Zubeen Garg Death: Fandom, Outrage And The Instability Of A Pan-Northeast Culture

Zubeen Garg, one of the most prolific names to have emerged from the Northeast, died on September 19 in an accident in Singapore. The singer had gone there to perform at the North East Festival. The sudden circulation of the news about his demise was shocking to India, the country to which Zubeen had made immense contributions in the world of art and culture as a singer. It was personally devastating for the Northeast, but even more so for Assam, his home state. Zubeen was one of the few, alongside Bhupen Hazarika, who carried the Northeast into the national landscape of art and culture.

What followed his death was a profound outpouring of grief from fans mourning the sudden loss. Businesses shut down, fans took to the streets, and there was commotion almost everywhere. As Assam prepared for the final farewell to its beloved singer, actor, and filmmaker, Assamese people were immersed into deep mourning. Amidst this atmosphere of extreme sadness, Kaziranga University and a Naga student named Liseri S. Sangtam found themselves at the centre of controversy. Sangtam, a B.Tech student in Civil Engineering, had faced transportation issues while returning to his hostel. Frustrated, in a heated moment, he made a thoughtless remark about the late singer, which quickly circulated on social media.

In the short viral video now widely shared, Sangtam is heard asking: “Did you care when the Queen died? Who the f*****g is Zubeen Garg? Who cares?” The exchange was seemingly with Assamese students, who were deeply affected by the demise of their cultural icon.

After the video went viral, tensions escalated. Crowds gathered, and the issue intensified to the point where Sangtam was suspended from all academic and hostel privileges. Another video, allegedly showing the student being assaulted and forced to apologise, also went viral in no time. His remarks deeply hurt the sentiments of the people of Assam. Concerns arose over the safety of Naga students at the university.

However, Nagaland’s Minister of Higher and Technical Education, Temjen Imna Along, clarified in a press conference at Kohima that Naga students were safe. More than 300 Naga students were transported from Kaziranga University to Nagaland as a precautionary measure. According to local news agencies, these students are hoping to return once the university informs them of the right time. As the controversy gained prominence, the video continued to draw attention, with some people making insensitive comments that they too were unaware of the late singer, further fuelling the controversy.

This entire episode highlights several realities: that cultural icons from Northeast India, despite their significant impact, are often not given the due importance, respect, and recognition they deserve, even by people from the region itself. The fact that Zubeen was so central to the Assamese cultural identity, but peripheral enough for others in the Northeast that his name could be dismissed so casually, points to a fragmented cultural landscape. The performing arts, while capable of producing figures of mass appeal, remain a marginal practice for many young people in the region. This distance eventually explains how one grief-stricken individual’s hero is another’s “who cares?”

It also reveals how rapidly, in the age of social media, such statements spiral into large-scale controversies. What began as an outburst of frustration over transport was quickly reframed as an insult to Assamese pride and identity. The anger that followed turned personal, communal, and political all at once. The outrage was not only about one student’s remark but about what it symbolised: a lack of recognition of Assam’s most visible cultural figure by someone from the same region he was said to represent. The incident also shed light on the expectation that everyone should share the same level of admiration or awareness of the figure.

In this sense, Zubeen’s death exposes both the power and the fragility of cultural icons. For Assam, he was a figure whose passing was felt as intimately as the death of a family member. But the fact that others could dismiss him so bluntly demonstrates that the claim of a “pan-Northeast” icon is unstable. The region remains divided by state-specific affiliations. The reaction to Sangtam’s remark, and the evacuation of hundreds of Naga students that followed, shows how easily these differences can become flashpoints of tension.

This may not be simply about whether a young student knew Zubeen or not. It could be about what such ignorance or dismissal says about the unevenness of cultural recognition across the Northeast. It is also about the way collective grief can transform into collective outrage/ mob violence when confronted with indifference. Zubeen’s stature in Assam was beyond question. However, when tested against the broader Northeast, the same stature revealed gaps in shared cultural memory. This raises the question of whether the collective outrage of those who idolised Zubeen toward others—who may not necessarily share the same awareness of him—can be fully justified. To what extent is it reasonable to expect universal recognition and celebration of a figure who is iconic in a different part of the region?

While the act of disrespect was certainly unfortunate, it is worth reflecting on whether responding with violence can ever be an appropriate course of action. Videos of shops being forcefully shut down went viral on social media, prompting reflection on whether some individuals, amid the genuine mourners of the singer, might be engaging in such actions for intentions other than grief.

The controversy should be read less as an isolated clash and more as an example of how culture is performed, recognised, and contested in the region, nation, or state. Zubeen’s death united Assam in mourning, but the incident reminds us that the idea of a shared cultural identity in the Northeast is both claimed and contested, at times held together by a few cultural figures, and at times fractured by local distinctions.

views expressed are personal.