The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind

In the Hindi film music that I grew up listening to, thanks to my sister and father, two singers dominated.  The male voice was a Muslim's and the female singer was a Hindu.  Much later in life, the iconic singer who was a Hindu endorsed the candidacy of the leader of the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP.

Odds are overwhelming that the iconic Muslim singer would never have supported an anti-Muslim crusader, modi, to become the country's Prime Minister.  After all, modi's track record compelled even the US government to bar him from entering the country.  The BJP's vehement anti-Muslim politics included targeting the leading stars in Bollywood who are Muslims.  Yet, the revered Hindu singer apparently had no qualms supporting the Hindu nationalists.

The Hindu female singer, Lata Mangeshkar, was one of the earliest to publicly support the idea of modi as India's Prime Minister:

Speaking on November 1, 2013, at a Pune programme where Modi inaugurated the new Deenanath Mangeshkar super specialty hospital, the Mangeshkar formally endorsed him to head the country. 

In her speech, Lata Mangeshkar, said, “I pray to God for what everyone wants – that Narendrabhai should become the prime minister of the country.” 

Mangeshkar’s comments evoked huge applause from the audience to which she said, “Your response suggests you also want the same.”

Mangeshkar died of old age that Covid hastened.

In remembering her after her death, should one focus only on the musical artist that she was--and she was an excellent one--or do we also consider her support for the anti-democratic fundamentalists?  Do artists like her who have an extraordinary amount of influence have a responsibility for what they say and do in public?

In a world in which gun manufacturers are not held responsible for senseless violence, in a world in which Union Carbide has yet to pay for the enormous crime it committed in Bhopal, in a world in which there are millions of such examples, I suppose it is too much to ask an individual artist to behave responsibly and ethically.

On the other hand, we should expect political parties, which decide a government's policies and, therefore, direct the lives of the public, to be cautious and responsible.  As we have seen with the strongman favoring party here in the US, the BJP in India couldn't care about anything other than amassing political power.  No time was wasted in the context of Mangeshkar's death after a leading Bollywood actor--a Muslim--paid his respects to the dead artist:

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Prashant Patel Umrao quote-tweeted another person who shared the viral video and wrote, “Shahrukh is Spitting!”.

The publication, India Today, has a "Anti-Fake News War room (AFWA)."  Such is the state of the world today that the American strongman has created where "fake news" spreads fast and it is enormous work to fact-check and clean up the records; by then, of course, a lot more fake news would have spread.

The AFWA reported that "Khan did not spit, rather he blew air after offering prayers."

Meanwhile, instead of heaping shame on the BJP spokesperson for spreading incendiary fake news, the discussion has morphed into whether Khan was correctly practicing Islam by blowing air after offering prayers in front of a dead body.

This is not what I imagined the world would be back when I was an idealistic teenager.