Lucknow: “If a girl like me is speaking out in public, she has already overcome the two most difficult challenges, of parivesh (environment) and parivaar (family). Random strangers can’t shut me up,” says Neha Singh Rathore.
The Bhojpuri artist’s video lists all the problems of Bihar and neighbouring areas of Uttar Pradesh, amidst elections there, rattled the state governments enough to issue counter videos. It also made Rathore the subject of vicious trolling, which has got worse in the run-up to the bitter UP polls.
Her friends and family are urging her to not to step out alone, or to keep her face covered with a mask. But, the 24-year-old — who grew up in village Jandaha in Bihar’s Kaimur district, who has built a following of millions for her YouTube videos shot on phone, who writes and sets to music her songs, says that she is not afraid.
“Aise hi humko daba lenge (Can they suppress me just like that)?” she grins, sitting in a cafe in Varanasi’s Lanka area.
Rathore first caught attention during the Bihar Assembly elections of 2020 with her song Bihar mein ka ba (what does Bihar have). The ruling BJP-JD(U) responded with Bihar mein ee baa (listing the state’s ‘achievements’).
Since then, Rathore has released “around 200 songs”, dealing with unemployment, labourers, farmers and the migration during lockdown, apart from traditional folk songs.
After the BJP wielded Bhojpuri film star and MP Ravi Kishan to release UP mein sab ba for the coming polls, Rathore released the first ‘UP mein ka ba’ song on January 16. She has since brought out part 2 and 3, talking about among other things the Hathras rape case, the Lakhimpuri farmers’ deaths, and bodies found in the Ganga during Covid. The BJP has come out with songs to counter hers. Comments have been directed at her questioning her ‘character’.
This is not the trajectory a girl like her is supposed to have, Rathore admits. Her father is a private firm employee in Lucknow, and the family owns a small farm. Her sister is married, a brother just joined the CRPF.
Her motivation was “the need to be heard”, Rathore says. “If you are a girl, the third child in a traditional family in a Bihar village, you quickly learn what it is like to feel unheard and overlooked. You have to be loud, insistent, and at times, rude.”
She adds: “In family set-ups like mine, after school, boys are sent to cities for coaching and college, girls are married off. My sister got married at 19. I was a bright student, so I went to Kanpur for graduation. After that, the expected path was a B.Ed, become a teacher and await a husband. I was certain this was not my road.”
She also felt despair at Bhojpuri being reduced to vulgar songs. “I want to see Bhojpuri freed from blouse hooks and lehenga strings, and sing about the actual issues its speakers are facing,” Rathore says.
Neha Singh Rathore first caught attention during the Bihar Assembly elections of 2020 with her song Bihar mein ka ba (what does Bihar have), and has not looked back since. The artise talks about her journey.
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