Cultural Reporter
A day after widespread social media outrage over a viral video of qawwal Rahat Fateh Ali Khan violently beating a person in his employ over a missing “bottle”, the singer has claimed that the bottle in question contained water blessed by a peer, or spiritual leader and that the incident was solely between him and his student.
The video, which appeared to be taken secretly, showed Khan slapping and punching a man while demanding to know the location of his “bottle”. At one point, Rahat yanked him by the hair and tossed him to the ground in anger, violently attacking him. A series of videos were posted on Rahat’s official Instagram page on Saturday night in which he identified the victim of the assault as Naveed Hassnain, a student of his. He claimed the bottle contained blessed water. Addressing the video, Rahat Fateh Ali said it was a private issue between a teacher and a student. Identifying the student and his father, he said, “The relationship between a teacher and student is such that when he does well, we give him that much love and when he does wrong, we punish him”. Hassnain said the bottle contained water blessed by a spiritual leader and that he had forgotten where he put it at the time. “God only knows how much love he (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan) shows us,” he said, calling the video an attempt to blackmail and defame his teacher.
He denied that the incident was an incident of abuse. Rahat Fateh Ali claimed that he asked for Hassnain’s forgiveness then and there after beating him up. Hassnain’s father then narrated an incident about another famous qawwal cutting his hair at the behest of his teacher and said it illustrated the respect they have for their teachers in the qawwal world. “Ustaad may hit them but in our view, this isn’t violence. This comes with the job,” he said.
Rahat Fateh Ali also addressed claims that he abused his employees by shifting the camera to his driver, whom he said had been working for him for 40 years. The driver dutifully said that he had never been hit or yelled at by Khan and said he was treated like a “big brother” by him and the rest of his family.
