Anoushka Shankar: If I make music, that act comes from rage

In 2013, Anoushka Shankar composed a song as a response to the gruesome Nirbhaya tragedy, which impacted her deeply, like it did most of us. More than a decade later, she decided to revitalise the composition with words by poet Nikita Gill.

“When I originally wrote the song, it came as a response to pain shared with women around the world. What has happened over these years is that different tragic events have been happening to other women in different places… There is not just one victim, but too many names, which is why we are calling it In Her Name and, sadly, it becomes more allencompassing,” Anoushka told us in 2022.Speaking to us again in September this year, she pointed out that compositions like In Her Name are her response to such incidents and a way of expressing how she feels through music – something audiences can emotionally connect to.




When asked whether composing something like this is a form of protest or a way to channel rage, she replied, “Protest is an act and rage is an emotion. If I go marching with my kids or friends against something, that’s because I feel enraged or devastated and want to use my right to protest. If I make music, that is also an act that comes from the emotion of rage. I don’t see the music as protest itself; I see it as a different form of emotion.”

She added, “I want to be clear that there is no one way to do this, and it depends on the artiste and the person. For me, my music will have an impact if I am emotionally connected to it. I have to be emotionally, deeply invested in what I am writing about, so even if it is an external thing like In Her Name , it makes my heart break what happened to her or what happens to women. It connects to my history and brings up my devastation. It makes me feel enraged that, as women, we are still living in this kind of world, so that rage that heartbreakis what will be in the music. Not the analytical protest, because people won’t connect to that in music. That’s intellectual, and then I am not reaching people’s hearts. But if I put my emotions into it, then they might connect from their emotions, and it might help something. A protest is a more intellectual act, and I feel music is an empathetic act.”

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