Music composer AR Rahman is in news these days for wrong reasons. The Oscar-winning music director is reported to have stated in an interview to the BBC Asian Network that his work in the Hindi film industry has slowed down in recent years, which he attributes to a shift in power dynamics over the last eight years and, possibly, to a subtle communal bias that he does not directly encounter.
This raised a huge hue and cry, and Rahman quickly came out with a statement which expresses gratitude to India and reaffirms his commitment to creating music that, in his words, “honours the past, celebrates the present and inspires the future.” He has also made, what is being interpreted as ‘politically correct’ remarks, of having performed “in front of the Honourable Prime Minister and the honour of scoring Ramayana alongside Hans Zimmer.”
For the most the discussion on Rahman’s action could end with this clarification. However, this should also call fo an unbiased analysis of the composer’s claim to virtuosity. A music award, even if its Oscar or Grammy, at best is a certificate but certainly not an inevitability of virtuosity.
Beyond the political interpretations of his statement lies a deeper and far more significant conversation. What does Rahman’s legacy actually mean for Indian film music? Core artistic question whether his approach to music, particularly his heavy reliance on technology, enriched or impoverished the melodic traditions of Indian cinema.
To many, Ilaiyaraaja and MM Kreem (MM Keeravani) are any day more melodious and enchanting composers from down South than AR Rahman ever could be. Ilaiyaraaja and Kreem built their music around classical Indian scales, folk motifs, and live orchestration. Their compositions breathed, every violin, flute, and mridangam carried emotional weight. The orchestra was the protagonist.
Ilaiyaraaja, in particular, mastered the art of blending Western harmony with Indian ragas without allowing technology to dominate. His melodies lingered in the listener’s heart long after the film ended. Even his complex symphonic arrangements never overwhelmed the core tune. Similarly, Kreem’s music from Sur to Baahubali demonstrated that grandeur could coexist with melody, devotion, and simplicity.
The Oscar winning composer broke on the Hindi film industry scene with Roja, a 1992 terrorism story placed in Jammu and Kashmir. The film had catchy songs, fresh, slick, and modern but their brilliance lay less in traditional melody and more in sound design, orchestration, and digital layering.
Rahman did not merely compose tunes, he engineered soundscapes. He was rightly felicitated more for the technology used in delivering the melody than the melody itself. Technology sustained him, he commanded a market, Rahman’s music dazzled with synthesizers, drum machines, digital effects, and multi-layered production.
However, with time, the emotional directness of melody started to recede behind technical spectacle but not many cared. Directors got lured, even a Shyam Benegal could not resist hiring him for Zubeiddaa for his longtime composer Vanraj Bhatia. This despite Bhatia having given extra-ordinary compositions with Sardari Begum.
Vanraj Bhatia, who had composed hauntingly minimalist and deeply evocative music for Sardari Begum and many other films of Benegal, represented a dying breed of composers who trusted silence, simplicity, and live instrumentation. Rahman, by contrast, represented the new age of glossy, digitised cinema.
While Zubeidaa’s music was aesthetically pleasing, one cannot escape the feeling that Bhatia’s austere, classical sensibility would have been more thematically appropriate. Rahman’s lush arrangements, though beautiful, softened the film’s raw emotional texture.
His Oscar win for Slumdog Millionaire, celebrated Rahman’s global appeal but not his rootedness in Indian musical traditions. The film’s soundtrack was universally accessible, but far removed from the classical or folk idioms that shaped Indian music for centuries.
Rahman may have got venereable Gulzar the Oscar tag for having written the lyrics of the award winning composition but it was always Vishal Bhardwaj (and Rahul Dev Burman before him) who gave soul to poet-filmmaker’s cinematic and poetic compositions. Films like Maachis, Omkara, Maqbool, and Haider carried a musical soul that felt organic, earthy, and deeply Indian, something which came to be missing in Rahman’s later, more internationally tailored work.
Today, as Rahman reflects on his place in the industry, perhaps the deeper question is not whether Bollywood sidelined him, but whether he himself, in his quest for modernity, distanced Indian film music from its own heart. Composers like Ilaiyaraaja, Kreem and Vishal Bhardwaj proved that one could be innovative without sacrificing melody. They showed that technology should serve music, not dominate it.
Rahman tipped the balance too far toward technology. The natural melody of the orchestra, the soul of Indian cinema gradually gave way to programmed perfection. Emotional spontaneity was replaced by studio precision. Rahman, for all his brilliance, often let technology take the lead.
As Indian cinema continues to evolve, this melody versus technology debate remains relevant. The future of film music must balance innovation with tradition, ensuring that orchestras do not become museum relics, and that melody does not become a casualty of modernity.
Rahman’s legacy, therefore, is neither purely celebratory nor dismissive. It is complex, contradictory, and worthy of serious, unbiased reflection beyond politics, beyond awards, and beyond celebrity.
(Sidharth Mishra is an author, academician and president of the Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice)
