How Indian music is attracting listeners by breaking the language barrier with its quality tunes

To me, there’s one way to put an end to the debate around Hindi being the de facto national language - by looking at the country’s music charts. Though we have over half-a-dozen music streaming services, we can turn to only two of their charts. Gaana, Hungama Music and JioSaavn publish language-specific lists - or should that be playlists? - and while Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, Resso and Wynk Music share daily or weekly surveys, they don’t specify the number of streams tallied by the tracks. This leaves Spotify and YouTube, which respectively show the exact sum of plays received by a song or video over the past day or week. Considering that Spotify is believed to be more popular among the metro-residing audience and that YouTube has a large pan-Indian audience base, a look at both their charts gives a good snapshot of which languages dominate India’s music listening. The answer though isn’t quite as simple as it might seem.

Here are the Indic-language songs that have hit No.1 on Spotify India over the past 12 months, and the language they’re in. “Raataan Lambiyan” (from _Shershaah_ ), Tanishk Bagchi, Jubin Nautiyal and Asees Kaur, Punjabi “Ranjha” (from Shershaah), Jasleen Royal, B. Praak, Romy and Anvita Dutt, Punjabi “Excuses”, AP Dhillon, Gurinder Gill and Intense, Punjabi “Pasoori”, Shae Gill and Ali Sethi, Punjabi “295”, Sidhu Moose Wala, Punjabi “Kesariya” (from _Brahmastra_ ), Pritam, Arijit Singh and Amitabh Bhattacharya, Hindi Only one out of six, the most recent chart-topper, “Kesariya” is in Hindi. The remaining five are in Punjabi, two of which, “Raataan Lambiyan” and “Ranjha”, are from a Hindi film. But their words are mostly in Punjabi and if you search for their lyrics on Google, the first result displays them in Gurmukhi. The Punjabi-fication of Bollywood is now almost three almost decades old so this is hardly surprising. Notably, the list includes a track each from Canada (“Excuses”) and Pakistan (“Pasoori”) as well. While “Kesariya” has prevented it from being entirely dominated by Punjabi, the Hindi version of the tune, as you probably know, has been critically mauled for the inclusion of a Hinglish phrase and its south Indian versions have been more universally acclaimed. It has also, predictably, spawned a fan-created Punjabi cover version. The composition, meanwhile, has drawn comparisons to an Urdu hit from 2007, “Laree Choote” by Pakistani band Call, which was included in a Hindi film _Ek Chalis Ki Last Local_ . Clearly, as far as the most popular songs on Spotify in India are concerned, Punjabi, not Hindi, is the most consumed language. However, as mentioned above, the audio-streaming platform maybe not provide us the complete picture and it’s likely it has a stronger presence in the north than in the south. Here then are the No.1s on YouTube’s Top Music Videos chart for India during the last 12 months.

“Paani Paani”, Badshah and Aastha Gill, Hindi “Bachpan Ka Pyaar”, Badshah, Aastha Gill, Sahdev Dirdo and Rico, Hindi “Raataan Lambiyan” (from Shershaah), Tanishk Bagchi, Jubin Nautiyal and Asees Kaur, Punjabi “Dil Galti Kar Baitha Hai”, Jubin Nautiyal Meet Bros. and Shardul Rathod, Hindi “Tu Yaheen Hai”, Shehnaaz Kaur Gill, Hindi “Tip Tip” (from _Sooryavanshi_ ), Tanishk Bagchi, Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik, Hindi “Jugnu”, Badshah and Nikhita Gandhi, Hindi “Kusu Kusu” (from _Satyamev Jayate 2_ ), Tanishk Bagchi, Zahrah S. Khan and Dev Negi, Hindi “Oo Cholluno Oo Oo Cholluno” (from _Pushpa: The Rise_ ), Devi Sri Prasad, Ramya Nambessan and Siju Thuravoor, Malayalam “Bijlee Bijlee”, Harrdy Sandhu, Punjabi “Oo Anthiya Oo Oo Anthiya” (from Pushpa: The Rise), Devi Sri Prasad, Mangli and Varadaraj Chikkaballapura, Kannada “Srivalli” (from Pushpa: The Rise), Devi Sri Prasad, Javed Ali and Raqueeb Alam, Hindi “Saami Saami” (from Pushpa: The Rise), Devi Sri Prasad, Rajalakshmi Senthil Ganesh and Viveka, Tamil “Naacho Naacho” (from RRR), M M. Keeravani, Vishal Mishra, Rahul Sipligunj and Riya Mukherjee, Hindi “Le Le Aayi Coca Cola”, Shilpi Raj and Khesari Lal Yadav, Bhojpuri “295”, Sidhu Moose Wala, Punjabi “Gypsy”, G. D. Kaur, Raj Mawar and Rohtash Sharma, Haryanvi “Arabic Kuthu” (from Beast), Anirudh Ravichander, Jonita Gandhi and Sivakarthikeyan, Tamil “Har Har Shambhu Shiv Mahadeva”, Jeetu Sharma, Sanskrit “Kesariya” (from Brahmastra), Pritam, Arijit Singh and Amitabh Bhattacharya, Hindi YouTube, as you can see, shows a different story, with eight languages represented across 20 chart toppers. Even here, there’s more than meets the eye. The ten Hindi No.1s include three from Bollywood but also two from dubbed versions of Telugu movies, “Srivalli” from _Pushpa: The Rise_ and “Naacho Naacho” from _RRR_ . Ironically, three of the Hindi leaders come courtesy of Punjabi singer and rapper Badshah . Things get more complicated when you realise, as I did, that for a couple of tracks, clicking on the link to the video from the YouTube chart take you to clips in a different language. The Malayalam “Oo Cholluno Oo Oo Cholluno” and Kannada “Oo Anthiya Oo Oo Anthiya” opens up to variations of the video for the original Telugu - and better known - version of the song “Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava”. Similarly “Saami Saami” goes to the Hindi interpretation instead of the Tamil one. Punjabi, Haryanvi, Bhojpuri and Sanskrit are also in the mix, proving that YouTube does give a broader representation of what India is streaming. That Hindi videos boast the highest number of views is a consequence of it being the most widely spoken and therefore heard language in the country. On YouTube, the only tongue that comes closest to matching Hindi’s numbers is Punjabi (“Bijlee Bijlee”, for instance, has crossed 400 million plays). But Punjabi is not our national language any more than Hindi is. Moreover, the share of both Bollywood and Hindi music overall, has been gradually declining on streaming services. This is a good thing. It means they’re reaching farther and deeper and the health of the Indian music industry is getting less dependent on the film industry, which has been going through a prolonged creative crisis in its soundtrack output and been borrowing heavily from the Punjabi pop scene. More than focusing on the language of consumption, both film stars and musicians would do well to put their energies into the quality of their content. A Tamil song being the No.1 track in India is as much of a possibility as the mostly-Spanish “Despacito” becoming one of the longest-running chart toppers in the US back in 2017. In today’s digital, border-less age, it’s bound to become a regular occurrence.

Amit Gurbaxani is a Mumbai-based journalist who has been writing about music, specifically the country’s independent scene, for nearly two decades. He tweets  @TheGroovebox

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