{"id":4083,"date":"2016-07-28T17:48:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T12:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2026-07-17T20:54:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:24:02","slug":"gully-boys-dissent-general-elections-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=4083","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Real Gully Boys & the Art of Protest Poetry: Rapping Up Election 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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e shabdon ka jwaala\nMeri bediyan pighlaayega\n\nThese words are flames<\/span>\n<\/span>They will melt my shackles<\/span>\n<\/span>~ \u201cApna Time Aayega\u201d, <\/span>Gully Boy<\/span><\/i>\n\nMeet your new breed of journalists. Articulate, fearlessly candid, and crusading on our behalf \u2013 their film crews at the ready \u2013 in the nooks and corners of every street. They aren\u2019t citizen reporters, they are <\/span>citizen<\/span><\/a> rappers. <\/span>\n\nBorn in a world where they watch the social media circus around billionaire marriages on the same phone they paid that <\/span>billionaire<\/span><\/a> for, their sour cynicism is beginning to bubble over. Today, when the affluent minority and the aspirational lower classes uneasily jostle within India\u2019s economic frothiness, a new, and unlikely group appears to have become the voice of the masses.<\/span>\n\nThe antidote to unreliable <\/span>journalists<\/span><\/a>, fawning filmmakers, and jingoistic political commentators, one collective voice might just have become an unwitting substitute for the fourth estate. Sample this acerbic appraisal of the media: <\/span>\n\nSamachaar sab gaye hai bik<\/span><\/i>\n<\/span><\/i>Jo bole Neta ji dete likh<\/span><\/i>\n\n(In this era of paid news<\/span>\n<\/span>Politicians dictate our media)<\/span>\n<\/span>~ \u201c#Black\u201d<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Spitfire<\/span>\n\nMaslon ko suljhaane waale pe hi atyachaar hai<\/span><\/i>\n<\/span><\/i>Koshishien bekaar hai jhooti samaachar hai<\/span><\/i>\n\n(Those who\u2019re working for change are terrorised<\/span>\n<\/span>What\u2019s the point? Efforts are fruitless, the news is fake) <\/span>\n<\/span>~ \u201cTragedy Mein Comedy\u201d, Naezy<\/span>\n\nAt a time when the subduing of the news media and chilling deaths of RTI activists have deepened society\u2019s trust deficit, the guardians of democracy appear to be India\u2019s street rappers. As Zoya Akhtar\u2019s <\/span>Gully Boy<\/span><\/i><\/a> focuses the spotlight on India\u2019s indigenous rap movement, you\u2019ll find the real message of the streets encrypted within. In the grime within the gloss, lie the signs of our times.<\/span>\n\n