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On January 16, the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya was inaugurated, sparking a nationwide celebration. Three days before that, a minor Dalit girl was killed in the Budha Khera village of the Jind district, the Kurukshetra. The T20 world cup started on June 4. In the same week a 14-year-old Dalit girl was raped and murdered in Takrohi, Lucknow, and a 31-year-old man was arrested for rape and attempted murder of a Dalit woman in Gingee, Tamil Nadu. A week after the Kolkata rape case that shook the country and causes a medical strike, another 14-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped and murdered in Muzzaffarpur, Bihar. When the world was discussing the best and worst looks at the Met Gala, a 13-year-old Dalit girl that was out to defecate was burned to death in Balrampur, UP. From July this year there was a particularly brutal series of assaults and systemic abuse against Dalit communities across India. If you paid attention to the frequency of these atrocities though, you'd learn that this is far more ancient and pervasive.
As the world moves on, one thing that remains constant throughout the timeline is the sheer number of crimes against Dalits that are routinely overshadowed by other news. Any spotlight that these crimes do receive is almost always directed by voices that speak against them. It's as if we've collectively developed a blindspot when it comes to caste-based violence.
In an earnest attempt to break this cycle, Homegrown artist Chris Cobain recently released his track, I Remember, that cuts deep into the historical and ongoing struggles faced by the Bahujan community. This is not a song that skirts around the edges or hides behind euphemisms — it’s a fearless confrontation with the reality of systemic oppression.
Through lyrics that paint a stark picture of injustice, the track speaks of a legacy of exploitation, where those in power have consistently failed to protect and uplift the most marginalized. Instead of acting as defenders of culture and equality, rulers are shown as self-serving figures, colluding with outside forces, dismantling self-governance, and leaving the Bahujan community to fend for itself without the resources to fight back. There’s a powerful anger here, one that refuses to let the listeners forget the patterns of abuse and neglect inflicted on these communities.
An engineer who works two jobs to support his craft, the artist is originally from the small town of Sundargarh in Western Odisha which is also involved in a dormant revolution for a separate state, which is to be called Kosal. "It’s called The Kosal State Movement, and we demand for a separate state against Odisha," he shares. His music journey began in his teenage years but it wasn't until he moved to Guwahati for college that he started taking it seriously.
Growing up, Chris was an anime fan which got him into Japanese rock bands like Back Number and Kung-Fu Generation. In Guwahati, he was introduced to English rock and eventually, grunge along with its history and what it stood for. The politics and the rage the genre is characterized by was familiar to the artist. Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin later became his primary songwriting influences and continue to define how he processes and thinks of music as an art-form.
The moniker, 'Chris Cobain', is a character the artist built to protect his identity and is a portmanteau of his favorite songwriters: Chris Cornell and Kurt Cobain. These artists had an immense effect on his song writing because of their 'anti' movements. He elaborates, "They saw that something was wrong with the world and the world of rock n roll; and stood against the evils; both personal and political. Kurt was also largely known as a feminist icon in the 90s but that narrative is buried under the dust. So, the 'Chris Cobain Project' or 'Chris Cobain' gives you a general idea about what the audience can expect to hear. It’s rough, raw, political and personal. I describe it as 'A solo project about insanity'.”
This is also the first thing you notice on the single. It feels heavily influenced by grunge and has that gritty, disillusioned emotional sound that only 90s rock can give you. You get this sense of urgency and rebellion in every beat and riff. It’s as much a call to action as it is a history lesson, demanding listeners to question the so-called 'protectors' who’ve repeatedly betrayed the communities they’re meant to serve.
The idea for the track was ignited by the story of Darshanam Mogilaiah or Kinnera Mogulaiah, a folk artist, who is renowned for his contributions to preserving and revitalizing the traditional art of playing the Kinnera, a rare 12-stringed instrument. Despite wining the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2022, he is still a daily wage labourer working construction jobs with no money or recognition. Chris thought this was extremely shameful. Another track he released, I look at all the lonely people also addressed the exploitation of Dalit/Bahujan workers who are socially excluded and left on their own, after all profit has been squeezed out of them.
The central argument of I Remember, however, came from the the Hathras Gang Rape Case of 2020. Chris explains, "It was the most well documented case study on how our society has built a culture where Dalit women and children are raped mercilessly, and justice is too busy to care. My lyrics say ten women and girls get violated every day, all from the Dalit community. And not a single time justice is woken up from its deep slumber. Not just that but the entire media pushes the masses to move on the incident as if nothing happened. The so-called feminist icons of our Bollywood also never care to fight against injustices, as they are too busy enjoying the privilege of patriarchy."
Having come from a place of a burgeoning revolution and touched by powerful books like The Dalit Feminist Theory and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, Chris' craft and purpose is dedicated to justice served cold. I Remember, then becomes an exquisite culmination of this informed but long-standing rage.
In his book Language & Responsibility, Chomsky speaks about the conformist subservience in American political discourse. From the outside - you have the left and right. But when you take a closer look it's just 'left-right' and 'right-right' (for the lack of better words). Both so-called opposite sides still operate and debate within state capitalistic ideology. According to Chomsky, there are no socialist journalists in America. The book highlights how the role of the intelligentsia in a society is to analyse and present social reality. But what if this group itself aligns with the interests of the ruling class?
The sheer indifference that Dalit injustice is met with in India is an offset of such ideological corruption. Most of the liberalism we see today is an apolitical liberalism that champions a sort of tolerance of intolerance aka no politics at the dinner table or you're the 'difficult' one, not your casteist uncle. I Remember is a direct response to such complacency. By subtly and not so subtly calling out woke culture for being selectively woke, the track pulls wide open the rug under which we keep brushing the bigotry of our caste system. It defiantly refuses to move past or let go of the pain. It refuses to be silenced.
Follow Chris here and listen to the track below.
