Book Talk | ‘H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars’

The Moynihan Institute’s South Asia Center presents Kunal Purohit, independent journalist, documentary filmmaker and podcast creator.

Away from the gaze of mainstream urban media, across India’s dusty, sleepy towns, a brand of popular culture is quietly seizing the imagination of millions—on the internet and off it. From catchy songs with acerbic lyrics to poetry recited in kavi sammelans to social media influencers shaping opinions with their brand of “breaking news” to books rescripting historical events, “Hindutva Pop” or H-Pop is steadily creating societal acceptability for Hindutva’s core beliefs. By cleverly inserting Hindutva into popular culture, H-Pop normalizes Islamophobia, demonizes minorities and vilifies its critics each day, without ever making headlines. 

What makes H-Pop so popular? Who are its stars and its audience? Who is pouring in the money, the effort and the resources to produce and broadcast it? What is its impact on the BJP and Prime Minister Modi’s popularity? And what kind of an India is it trying to create? These are some of the questions that award-winning independent journalist Kunal Purohit explores in this riveting investigative book as he travels through India, profiling some of H-Pop’s most prolific and popular creators—its stars and celebrities.

Kunal Purohit is an award-winning independent journalist, documentary filmmaker and podcast creator. Over the past two decades, Kunal has written on issues of development, politics, inequality and the rise of Hindu nationalism. He is the recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism (2012), the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting (2014) and the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitive Reporting (2014 and 2019).

Kunal has an M.Sc. in development studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a bachelor’s in mass media from Mumbai University. Some of his recent notable works include the podcast “Vanished: Inside India’s Bermuda Triangle” (2022) and the documentary film “The Children of Nowhere” (2023).