Markets, public squares, electricity poles, boundary walls and restaurants across Assam still bear traces of grief—either photographs of Zubeen Garg or A4-sized posters demanding “Justice for Zubeen Garg” are seen everywhere. It speaks of the emotional pulse he had captured among the people of Assam. Hindus and Muslims, Bengalis and Assamese, the young and the old, speak of him as the “cultural heartbeat of Assam”.
It has been six months since Garg died under mysterious circumstances in Singapore. Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge recently promised that the party will deliver “justice” within 100 days if it forms the government.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has criticised the Congress promise, saying dragging the singer's name into politics is a sin. Later, the state unit chief of the Congress, Gaurav Gogoi, responded to Sarma by pointing out that Sarma once said that if there was no justice by election time, people should not vote for the BJP.
A sitting legislator and political observers in Assam think that had elections been held closer to his death, the BJP “would have been wiped out of the state”. Such was the public anger.
Now there are mixed feelings about the issue, as a section of people think the Garg issue should not be politicised, and for most people, there are other pressing issues that they want the next government to address. When he died, people in Assam say, it was an emotional issue; even policemen supervising Garg's funeral procession, which was recognised as the largest in recent history, were crying. Now those intense feelings about him seem to have gradually dimmed.
Today, the Zubeen Garg issue is still alive, but visibly subdued. Many say the moment has passed. Nasir Rehman, Garg’s neighbour in Jonali on Zoo Road, where the singer had his studio, believes the sentiment is fading.
Within the Congress too, there is resentment among leaders that the party’s state leadership could not make it an issue, even though it was the right moment when the Congress could have built momentum by meeting regularly, assigning work to leaders from top to bottom, working out details on how to reach out to people, tap public sentiment, and begin a unified campaign with its alliance partners. However, the party was seen as less active in its run-up to the elections.
To put it in context, Shyamkanu Mahanta, the organiser of the North East India Festival where Garg was scheduled to perform, was charged with criminal conspiracy along with Zubeen Garg’s manager, Siddhartha Sharma. Mahanta was widely perceived as being close to CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, with claims that Sarma initially sought to protect him before later publicly turning against him.
This perception fuelled suspicion and triggered a wave of public outrage towards Sarma himself. The anger, however, gradually subsided after the chief minister constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and publicly stated that Garg had been murdered.
“There is still an undercurrent; he remains an issue,” Rehman says, “but may not be a significant issue for the polls. There were people across ideological lines whose hearts were wrenched by his death. Even my three Hindu friends, all fans of Garg and BJP voters, were unsure who to vote for this time. They may still vote for the BJP, but earlier, they wouldn’t have.”
