The political implications of a renewed interest in the Dakhni language

The official video of Pasha Bhai, a new hip-hop song written and sung by Bengaluru-based artist Mohammad Affan Pasha has over 30,000 views on YouTube. In it he is rapping on the streets, not in any upmarket part of the IT city, but in its underbelly on Bazaar Road, surrounded by other young men of the neighbourhood. They are grooving to a catchy tune in the vocabulary of their locale—not Kannada, nor Urdu or English. The song is in a language of home and hearth—Dakhni.

Often called proto-Urdu or Qadim-Urdu which means old Urdu, the Dakhni language is having a contemporary moment with songs, dances, appearances on Instagram reels, and plenty of comedy. Dakhni literally means “of the Deccan” and is spoken in large parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. The dialect sounds like an amalgamation of Hindustani, Telugu, Marathi. Those not familiar with its sound outside the region would recognise it instantly as how the actor Mehmood Ali often spoke in Bollywood films or most recently, what artist Danish Sait uses for his satirical videos.