Why the backlash against AR Rahman is unfair and an act of cultural illiteracy

Half-witted journalists greedy for traction have accused Rahman of grievance-mongering, some using the interview to axe their own grind. A bunch of philistines have accused him of ingratitude, of complaining, of playing the victim card, of saying something he should have kept to himself. Surely, the point is no longer what he meant, but why he dared to say it at all. Members of the film fraternity, comprising the usual suspects, have rushed forward to publicly disagree with him, adopting the posture of correction and condescension: there is no communal bias in the industry. The industry, they insist, is fine. The problem, by implication, is Rahman’s perception. Singers who themselves have been out of work for long and composers who have never composed anything of consequence have been quick to conclude Rahman is “wrong,” and that Bollywood, by and large, is “fair.”

Not your run-of-the-mill composer

Most of these arguments have been decidedly predictable and ugly. But, to me, the most outrageous point has been the conclusion that AR Rahman’ story is over, that he has become irrelevant in the Bollywood’s new scheme of things, that he has lost his marbles/touch with the times and doesn’t have it in him to make the kind of music new generations could lap up: it’s an argument we should collectively take umbrage at. The attempt to write Rahman off is shameful and malicious. If Rahman feels that he is not getting the opportunities an artist of his stature should have no dearth of and if he feels sidelined, does it mean that he no longer matters? Absolutely not. So, it’s utterly wrong to even hint that Rahman’s best work is behind him, that the industry had moved on, that he is, in the crude language of his detractors, finished.

Let me remind his critics that Rahman is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill composer Bollywood has a dime a dozen, most of whom are happy revelling in their own mediocrity. They should know that creativity is not like consumer electronics, useful until the next model arrives, obsolete the moment it stops dazzling on command. It is a framework borrowed from markets, not from art. During the last three decades, Rahman has been an institution unto himself, lording over an empire of his own making, a self-avowed captain of his own ship. He has never sought work like others, work has come to him. If there is anyone who has changed the idiom of playback music in Hindi cinema in recent years, it’s Rahman. Beginning with Mani Ratnam’s Roja (1992) to Anand L. Rai’s s Tere Ishk Mein (2025), he has built a storied body of work that is enviable.

Also read: After 'communal' claim, AR Rahman says new generation gaslight him into doubting his work

Music, to Rahman, has been a rite of passage, a form of worship. Music has made him, redeemed him; that it’s his sole raison d'être has become amply clear after his divorce in 2024. Rahman has approached music like the way polyglot writers approach language: with fluency across systems and no anxiety about crossing borders. He could place a Sufi lyric inside a pop refrain, let a Carnatic tune coexist with a programmed beat, and still make it emotionally legible to a mass audience. He is as fluent with the sound of a zill or mridangam as he is with synthesizer arpeggios that owe allegiance to hip-hop and house rhythms.

Films like Bombay, Dil Se.., Lagaan, Swades, Rang De Basanti, Guru, Rockstar, Jodhaa Akbar, and Slumdog Millionaire would be only half good if it weren’t for Rahman’s music. You can still listen to them on loop and they would still grab your attention with their inventiveness as they did when you listened to them for the first time. There are few composers in Bollywood who could have given us tracks like Luka Chuppi, Jiya Jale, Chaiyya Chaiyya or Jai Ho. They are the songs of an artist deeply attentive to inner states, something that cannot be faked, and certainly cannot be “finished.” And if that artist thinks that there is a growing distance between creative labour and decision-making authority in Hindi cinema, the right course should have been a healthy debate around it, but since he happens to be AR Rahman, his public skewering was somewhat inevitable.

He, his music will survive this

Some critics have pointed to what they call his “hypocrisy”. Why, they ask, did he compose for a film like Chhaava, which is overtly divisive, a charge Rahman himself appeared to acknowledge in the same interview? Others have pushed a different line of attack, arguing that Rahman has, in recent years, made visible overtures to remain in the Centre’s good book. They cite his public praise of the government and of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2025, during the launch of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES), a flagship initiative aimed at young creators; Rahman was named in the advisory board.

Also read: AR Rahman’s ‘communal’ remark: Discrimination or a creative churn in Bollywood?

The backlash, they say, is something that he brought upon himself. These arguments suggest that the backlash is simply payback, that Rahman cannot participate in the system and question it. But this line of thinking ignores the reality that most artists work within systems they do not fully control. More importantly, it forgets who Rahman is: a national treasure whose work has consistently risen above divisiveness and politics, and whose identity, regardless of religion, has always been defined first and last by music.

To state the obvious, an artist cannot be reduced to his religion without doing violence to the art itself. AR Rahman has one calling, and it is music. To filter his work, his words, or his worth through the lens of faith is to fundamentally misread both the man and his music. Rahman’s compositions have never belonged to a single community; they have travelled freely across languages, regions, and beliefs. In his defence in a video message, he has clarified that he never intended to cause pain and that India is his “inspiration, teacher, and home”.

He has also returned — as he always does — to talking about music, learning, and building institutions for the future. The good news is that AR Rahman will survive all this and more because his work exists beyond the small cruelties of the moment. The greatest art does not merely satisfy the audience's expectation, it expands it, bending time itself, and insisting that listeners rise to meet it. Rahman’s work has that gravity and gravitas.

What ultimately cuts through all the noise is Rahman’s own clarity about what this moment has done to him, and what it has not. He has spoken about how constant comparison, expectations, and the pressure of good work in the past can let even a seasoned artist like him into being gaslit by younger generation, making him ‘doubt’ his own work; and how two Oscars can become less a shield and more of a burden. He has also spoken about choosing to keep working, to keep learning, to keep trusting the music rather than the distractions of the present tense. He has insisted that it’s music — not outrage, not validation — is still the centre of his life. If anything, this controversy will pass like so many others, while his music will always be there, waiting for us to catch up.