Zoya Akhtar on controversy around 'Azadi' song:'Gully Boy' is not about the caste system or JNU
Zoya Akhtar's 'Gully Boy' premiered at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival.
Zoya Akhtar's latest movie 'Gully Boy' has opened to great reviews from fans and critics alike. And while people have been lauding the actors, the film courted controversy days prior to its release due to the song 'Azadi'.
There was a debate on social media about the change in the lyrics of 'Azadi', which musician Dub Sharma created in 2016 after student leader Kanhaiya Kumar made the slogan popular during a protest in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The lyrics had words such as 'Aazadi... Manuvaad se', Aazadi Brahmanvaad se', but these lines are missing in the 'Gully Boy' track which has tweaked the original.Zoya said they changed the lyrics to suit the context of the film and its character.
"My story is about class, about feeling oppressed by your class. It is about economic disparity, the divide between rich and poor. It represents the point of view of my character and his engagement with the society, his socio-economic space and his anger. My film is not about the caste system or JNU."
The director was speaking to a news agency ahead of the film's release. Freedom, Akhtar said, is a word that was used way before JNU and will continue to be used.
"It has been used for women's movement, for caste disparity, against the system and whatever the oppressed community feels strongly about... But it would have been fake on my part if I had just taken the original song and monetised it."
The woman behind 'Dil Dhadakne Do', which explored varied relationships of the rich and mighty on a cruise ship, and 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara', about three friends on a road trip through Spain, has gone over to the other side with her 'Gully Boy' that talks about Mumbai's hip hop scene.