ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the emergence of a Panjabi jat subculture in relation to Bhangra in the late 1980s, which is appropriated both in the elite countercultures of English speaking pseuds and the non-elite ones of multilingual desis. Expressions like Panjab da puttar (the son of Panjab) have their historical origin in a discourse centred on Panjabi visible since the mid-1980s in which panjabi munde or Panjabi boys have played a pivotal role. While British-Panjabi youth subcultures have received considerable media and academic attention, the formulation of this transnational youth subculture, a subset of Sikh subculture, in the aftermath of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots has been largely ignored. Bhangra has invaded desi youth cultures largely through its naturalization as Bollywood song and dance and pseud youth cultures through its return as British Asian music on MTV and Channel V. Bhangra becomes desi youth's weapon in contesting essentialist constructions of Indian culture as the spiritualist other of the materialist Western culture.
