When Faith Goes Full Volume: How DJs, politics, and power have reshaped religious celebrations in small-town India
As Holi- the festival of colours approaches, loudspeakers are already being mounted on trucks in the small towns of Banda and Chitrakoot in northern India. The volume wars that now define festival season did not begin with Holi. Over the last decade, the soundscape of weddings, election campaigning, and religious festivals has changed dramatically. Nowhere is this more visible and evident than during Navratri, the nine-night festival, that honours goddess Durga and her victory over evil in Hindu mythology and what once unfolded as devotional parades of song and prayer has grown louder, flashier, and unmistakably political. In small-town north India, a ‘DJ’ does not only mean a nightclub disc jockey mixing tracks behind turntables. It refers instead to a
