Dr. Madan Gopal Singh,
Sufi singer and JNU alumnus

Bhoomika: Sir, tell us something about your days as a student in J.N.U.

Dr.Singh: I first joined JNU in 1976 for a very brief period and again regularly in 1977 in what was then known as CLE/SL. The main campus was primarily in a hired building opposite Ber Sarai , where now you have a Police staff college and where till recently you also had the campus of OIDSA. It was a sleepy, little university. In a sense it was also the only university in India at that time with a distinctly pan-Indian profile. We had students from all over the Indian sub-continent.

At that time, Delhi seemed to come to a topographic end with the new campus still in a state of nascent under-development. Beyond the campus the roads which now lead to Vasant Kunj from both the Vasant Vihar and IIMC side did not exist. It was all pristine wild in some sort of communion with a primeval, originary feel. Peculiar, isn’t it? A modern university in the midst of resonance that seemed to extend itself beyond time...

I must confess to being completely overwhelmed by this tumultuous coming together of so many people from such diverse backgrounds and cultures. It was sort of a mini-renaissance, very lively and thought-provoking.

Bhoomika: Right at the beginning, you mentioned your association with CLE. What do you have to say about CLE of those days?

Dr.Singh: At that time… I’m talking of a time much before half the JNU students started sitting for UPSC exams, JNU was a very fertile breeding ground for all sorts of intellectual and political activity. Ours was a modest department and was not as elitist as the rest of the departments such as the Centre of Historical Studies and Centre of Economic Studies, etc. We had an exceptional teacher, Prof. Daswani, who taught us General Linguistics and a brilliant Kapil Kapoor Sir who taught us Indian Linguistic theory. Kapoor Sir was an amazing teacher. I will place him next to Umberto Eco whom I consider to be the best teacher I have had. We had some truly outstanding students in the Centre who subsequently made it big - I can especially name Prof. Gautam Sengupta among them.

Bhoomika: How would you describe the students’ politics of those days?

Dr.Singh: The campus was at that time divided into two camps: the Left and the Free Thinkers. Elections were times of infinite intellectual excitement. We pored over books through the night in the library and prepared ourselves for the debate the next day. It was great to witness the likes of Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Jairus Banaji, Anand Kumar (now Professor in the same University) debate over philosophical, political and economic issues.

Bhoomika: Were you actively involved in the campus politics?

Dr.Singh: I was with the Left. In fact, the girl I eventually married (she is South-Indian) was initially a Free Thinker and subsequently a firebrand SFI leader who became the first woman President of the Students’ Union and I became the First Man of the Campus in the bargain. Such inter-caste and inter-religious marriages were happening all around us and we were no exception.

Bhoomika: That is so true about JNU even today…Now that we know about the many emotional bonds between you and JNU, please tell us what your academic trajectory has been like, in and beyond JNU?

Dr.Singh: In JNU, I went from SL to SSS very briefly as a student of history till I finally returned to CLE/SL to do my Ph.D on film semiotics (mine is the first Ph.D in film studies from an Indian University by a film scholar) under the very forgiving supervision of the Prof Harjeet Singh Gill.

I was and am a teacher of English literature in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi. I became part of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Arts and Ideas which successfully ran for over a decade.

I’ve written film scripts and worked with the likes of Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Safdar Hashmi and M K Raina. I have written lyrics for Shubha Mudgal and Mira Nair.  I have composed music for films like Khamosh Pani (it is a Pakistani film).

I became a kind of a niche Sufi singer and travelled all over the world performing from Bangladesh to the USA, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Iran, Pakistan and so on. I am a film theorist who is known as a Mirasi or a Mirasi who is also known as a film theorist.

Bhoomika: It has been a long sojourn from literature to cinema studies to movies. The connecting thread that runs through all this is perhaps your music. Where did your tryst with Sufism begin?

Dr.Singh: I was born into a Sikh family and the recitation of poetry from the Holy Book was a daily routine. A large part of the Holy Book consists of Sufi poetry. So that’s where it all began.

My father was one of the best known poets of Punjabi language and a great scholar of Punjabi literature and cultural history. That’s also where it all began.

My friend Safdar Hashmi brought me some great music from Pakistan in the 70s and that’s again where it all began. There are so many beginnings. I can’t quite pin-point where it really originated. I was always plurally singular and vice versa.

Bhoomika: How did the environment of JNU help in your growth as a singer?

Dr.Singh: In JNU I fell in love. It made me a different sort of a bloke. Very different and very resonant!!!  Our house is where the structuralist and subsequently post-structuralist mischief had its origins. Prof.Gill in Patiala was doing the first translations of the French thought from French into Punjabi much before the English translations started appearing in the West. With boyish arrogance, I would carry a copy of Of Grammatology to the campus and read it out to Rashmi Doraiswamy on the always pallid grass of the Sutlej lawns. Love can be so annoyingly childish in retrospect. We have been together for 30 years now. Seven years of courtship on the JNU campus and then 23 years of marriage. Wow!

Bhoomika: And what are your present associations with JNU like?

Dr.Singh: Well, I tried getting into one of the schools as a Professor but was found academically wanting. But whenever JNU invites me I go running.

Bhoomika:  Yes it is amazing to see people coming back to their roots again and again. Suppose you are brought back to JNU as a student, what changes would you like to see here?

Dr.Singh: I wish JNU was a little less crowded than it is now. I would like to see JNU a little better connected with the world outside. Mind you, this is not a critique!

I want the students at JNU to have courses in the History of Ideas and Cultural Studies. I want them to pursue a lot more vigorously and proactively studies in ecology and new technologies.

I do not want to see JNU as a university without an independent course in media studies and even film studies. Some of these studies must also be geared towards production. At the same time I wouldn’t want JNU to become a polytechnic in the service of media-houses and TV channels. These are the things we did not have in our days but I hope students in future will have them and benefit from them.