‘Efforts on to tackle vulgarity in songs’

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government plans to make a concerted effort by various departments to check vulgarity in Punjabi songs. However, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator from Mansa Najar Singh Manshahia, who raised the issue, is not satisfied and wants a censor board for Punjabi songs instead. In reply to a question by Manshahia in the Punjab assembly, local bodies and cultural affairs minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has said, “Punjabi singers and writers in some of their songs use words like whiskey, fights, brawls, weapons and also words that promote obscenity.”


Sidhu added, “The government has notified Punjab state culture policy after extensive deliberations with intellectuals and prominent personalities in the field of art, literature and music. As per provisions of the policy, efforts are being made to curb vulgarity in songs. It is also proposed to spread awareness jointly with other departments.” However, unsatisfied with the effort, Manshahia told TOI, “The state has some well-known poets and writers like Surjit Patar and they can be brought together to constitute a censor board. The objectionable lyrics not just prompt youth to take their education non-seriously, these are also provocations for criminal acts. A song where the singer wants to go back to his hostel room to have liquor with friends would only corrupt the mindset.”

There has been public outcry against objectionable lyrics of Punjabi songs for some time. Even the last SAD-BJP government had taken steps to curb it. In November 2012, the transport department had banned drivers from playing vulgar and provocative songs in the state-run transport buses as a preventive measure against fatal accidents.

Prior to this, a proposal to set up a censor board for Punjabi songs was also first mooted by then Punjab cultural affairs minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur but the body was never constituted. Now, the draft of Punjab state cultural policy, 2017 says the state would use culture for promotion of human values and targeting social evils, like drugs, female foeticide, vulgarity, dowry and honour killings.