A shopper looks at a CD of Pyar Ke Hawa in Ranchi. HRD minister Bandhu Tirkey has decided to ban vulgar songs in tribal languages. A Telegraph picture

Ranchi, Feb. 1: How does one ban a song? But two years after Pyaar Ka Hawa, a Nagpuri audio cassette containing eight love songs sung by Bokaro-based Manoj “Dehati”, was released in 2005 and the producer having sold over 100,000 cassettes — the HRD and culture minister Bandhu Tirkey is determined to clamp down on the “undesirable” songs.

His wrath is specially directed at the run-away hit that calls upon a school girl to bunk classes and meet her boyfriend at the dam-site. The song, the minister feels, does not send out the right message. Perhaps believing that the song might have something to do with the school dropouts and the general standard of school education, the department has been asked to compile a list of objectionable songs.

Several Nagpuri songs, said the minister today, are likely to have an adverse impact on youth and society and are against the cultural tradition of the state. Once the list is ready, he declared, playing them in public places would be banned.

Produced by Ranchi-based Manzur Cassettes, owned by Suman Mundu, the cassette was an instant hit. While Mundu himself admits having sold a lakh of them, there are pirated copies of the cassette too being sold in the market.

The “offensive” song is in fact played at almost all picnic spots around the state capital. And even at the recently concluded college festival at St Xavier’s College, students were seen swaying and dancing to the tune.

Indeed, a visiting music director from Mumbai, Dilip Sen, was fascinated by the song after hearing it in December. He felt this was one of the best songs from Jharkhand.

The singer, Manoj, used to sing for T-series but felt frustrated at not getting the right kind of exposure. It was then that Mundu roped him in.

The minister, however, insists that while he has nothing personal against Nagpuri songs, the message of this particular one is “not good”. He plans to invite music directors and producers in the state to ensure that music albums are made “in line with our cultural ethos”.

He plans to form a board, comprising eminent musicians of the state, to vet each album. At present there is no such board, like the censor board for films, to screen music albums. Nor is there any law, concedes Tirkey, to put the ban into effect. The department, he said, is busy giving final touches to a culture policy, which would include restrictions on objectionable songs.

All producers will have to get permission from his department before releasing albums after the policy is announced, Tirkey asserted.

Mundu is nonplussed. “The song is not obscene and does not hurt anyone’s feeling — therefore all talk of banning the song is unjustified.”