Why we need the Kodaikanal rapper for every Honey Singh

They say it's Niki Minaj's "Anaconda" that is the "beat-drop" of Sofia Ashraf's now "viral" "Kodaikanal Won't", but the diminutive and fiery young rapper from Tamil Nadu certainly has more illustrious and politically volatile antecedents that she can hark back to. For, fusing Unilever's toxic legacy of acute, "mercurial" ecocide of the hitherto luscious Kodaikanal, with Minaj's Detroit dossier on black bodies, guns and cocaine merits a wee bit more than the Trinidadian-born American artist's Queens credentials can contextually provide (despite her seeming approval of the "political parody" via Twitter).

And that context is blunt but innovative resistance. Direct, in-your-face, DIY resistance to a polluting, poisoning corporate behemoth, the Anglo-Dutch Unilever, whose Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, the parent group behind iconic brands like Kissan, Fair & Lovely, Pepsodent, has been duly instructed to "clean up their mess" by the intrepid Ashraf.

Ashraf's latest song/video is fascinating. In fact, quite similar to what The Ska Vengers (comprising Taru Dalmia, Begum X, et al) have been doing in a more immediate and intimate setup, rapping furiously to carve a politically avant-garde voice, resurrecting freedom struggle icons like Udham Singh to make points contemporary. (Watch their "Frank Brazil" to know more.)

Bhopal Gas disaster of 1984 has compelled both to turn their protests into moving musical questions (watch Ashraf's here) on the utter and absolute culpability of Dow Jones in the worst industrial accidents of all time.

However, in "Kodaikanal Won't", Ashraf goes one step further. Not only does she emphatically declares that the tiny "princess of hill stations" will not "step down until (Unilever) make(s) amends now", she provides an elaborate timeline of the environmental pollution brought about by Unilever in the sleepy foothills of the Eastern Ghats. She relates how a thermometer factory (once owned by Ponds, shifted from the United States to India) dumped 7.4 tonnes of toxic waste (mercury-laced shards of glass from the crushed thermometers) in the waters, shrubbery and forests of Kodaikanal. How that "toxic shit" changed life forever, inflicting genetic disorders, skin and lung cancer, and how Unilever kept piling one hollow assurance over another.

That Ashraf isn't the first to criticise Unilever and that there have been a string of thoroughly castigating pieces written before make us sit up and take note of this unique form of protest: rap. Ashraf, now 27 years old, reminds us of the Russian all-girl punk rock group Pussy Riot, whose stark opposition to Vladimir Putin's anti-LGBT and anti-democratic atrocities landed them in jail for a while. More recently, in the wake of eighteen-year-old black youth Michael Brown's murder by a white cop, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri, United States, American hip-hop singer J Cole released a protest song "Be Free". Musical superstars like Beyonce, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, among others joined in via Twitter and Instagram, calling for a "positive change".

In fact, Ferguson returned hip-hop to its own old black solidarity and resistance origins, before it was thoroughly gobbled up by the leviathan of international music industry and its systematic erasure of every anti-establishment fibre from the songs.

But environmental rap, as I would like to call Ashraf's "Kodaikanal Won't", is still a nascent genre. And, it is the perfect medium/expression for a deep-seated angst in the age of social media, YouTube, Twitter and Reddit. Ashraf's eloquent plea (detailing about 45 deaths of former employees at the thermometer factory caused by mercury poisoning, as well as the ecological, physiological and psychological trauma brought about by Unilever, which gives CSR talks in air-conditioned seminar rooms of India, Europe and America) is a musical light thrown at the heart of darkness; it's giving a face to the invisible people of Kodaikanal who have bravely withstood this assault on their environment, their mental and physical well being.

Also, Ashraf's is a fascinating way of fusing the local agit-prop politics with the global, sprawling beast that is the internet, catapulting a small movement to international spotlight in a matter of days. With almost a million views on YouTube and stories on a "Niki Minaj-spinoff" campaign demanding Unilever clean up its "toxic shit", there's now a good deal of attention and interest from the cosmopolitan, morally self-propelling band of global agitators online, including Euro-American publications and TV channels, who have spotted a fantastic story of David-like grit before a Goliath-like MNC, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

This is a story that will sell. Because resistance, too, is a performance. More than late journalist and anti-nuclear activist Praful Bidwai would have liked to admit. And Sofia Ashraf, with her close-cropped hair, sweltering eyes and powerful voice, can very well be India's very own deadly combo-pack of Minaj and Riot. Move over, Yo Yo Honey Singh and take with you your sexism dressed up as Punjabi rap. For, the sexier, political rap is decidedly here.