![]() ![]() She has been an integral part of the One Billion Rising movement in South Asia. She worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which she quit in 2002 to focus on her feminist work. She is best known for her work with Sangat – A Feminist Network and for her poem ‘ Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai’ (I want to study because I’m a girl). As vociferous and powerful as before, she continues to inspire generations of women to fight for their rights regardless of their class, caste, or gender. Kamla Bhasin’s struggle against injustice began in the 1970s. Bhasin however reminds us that the scope of the chant is not restricted to freedom from social injustices but is also an advocacy for freedom of self-expression and celebration. Kanhaiya Kumar in 2016 changed the lines of the poem to demand freedom from “ Bhukmari” (Hunger), “ Bhedbhav” (Discrimination), “ Brahmanvaad” (Brahmanical Hierarchy), etc. A lot of the Left parties and other groups have taken to adapted versions of the poem. The slogan has now become a constant in any fight against social injustices of various kinds. Kamla Bhasin | Featured Image Credit: Respect Women The key is to keep adapting it to the changing social realities. Everything is so bloody interconnected.” For example, the slogan took shape of, “Azadi from helpless silence, azadi from violence, azadi from media vultures, azadi from nuclear thunder” during a conference in Beijing in 1995. Any kind of freedom for women is impossible without freedom from caste and the present social circumference the society as a whole operates in. She says in an interview, “ Since the beginning we have been including farmers, workers and tribals too. She claims that ‘Azadi’ isn’t a slogan solely for feminists. ![]() Even today, she keeps improvising the poem to demand freedom from different things given the time and place of the protests. The line being recited was, ‘ Meri Behene Maange Azadi!’ She improvised it to come up with her poem which has been the revolutionary slogan of most feminist movements in India since. In a few interviews, Bhasin mentioned that she was inspired by something that she had heard at a women’s conference in Pakistan in 1985. ![]() Bhasin has been performing this poem for over three decades demanding equal rights for women. Her voice has not wavered since, and she continues to fight for the rights of women in rural India. Kamla Bhasin was in her forties when she first raised the cries of ‘Azadi’ in Jadavpur University nearly thirty years ago. “From patriarchy: Azadi from all the hierarchy: Azadi from endless violence: Azadi from helpless silence: Azadi,” she chants. Bhasin has been performing this poem across the country for over three decades demanding equal rights for women. The poem reads, “ Meri behane maange Azadi, meri bachhi maange Azadi, naari ka naara Azadi…” (My sisters want freedom, my daughter wants freedom, every woman’s slogan is freedom). ![]() She was accompanied by a group of women who chanted with her. The origins of ‘ Azadi’ in India traces back to a 1991 conference at Jadavpur University in Kolkata where well-known feminist activist Kamla Bhasin first recited her poem titled ‘ Azadi’. So, when and where did ‘Azadi’ originate?Īlso read: What ‘Gully Boy’ Got Right Kanhaiyya Kumar | Image Source: DailyO However, he wasn’t the first and will definitely not be the last to use it. From the slums of Dharavi, he strives for freedom from poverty, freedom to have a dream, freedom to love and to break from the shackles of his father. In the context of Gully Boy, the song ‘ Azadi’ is Murad’s inner voice as he is bogged down by the pressures of love, poverty, dreams, and family. Dub Sharma’s version of the song picks up directly from Kanhaiya Kumar’s rousing chants in Jawaharlal Nehru University from 2016, where he demanded Kashmiri rights to self-determination and protests against AFSPA. However, Azadi, which means ‘freedom’, will never truly lose its value. It has been used and thrown around quite often, much to the displeasure of the government. The recent controversy around Zoya Akhtar’s film Gully Boy using the song ‘Azadi’ has led to a lot of questions about what the chants of ‘Azadi’ mean and how it came to be. ![]()
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