Daily Times

“Muck Fodi” is the title of a hit song rendered by Kashmiri hip-hop artist The Preacher aka Shayan Nabi, composed in response to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s 2019 election campaign slogan Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkaar. The Mumbai rapper A-List aka Ashwini Mishra composed the song, “Muck Fodi” in which he throws down verses about prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi dodging TV interviews to the 2002 Gujarat communal riots to campaign gaffes. Says Mishra, “I had to actually shortlist the things I could put in the song, because there is so much material to take on this dude.”

This is the first time Mishra recorded lyrics in Hindi since he started rapping in 2004. Mishra says about rapping in Hindi, “The idea was to flip the BJP campaign slogans and also to make the message more accessible.”

“Muck Fodi” is the second song to target Modi, following Delhi ska/reggae band The Ska Vengers’s video for “Modi, A Message To You”. Mishra opines, “I think it’s great to see Indian reggae and hip hop stand up and say something when we are being constantly told we should keep quiet. I think it is crucial that independent artists fight for their right to dissent through their art.”

Ironically, “Muck Fodi” has been adopted as a slogan and become a meme for the protest against Modi’s repressive legislations of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC) aimed at sidelining Indian Muslims. The remonstrations are being led by Hindu students of various Indian universities.

The video was made viral to create hate and odium against Muslims and turn the tide against the protesting students. Fortunately, social media analysts saw through the ploy of the BJP and analyzed the videos as fake

The protests, which gained momentum in major cities of India are being called as the battle for survival-a battle to save everything good India. After Modi’s goons cracked down on the protesting students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), students all over India picked up the gauntlet and now pose a major problem for the ruling BJP. Besides carrying posters proclaiming “Muck Fodi”, they wave banners depicting “National Uprising of 2019 and have spread from Delhi and Assam to Mumbai, Chennai, Kashmir and all over, where the mood is rebellion.

The empire has struck back with fake videos of Muslim JNU student activist Umar Khalid chanting Hindu on say Azadi (Freedom from Hindus) made viral by BJP’s Delhi spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, who took to Twitter to share the video. The false claim was also proliferated by BJP Mumbai spokesperson Suresh Nakhua. The video was made viral to create hate and odium against Muslims and turn the tide against the protesting students. Fortunately, social media analysts saw through the ploy of the BJP and analyzed the videos as fake.

Videos of a young girl in Hijab carrying a poster that read “Free Kashmir” also went viral but created the opposite effect because the students retaliated in fury. Effigies of typical Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers wearing a black cap, white shirt and khaki half-pants with placards reading “enemy of the nation” were burnt to depict the resentment against the Hindu extremist militant organization RSS.

Posters also portrayed Indian Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as stick wielding goons. While “Muck Fodi” was the slogan of choice, others said: “Superpower? More like suppressed power?” Others claimed, “This is Civil Disobedience” while another screamed “Yesterday AMU, Today JNU, Tomorrow You.”

Apart from veteran Muslim Actor/Director/Producer Nasiruddin Shah who declared: “After 70 years, I’ve come to realize as a Muslim I can’t live in India”, no other Muslim Bollywood star has spoken against the repression of Kashmiris or the draconian laws of CAA and NRC. Yet it is heartening that most of Bollywood’s Hindu community refused the invitation of Union Minister Piyush Goyal for a gathering at a Mumbai five-star hotel but instead turned up in large numbers to protest at Carter Road, Bandra. Varun Grover gave the anthem to the protest movement against CAA and NRC with his poem Hum Kagaz Nahi Dikhayenge while Vishal Bhardwaj tacitly attacked the Prime Minister with his poem “We’re not dejected, we’re not surprised for you turned out just as we had thought…You lie with such truthfulness even the truth sounds fake to us.”

According to Mumbai-based scriptwriter and journalist Satyen K Bordoloi, “when Deepika Padukone stood next to a bandaged Aishe Ghose, it seemed the second last bastion of Bollywood had been breached, the last being the big male stars. This is unheard, unseen, unexpected and unprecedented for the Indian film industry as even during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, very few like the Anand brothers led by Dev Anand had the guts to oppose the dictatorial reign of Indira Gandhi. The allegedly spineless Bollywood seems to have grown a spine of steel. Perhaps like the rest of the country Bollywood too is deriving its strength from students.”

Bordoloi adds that an elderly woman with white hair carried a banner that read, “My children will protest for their future and I protest for their future and I protest if you don’t let them.”

If Modi has not grasped the full impact of “Muck Fodi”, he is in serious trouble and so is India.

The writer is a retired Group Captain of PAF. He is a columnist, analyst and TV talk show host