For nearly a century, Bollywood has reimagined the sacred Sufi tradition of Qawwali — transforming devotional song into a cinematic language of love, longing, and coexistence. From 'Barsaat Ki Raat' to 'Delhi-6' and 'Mulk', the filmi qawwali has evolved from the dargah to the big screen, blending faith with popular culture and reflecting India’s composite identity. Yet, as communal tensions rise, these songs’ visions of harmony feel increasingly utopian.
In the winter of 2023, I spent a cold, suffocating month in New Delhi. It was a difficult time for me. The project I was working on had fallen apart halfway through. To make things worse, I was navigating quite a serious heartbreak. I lived in a sublet shared with two UPSC aspirants in Old Rajendra Nagar and survived most of that month on cheap coffee and cold sandwiches from the 24x7 convenience store on the ground floor of the apartment building. I spent the days hanging around at Humayun’s Tomb, reading in the Lodhi Garden, getting drunk on soju at the Humaynpur food hub, and going around in circles on the Delhi Metro. On Thursdays, I’d take the Pink Line to Nizamuddin and spend most of the evening listening to qawwali at the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah. I was yearning for something — I didn’t quite know what — and performing my yearning in the only way that seemed appropriate for what felt like a rather dramatic moment in my life, very much like a Bollywood protagonist.
Since the 1940s, the beginning of the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema, Bollywood has drawn inspiration from the qawwali — a sacred Sufi music tradition rooted in spiritual yearning — and turned the tradition into one of its most striking cinematic idioms. What began as a devotional tradition performed in the intimate spaces of dargahs (shrines) and khanaqahs (hermitages) has travelled into mainstream cinema, shedding none of its intensity even as it adapts to socio-political changes.
The Bollywood qawwali, once used primarily to complement Muslim narratives in early Hindi films, has since evolved into a versatile musical form capable of carrying stories of romance, rebellion, healing, self-discovery, and coexistence. One of Indian Cinema’s most poignant moments in recent years takes place to the words and sound of ‘Kun Faya Kun’ from Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Rockstar’ (2011). Written by Irshaad Kamil and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and composed by A.R. Rahman, this modern qawwali draws from the Quranic concept of “be, and it is” — how God creates everything simply by willing it into existence. But it also echoes the Vedic concept of 'Nasadiya Sukta' or the Rigvedic creation hymn. The verse “jab kahin pe kuchh nahi bhi nahin tha” is almost identical to the opening line of the Nasadiya Sukta which goes: "nā́sad āsīn nó sád āsīt tadā́nīṃ" or "when even non-existence was not there, nor existence."
The earliest qawwalis in Bollywood, like ‘Na To Caravan Ki Talash Hai’ from Barsaat Ki Raat (1960), largely mirrored their real-life counterparts —faithful in raga, structure, and devotional lyrics, but as Hindi cinema evolved, so did its qawwali. By the 2000s, composers were reworking the form into hybrid soundscapes. A.R. Rahman’s ‘Arziyan’ in 'Delhi-6' (2009) exemplifies this shift. Rooted in classical Hindustani elements yet infused with Western instrumentation and a soft, sentimental vocal style, the song brought traditional Sufi aesthetics into a more contemporary register. Its visual narrative — set at Jama Masjid, intercut with scenes of shared Hindu and Muslim life in Old Delhi — evoked a cinematic space where plural identities could coexist, even if only fleetingly.
A similar spirit animates ‘Piya Samaye’ from Mulk (2018), a film centred on a Muslim family in Varanasi fighting the stigma of being associated with terrorism. The song, performed by Shafqat Amanat Ali and Arshad Hussain, is composed around the classic call-and-response structure of qawwali and features both traditional percussion and modern orchestration. Its lyrics — written by Anurag Saikia — draw inspiration from and invokes India’s syncretic Bhakti and Sufi traditions through verses like “Kashi bhi mujh mein… Kaaba bhi mujh mein” — “Kashi is within me, Kaaba is within me”; and “Mandir ke chhajje ki main goreya (...) Masjid ke gumbaj ki main kabootar” — “I am the sparrow that sits on the canopy of the temple (...) I am the pigeon that sits on the dome of a mosque”. Here, the qawwali serves as an emotional anchor — an assertion that kinship and compassion can transcend mistrust.
Other examples—like ‘Piya Haji Ali’ from Fiza (2000), ‘Khwaja Mere Khwaja’ from Jodhaa Akbar (2008), ‘Data Di Diwani’ from Youngistaan (2014), and ‘Bhar Do Jholi Meri’ from Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) — are part of the same musical lineage. Each reimagines the qawwali as a shared cultural inheritance woven into the very fabric of Indian life rather than a strictly religious form.
Today, the communal harmony invoked in these songs may feel naïve, hypocritical, and increasingly at odds with a reality shaped by increasing polarisation, violence, and rising majoritarian nationalism. The Bollywood qawwali may not be enough to resolve these tensions but it still offers something meaningful in its pluralist vision of a shared country: a reminder of India’s syncretic past and a fragile vision of what coexistence could look like. In an age marked by fracture after fracture, these songs still insist —softly, yet resolutely — that unity is possible, if only we will it into existence.
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