Sonali Joshi Pitale (MID-DAY; April 18, 2014)

Anurag Kashyap’s movie Gulaal (2009), which was set against a political backdrop, featured a song called ‘Aarambh’. It seems that the song is being used by Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) supporters for their prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. According to a source, the video of the song, featuring Modi has also been uploaded on YouTube.

Anurag, who had directed the movie, was initially surprised. He decided to check with the music company if they have given rights to the party. However, when he found out that no rights have been bought by BJP, the filmmaker contacted Bhushan Kumar, whose company T-Series had the music rights, to voice his displeasure. “Anurag asked if I had given the rights to BJP, to which I said no. I have the music rights, the producer holds the official rights of the song, and only he can sell it.” When contacted, Ajay Rai, the producer of Gulaal, said that he wasn’t aware about it.

When mid-day contacted Anurag to ask if he was looking to take any legal action against the party, he said, “Of course, we are not happy with them using the song. It is written and sung by Piyush Mishra and neither him, nor I endorse BJP’s Hindutva ideology, whatever it is camouflaged in. Piyush is a person, a voice of people’s movement. It is his prerogative who he allows to use his voice. Just because they are who they are, they cannot bully his rights and use the song without his permission, that too illegally.”

Niranjan Shetty, BJP spokesperson of Mumbai, said, “I am not aware about the song. I will check with the party and if there is anything wrong, we will rectify it.”