As an independent rap artist from Mumbai, I recently released a political rap song titled “Inquilab Zindabad”. It reflects the current socio-political unrest in India and voices against the fascist and casteist forces.
It was made in order to create awareness about the current socio-political unrest in India and to be in solidarity with the people who stand against these forces.
The thought of making this song came from a conscious approach as an artist to reflect the times that we live in. Events such as Dadri lynching, the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, targeting of Aamir Khan over his statement, killing of rationalists – Kalburgi and Pansare, oppression of students in JNU and other universities, atrocities by self-proclaimed “gau rakshaks” on Muslims and Dalits. made it apparent that [envoke_twitter_link]there has been a growth of intolerance among the fascists forces in the last two years[/envoke_twitter_link] towards the minorities and free-thinkers as per their Hindutva propaganda. I have used the aforementioned events in this song to expose the ruling party which uses religion as a tool to meet it’s political interests.
The reason behind making this song in Hindi was to get the message across to the people from all walks of life including the working class, youth, activists and the non hip-hop listeners.
We decided not to make this a clichéd rap music video and therefore we came up with a concept for the video where the kids are emulating the socio-political unrest in a dramatic/satirical way inside their classroom with various props. We approached the kids who are from Dharavi, Mumbai and are a part of a hip-hop collective called “Slumgods” as we thought they would be best suited for this project. The kids were too spontaneous during the shoots and we had fun making this music video with them. This video also features few student activists. Check it out:
