What does Assam’s moment of unity around Zubeen Garg’s death mean in a time of divisive politics?

Zubeen Garg entered the music scene in Assam in the early 1990s when the Assam Movement, with all its violence and state repression, was still fresh in memory. That was a time when the United Liberation Front of Assam was at its peak, with a whole generation of Assamese youth – both men and women – taking up arms to demand a sovereign state. The Army’s Operation Bajrang was just ending, leaving behind a trail of horror stories and a general sense of despair among the Assamese youth. There was violence in the air.

It was in that juncture that Zubeen Garg arrived with his melodies, changing – and slowly becoming – the rhythm of the Assamese society.

In the three decades that followed, Garg ruled the world of Assamese music, and subsequently cinema, until he suddenly left his kingdom on September 19 at the age of 52, drowning in Singapore, as if to fulfill a premonition when he had sung, “Xagor tolit xubore mon” (I wish to sleep in the depths of the sea).

For days, life in Assam spontaneously came to complete standstill. The Assam government declared three days of official mourning. Millions poured in from across the state to get one last glimpse of their...

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