Hyderabad, 15th October 2025: Mahindra Group’s newest cultural initiative, Roots at Mahindra University – a one day festival bridging ancient traditions with today’s youth – has finally unveiled its line-up of diversely talented artists. With this new IP, Mahindra is breaking ground by empowering students to create a living, breathing ecosystem where heritage becomes an active, two-way dialogue. The festival will place the next generation at the very heart of cultural sustainability.
India’s cultural heritage is diverse, and shifting every few hundred kilometres. But what happens when this thriving culture faces the danger of becoming a niche? For a generation of digital natives, these traditions are not just about history but a piece of identity shedding away. So, they want to extend their efforts towards sustaining these traditions and confluence it into the mainstream. And from this desire, Roots at Mahindra University was born. The students’ mission is simple but profound: to give unique legacy art forms a stage in the here and now.
And the line-up of the festival reflects this very philosophy with: The Raghu Dixit Project, pioneers of India’s folk-rock movement who have redefined Kannada folk poetry for global audiences. Swarathma, who turns music into environmental, social and cultural activism with electrifying performances. Bringing a northern flavour is Alif, aka, Mohammed Muneem Nazir, a poet, singer
songwriter from Kashmir. His work on Coke Studio Bharat and Made In Heaven is steeped in ideas of identity, longing, and resilience. Not to forget Hamza Rahimtula + Rajasthan Folkstars’ rare dialogue between DJing and Manganiyar traditions led by Khartal virtuoso Jaisa Khan and Firoz Khan on the Bhapang and Morchang. It started as a spontaneous collaboration that has pushed Rajasthani folk into global dance circuits.
Meanwhile, there’s Gotte Kanakavva, the 65-year-old daily-wage worker and farmer who is now a folk icon, awarded and celebrated for keeping Bathukamma songs alive. Lastly, Arko and Friends ft. Gaboo’s fresh collaboration will bring together Bollywood with indie experimentation, bridging popular and alt music.
“Young people often express the need to reconnect to India’s artistic traditions, and believe they must shoulder the responsibility to both preserve and reinvent them. Roots is a manifestation of this belief. This is not nostalgia but a generational mandate. It is their way of saying that culture is not a museum exhibit but alive, and belongs in the present to the young. By bringing forgotten art forms through authentic acts in contemporary spaces, Roots is not just preserving traditions but evolving them,” said Jay Shah, Vice President, Head – Cultural Outreach, Mahindra & Mahindra
Dr. Yajulu Medury, Vice Chancellor of Mahindra University, added, “Roots is not a festival planned from the top down for the attendees. The very generation it endeavours to inspire is the one building it piece by piece from the ground up – not just as volunteers but as cultural entrepreneurs. And the line-up of the festival embodies this ethos of not just preserving the past but making it relevant for the future.”
Roots at Mahindra University promises not just performances but a cultural movement demonstrating how the youth has the power and the responsibility to keep the chain of memory alive, and become guardians of India’s cultural future.
