How India’s protest music has reinvented itself—From 1947 to 2025

While protest music in India is gradually regaining traction in the recent past at marches, assemblies, and sit-downs, most artists are compelled to tread a fine line, ensuring their work remains impactful while avoiding backlash

On 3 January 2025, journalist Mukesh Chandrakar was found dead in a septic tank at a construction site in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, a week after he reported on a road project scam in the state’s Bastar division, initiating a government inquiry. 

“When any kind of coexistence becomes hostile for any community on the basis of religion, caste, class or gender, you can’t ignore or escape it, because something as normal as commuting by train or doing your job could get you killed,” says Blues singer Aamir Aziz, whose song Acche Din Blues (2019) was made in response to the mob-lynching incident of a teenager on a train in Jharkhand in 2017. Aziz shot to fame in 2020, after Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters quoted his song Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega at a protest in London demanding the release of Julian Assange.

Is protest music in India art or activism?

Taking to music at protests is natural because art in itself is an act of rebellion, reckons Aziz. “Metaphors are necessary to connect with people’s emotions,” he elaborates.

In her yet-to-be-released song, Mumbai-based rapper Saniya Kaiyumuddin Mistri a.k.a Saniya MQ, says, “Mera gaon, mera gaon, isko bachao, matt khao”. “The ‘gaon’ here is my country. With this, I also declare that I [a minority] am also a part of this country,” she explains. It is a lyrical technique she’s followed in her other songs as well. For instance, she questions the education system in her debut Sach (2022) and addresses unemployment in Janta Gumrah (2022). In Udaan (2023), she asks for girls to be educated, not veiled. Meanwhile, Delhi-based musician Avik Roy uses satire in his compositions with band Purple Penchant. Their debut song, Gotta Say The News (2019), called out irresponsible news reportage by television channels.

According to musician Rahul Ram of the well-known band Indian Ocean and creative group Aisi Taisi Democracy, everything can be conveyed allegorically. “Speaking up during repressive regimes is the skill to be learned instead of trying to use logic, because you can’t fight illogical people with logic,” he says. There are no names being taken when he sings: ‘let me tell you a story about a land where they made all the money invalid overnight.’

The band’s song about the Narmada River, Ma Rewa (2000), was bathed in its beauty yet spoke about the displacement of locals due to the construction of dams on the river. “When any song is interpreted in context, it means something specific,” explains Ram on why their rendition became a protest anthem.  

How protest music in India thrives through regional languages

Context can also enable songs to break language barriers. Take Pune-based rapper Shreyas Sagvekar for instance, whose Marathi song Taambdi Chaamdi (2024) has become an anthem for those with a dark skin tone. “I couldn’t have written this song in English. It needed to have conviction, [that is] only possible in my mother tongue,” explains Sagvekar. Musician Rahul Rajkhowa’s song Lau Paani (2023) in his mother tongue Assamese calls out the class divide that emanates via the judgment of those who drink ‘lau paani’ (local rice beer).

Kashmiri rapper Ahmer Javed Dar’s debut album Little Kid, Big Dreams (2019) had people telling him they didn’t know Kashmiri was a language that was still spoken. “I wanted my legacy to reflect in my music,” says Dar. 

The influence of folk music on India’s protest anthems

In Indian folk music, it is common for artists to make different versions of the same song, modifying the lyrics for the current generations and the times we live in. This is what Ram has done with songs for Aisi Taisi Democracy, a stand-up political satire act accompanied by music, also featuring Varun Grover and Sanjay Rajoura. “Using traditional elements deepens the bond people have with the song,” he says.

Roy is adding to his ensemble’s primarily alternative rock sound by replacing a lead guitar part with Hindustani vocals. “Music is also about culture and identity and trying to do what you can to preserve and represent it,” explains Dar on why he has incorporated the rubab and santoor—elements integral to Kashmiri folk music—in his songs.

Dar burst into the independent music scene in 2019 with songs like Elaan (with rapper Prabh Deep) that detailed the anonymity, ‘othering,’ and violation of constitutional rights taking place in the region, sans naming names. Dar had witnessed the aftermath of the revoking of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in August 2019 in Kashmir.

“Protest anthems can assist or act as a rallying cry as a means of conveying the struggle to other people,” says Ram, who has been an active part of the Narmada Bachao Andolan in the 1980s and has seen protest anthems being played over the years. 

The history of protest music in India: From independence to the present day 

India has had an illustrious history of protest music. “There’s the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), which predates independence, where Salil Chaudhary and Sumangala Damodaran sang in Hindi and Bengali,” says Ram. “Songs started becoming more local, including those in Adivasi languages and Odia, only after the 1980s, like Gaon Chodav Nahin,” says Ram, naming the song he’s covered.

“India would not exist without the people who sacrificed their lives during our country’s freedom struggle. We’re a land of protests,” says singer-songwriter Abhilasha Sinha, who would sing Qadam Qadam Badhaye Ja as a kid, along with her mum. The song was banned by the British after the Second World War, only to be lifted in August 1947, ascribing it a patriotic status. “It wasn’t thought of as anti-establishment—an idea introduced by the British,” says Sinha, who did a cover of Hum Dekhenge with fellow musician Sukhnidh Kaur during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)  in 2019.

Rajkhowa looks up to Bhupen Hazarika’s Assamese song Manuhe Manohar Babe about how humankind has to figure a way to co-exist, while for Roy, works by Rabindranath Tagore have inspired the music of his other project Lilanoor Ensemble, that brings together genres, cultures and artistic forms via musical theatre. Aziz recalls Bollywood movies from the 1960s like Haqeeqat which featured anti-war songs, along with the works of poets such as Shailendra and Sahir Ludhianvi, besides a host of qawwali songs.

The language of protest today in regional rap highlights local issues. “You don’t need 10 years of training like you would in Hindustani classical or jazz to write a rap song. It’s just a quicker way of putting your message out into the world,” says Ram. 

“Rap gives you the power to be yourself, to be explicit. But musicians are being explicit for the wrong reasons, instead of [highlighting] the ugly nature of the world and capitalism that drives each regime. As a rapper, you’re supposed to speak up against injustices, but India doesn’t have the environment for it,” says Dar, highlighting why the country is lagging behind when it comes to protest music in 2025. 

Artists are also making music with the aim of getting popular, catering to what people will listen to. “But that’s how you are killing your art. Plus, no label will sign you up, so you can only release protest music independently on YouTube, even in 2025. Compare this to Bob Dylan getting signed up by Columbia Records—the biggest record label in the 1960s—while he was writing protest songs like Blowin’ in the Wind!” says Aziz.  

The power of subtlety: How Indian protest music uses metaphor and emotion

It is not binding for songs to be literal in order to resonate with audiences and the times we live in. In fact, that could dilute the message and make the songs irrelevant after a point, opines Roy, whose song 7 Special People alludes to  the riots that broke out in north-east Delhi in the wake of the protests against the CAA in February 2020.

Aziz approaches his writing with the aim to address two things: What’s actually happening, and people’s response/discourse to it. “If you attack people or authorities or get too literal about things, it makes it unrelatable to most. We live in a time of mass jingoism. India is the most populated country [in the world], and mobs are made up of people, so it’s important to reach everyone,” he points out. He then chooses to tell the story from the perspective of the victim or the survivor instead of talking about those who committed the deed.

In order to be able to convey this meaningfully and sensitively, an artist needs to honestly tap into what they are feeling. For Rajkhowa, his personal experience of being caught in a mob as a 16-year-old in Guwahati, fuelled his composition No God Ever Taught To Hate (2017), “You can’t jump into social music to gain clout. For the farmer’s protests in 2021, I wrote Aage Badho because my grandfather was a farmer,” says Rajkhowa. Moreover, his song No More Violence (2020) addresses the unrest in Manipur, a responsibility he feels as someone who hails from the region. “The smartest way to plant an idea is to make people do the research and think the idea came from them. And people will follow through only if they spend time thinking about it,” he explains.

Aziz helps with an example of wanting to write about death but address it as flowers being crushed. “But then again, some bits [of a song] need to be literal, or they will seem veiled. In protest music, that would be a betrayal for the cause [and the people] itself,” he says. 

The challenges of independent protest music in India

It is also impossible to be too literal in India. Dar admits to have moved away from talking about things that will cause trouble. “It’s upsetting that that kind of freedom is not there in India. Stand-up comedians roast global leaders. Here, Munawar Farooqui’s shows are cancelled. Whether it’s at the Golden Globes or the Oscars, everyone is talking about socio-political issues in their speeches, because it’s important to do so,” says Roy. 

Most musicians have had to face threats extended to their families, labels going back on deals, or festivals leaving them out for ‘happier’ music. That’s when making music independently, like Sagvekar does, helps, as there is no one to ask for his work to be tweaked. “With labels, it’s also about how my song reflects on the brand. Here, I am the brand. Though your content will be taken down if it ‘harms sentiments’,” he says. 

Sinha received all sorts of death/rape threats on X, besides being called ‘anti-national’.  “I live in the United States, am an upper-caste Hindu by birth, and my family is supportive of the current regime, so the repercussions for me are fairly low. I have a platform and can do what I want—something several mainstream artists don’t exercise publicly.” 

For Roy, if you want to have solutions, you need to acknowledge that there is a problem. “Art plays a role in pointing this out and having a healthy democracy. And when protests are not happening, it’s people and artists who have to keep holding those in power accountable, whether subtly or directly.” 

The cultural significance of songs that call out societal injustices are crucial. “You can’t have songs about love without songs about society and humanity. Falling in love with another human being is also an act of protest with your own self,” says Aziz, adding that the literal and metaphorical are eventually the same in some way. “When something is happening right now, it’ll be literal, but when you recall it in the future, it’s metaphorical.” While the imagery of people being hanged from trees in Acche Din Blues is literal, it will be metaphorical in the future. So, if art is usually metaphorical, why can’t works of art continue to be the guideline, or at least the checkpoint, for a country’s ‘actual’ history? Fittingly enough, Aziz’s song encapsulates his thoughts: 

“Tum Zameen Pe Zulm Likh Do, Asman Pe Inquilab Likha Jayega 

Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega, Sab Kuch Yad Rakha Jayega”

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