Indian rock is a music genre in India that incorporates elements of Indian music with mainstream rock music, and is often topically India-centric. While India is more often known for its classical music and Bollywood filmi music, the Indian rock scene has also produced numerous bands and artists. Moheener Ghoraguli, a Bengali independent music group from Kolkata, is arguably India's and Bengal's first popular rock band.
India, in the 1950s and 1960s, uniquely amongst developing markets, had a record industry in the Gramophone Company of India (an RCA/HMV/EMI subsidiary), and LPs, EPs, and 45rpm records were freely available, including those of rock and roll acts from the USA and Britain, but also of contemporary pioneering Indian rock bands. The president of the firm, Bhaskar Menon (who later became the President of Capitol Records in the United States) was the leading promoter of Western pop music in India. Later in 1970, Polydor, the German Label, began an India label distributing rock music.
Like Western rock musicians at the time, Indian musicians also began fusing rock with traditional Indian music from the mid-1960s onwards.
