ABSTRACT
By classifying Bhangra and other hybrids as ganda, cultural pundits "sample" the age-old brahminical miscegenation taboo on sonic hybridizations in the era of globalization. Indian high priests' disapproving rejoinder to the marrying metaphor invariably invoked in the popular media's Bhangra coverage, almost a take-off on Apache Indian's "Arranged Marriage", is the ancient inter-caste marriage prohibition. The history of Hindustani as opposed to bharatvarshiya presents a more accurate description of the syncretic culture that emerged in the valley of the Indus. The focus of the cultural invasion argument invoked in the wake of Bhangra's return in the 1990s on "the semi-dressed" female body calls to attention a cultural antagonism expressed as sartorial difference. The denigration of Bhangra hybrids, ignoring the lived history of mixing in the Panjabi village, revives ancient miscegenation taboos against mixing with the foreigner designed to ensure caste purity in Aryan society and culture.
