her mother.

Although India’s caste system is a centuries-old form of social hierarchy, incidents like this remain an ugly reality in modern-day south Asia, with caste-based “honour” killings, discrimination and violence all prevalent. The brutal beating of labourer and activist Bant Singh in 2006 is another notable example: the ambush was a punishment for having sought justice against some upper-caste men for the gang-rape of his daughter. Singh lost both arms and a leg in the attack.

Kaur and Singh’s stories both appear in the music of Scottish-Indian artist Kapil Seshasayee. “Terrible atrocities have been committed, and they continue to be committed,” he says. “To me, it’s too big not to call it out.”

Seshasayee describes himself as a protest musician, and speaks over Zoom in a measured but passionate tone about casteism and other forms of discrimination. Our conversation happens as India faces a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, exacerbated by what is seen as prime minister Narendra Modi’s weak leadership and the collective failure of the government. The daily death toll continues to be catastrophic, but as Seshasayee explains, the caste-oppressed are the hardest hit, receiving little support and even being openly blamed by Modi’s party for spreading the virus. “Caste is one of those things that’s visibly a factor in terms of who is saved and protected, and who isn’t,” he says.

Kapil Seshasayee performing in 2018.
Bringing together pop, alt-rock and Indian classical sounds … Seshasayee performing in 2018

Like so many others with family in India, Seshasayee is affected by the events unfolding in the country. This sense of frustration and grief comes out naturally in his music, which combines pop, alt-rock and other contemporary genres with Indian classical sounds. As a child in Glasgow, he remembers being enchanted by the veena, a stringed instrument owned by his Indian relatives. “I wasn’t interested in any of the toys my uncles and aunts had bought me; I just wanted to sit and faff about with that instrument.”

This fascination led to other instruments and playing with bands as a teenager, but it was when he finished university and moved back to Glasgow to become a carer for his parents that he rediscovered music as a safe haven and creative outlet, including as a gig promoter and goer. “I don’t feel like I’d make the same kind of music that I do now if it weren’t for Glasgow’s DIY scene,” he says.

He gradually found strength as a solo artist. A Sacred Bore (2018) is one of the most promising debut albums to come out of Scotland in recent years. With reflections on identity and privilege, it blends avant-pop experimentalism, industrial atmospherics and Carnatic (south Indian) guitar lines while surveying the oppression of the caste system, “based originally within the laws of Hinduism”, Seshasayee explains. “These ancient laws ascribed careers to certain castes: upper caste people would be priests or landowners, and lower caste people would be manual labourers. But, over time, it became more about social mobility, or lack thereof. I had always grown up with casteism in the background. It’s such a vast thing and I was long overdue taking steps to tackle it. A Sacred Bore exists to platform a conversation that I don’t think is being had often enough.”

The album also examines why casteism as a concept is so attractive to white supremacists and the alt-right. The last single from the album, The Agitprop (an item of propaganda with a political message), was written after Seshasayee saw a T-shirt with Hindu slogans being sold by a far-right organisation called Vanguard America at the Charlottesville riots in 2017. “I thought: why would a white supremacist be so into a largely non-white religion? But what you realise is that casteism includes an obsession with this idea of purity: the lighter your skin is, the purer you are and the more entitled to privilege you are. It’s a very difficult thing to talk about, but it’s a very easy thing to notice.”

The album and its discussions on casteism have resonated with many listeners since its release. One of its most unlikely fans that Seshasayee is idiosyncratic America rapper Lil B. Last year, he tweeted his 1.2 million followers to ask for an explanation of the caste system, to which Seshasayee replied. What followed was a prolonged private exchange over Twitter, resulting in a collaboration. “I was expecting in 10 years’ time to be like, ‘Remember when I almost did a collaboration with Lil B?’ But my producer sent him the stems for a new track, and within 45 minutes he had replied.”

Hill Station Reprise has Lil B referencing the vastly contrasting experiences of “Brahmins” (the highest-ranking caste group) and “untouchables” (considered the lowest class of the hierarchy) in his lyrics. “Really, I love this song and the artist,” Lil B tells me. “This track is heartfelt and I appreciate supporting what is good and what is love. We should be talking about the caste system because it’s important to support all humans and make sure nobody is being put down or held back.”

Sonically and thematically, Hill Station Reprise offers a preview of Seshasayee’s forthcoming second album Laal, which he describes as a “psychedelic R&B-meets-Indian-classical crossover”, focusing on how Bollywood can be a lens through which to explore topics such as casteism, nationalism and misogyny. “This new album is all about getting folk to engage with larger, more complex issues by framing them around certain lyrical devices to draw them in.”

The track The Pink Mirror uses a film of the same name by queer filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan to explore censorship of LGBTQ+ voices: “The Pink Mirror remains banned in India while problematic depictions of trans Indians continue to be viewed by millions.”

In another track, The Gharial, Seshasayee interrogates nationalism, referring to a scene from the 2020 Hindi-language film Tanhaji, in which a cartoonish caricature of a Muslim character barbecues and devours a gharial – a type of crocodile sacred to Hindus. “Images like these in massive blockbusters are not a mere coincidence,” he says. “They exist to profit off existing tensions between Muslims and Hindus and only worsen them over time. Hindu nationalism has become more and more violent over the past few years in modern India, and the normalising of caricatures of Muslims in mainstream Bollywood who exist only to be hated by Hindus is dangerous and inflammatory.”

While the trademark rhythmic patterns, microtonality and ornamentation of Indian classical is often referenced in contemporary releases – such as Four Tet’s Morning/Evening, Bonobo’s Migration or in the music of Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – for artists like Seshasayee, this dialogue between classical and contemporary is about more than just musical identity. It becomes a means to challenge and educate on vital issues that affect the south Asian diaspora.

“It’s time for some serious changes to the way decisions are being made and we need to be holding those making these decisions accountable,” he says. “People are blinkered by the extent of their own nationalism and would rather vilify any given minority group than accept that the government they voted in has broken numerous promises. It’s important to understand how this unquestioning brand of nationalism became so normalised, and one need not look any further than the media we consume.” India’s current perilous moment, with Modi potentially weathering the fatal mismanagement of the pandemic, could be the perfect case in point.



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