{"id":23713,"date":"2021-10-14T11:00:57","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/kamla-bhasin-gully-boy-azaadi-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2021-10-14T11:00:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T11:00:57","slug":"kamla-bhasin-gully-boy-azaadi-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/?p=23713","title":{"rendered":"From Gully Girl to Gully Boy: Indian feminist activist Kamla Bhasin&#8217;s Azaadi chant was borrowed from Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Indian feminist activist Kamla Bhasin, who passed away in September 2021 at the age of 75, fought for equal rights throughout her life and is the person who grafted a slogan about &#8216;<em>Azaadi<\/em>&#8216; that will forever be remembered by the generations to come.<\/p>\n<p>The youth must have heard Gully Boy&#8217;s <em>Azaadi<\/em> and found it inspirational and motivational, but not many know that the slogan has its origin in Pakistan. The feminist icon, Kamla Bhasin, told the story behind the <em>Azaadi<\/em> song which became popular after JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid chanted it. However, it is actually borrowed from Pakistan, according to her old interview in Indian portal <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thequint.com\/neon\/kamla-bhasin-brought-gully-boy-song-azaadi-from-pakistan#read-more\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Quint<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Bhasin travelled to neighbouring countries while working with the United Nations in the 1980s. She went to Pakistan in 1984, when the country was led by General Zia-ul-Haq.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[Around] 35-years-ago, I went to Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan at that time was ruled by Zia-ul-Haq. The first group that rose up against Zia-ul-Haq was not a political party or political activists, but it was a group of Pakistani feminists. Women were not allowed to do meetings so they took permission from the police and arranged a &#8216;women fair&#8217; where they had stalls of bangles etc. In reality, the congregation was all about democracy and freedom,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Did <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/KamlaBhasin?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#KamlaBhasin<\/a> inspire <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GullyBoy?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#GullyBoy<\/a>&#8216;s \u2018Azaadi\u2019 song? She tells<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GarvitaKhybri?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@GarvitaKhybri<\/a>, the story behind the song. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ArfaSufrqu\">pic.twitter.com\/ArfaSufrqu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Quint Neon (@QuintNeon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/QuintNeon\/status\/1093435045656711168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 7, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I witnessed that meeting and that\u2019s where they chanted: \u2018<em>Women want azaadi children want azaadi, we want our azaadi&#8217;<\/em>. Then I started using the phrase for all purposes when it is required; <em>azaadi<\/em> [freedom] from starvation, diseases, endless violence, endless silence, rape and plunder, nuclear blunder, patriarchy and all hierarchy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When asked what&#8217;s her take on the usage of the slogan in <em>Gully Boy&#8217;s song Azaadi, <\/em>Bhasin said that she is not sure if they learnt it from her or not.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If they learnt it from me then I&#8217;m very happy because even I learnt it in Pakistan and borrowed it. This is a chant that is alive. It grows every day and it changes every day. It is not set in stone,&#8221; she concluded.<\/p>\n<p>You can listen to <em>Gully Boy&#8217;s Azadi<\/em> here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Azadi - Gully Boy| Ranveer Singh &amp; Alia Bhatt | DIVINE | Dub Sharma | Siddhant | Zoya Akhtar\" width=\"1260\" height=\"709\" data-trx-lazyload-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4nCshJBODT4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"story-element story-element-text story-element-text-quote\">\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chant may have been an inspiration behind Gully Boy&#8217;s song &#8216;Azaadi&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":22948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[704],"class_list":["post-23713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-gully-boykamla-bhasinranveer-singh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.somethinghaute.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}