Facing Threats: T-Series Removes Atif Aslam & Rahat Songs from YouTube

The first casualty of war is sanity. An Indian record label T-Series has decided to remove all songs on its YouTube channel that were sung by Pakistani artists, depriving millions of fans from listening to their favorite hits.

T-Series has taken down Atif Aslam songs as well as Rahat Fateh Ali songs from its online YouTube channel. The move was made in response to the Pulwama attack carried out by a Kashmiri youth, which resulted in the deaths of 40+ Indian soldiers in the occupied territory. The Indian authorities alleged that the attacks were executed by a Pakistani-backed group JeM.

The move comes right across the heels of calls by extremist right-wing political party Shiv Sena, to boycott Pakistani artists and singers in India. The party threatened to take action against any Indian company that gives a platform to Pakistani artists.

This is a troubling development, as T-Series’ Bhushan Kumar had partnered with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Atif Aslam to produce two new songs.

Not the First Time

In 2016, when an Indian army barracks was attacked by freedom fighters, Raj Thackeray’s Sena gave a deadline of 48 hours to Pakistani celebrities to leave India.

Following the recent attacks, a lot of Indian celebrities are calling off collaborations with Pakistan. Artists like Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar have canceled their commitments of visiting Pakistan and have also called for a ban on cultural exchanges between the two countries.

One hopes that artists should not become hostage to political whims as easily as required. But sadly, the world is hostage to nationalist and jingoistic perspectives that serve narrow aims. Pakistan and India deserve much better from their leaders.