‘Police Wale Babu’: The Song That Became the Anthem of India’s Restive Generation

“Police Wale Babu” is a mock song. It makes fun of the police, the danda (police baton) and the authority they represent. The joke is the protester is not running away from the baton. The student is asking for one. “Ek danda to laga do.” Go on, babu. Give us one.

At Jantar Mantar, site of students protest in New Delhi, the joke had some bite. Young protesters sang and danced to the catchy beat with police and barricades close by. The danda was not imaginary either. On July 20, police had used batons and tear gas when protesters tried to march towards Parliament. A protest over examination failures and government inaction now had a song in which the police baton had become a prop.

The song was already circulating at Jantar Mantar before Emaar The Sher released his version on July 26. A first-hand account in The Wire traced the version being played at the protest to a duo calling itself Couple Comrade. It moved through remixes, videos and social media before becoming a formal release. The crowd, in other words, got there first.

Emaar The Sher, who released the track commercially, has a long list of topical political songs to his name, including “Chalo Sansad”, “Ministers Ke Bachcho”, “GenZ ka Protest Alag Hai” and “Accountability My Foot”. His work is rooted in satire and socially conscious music.

It feels less like an anthem written for a protest than one that the protest found for itself. The song is silly, irreverent and catchy, but the grievance underneath it is not. Young people were demanding answers from the government and, instead, finding themselves facing the repressive machinery of authority.

That is hardly unique to India. Protesters have been singing at authority for generations.

“We Shall Overcome” gave the American civil-rights movement its great song of endurance. “Which Side Are You On?” put the listener on the spot. “Blowin’ in the Wind” asked questions that nobody in power seemed particularly eager to answer. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” gave the civil-rights struggle a song of hope. Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” sounded patriotic until you listened to the verses about poverty and exclusion.

India has an unusually long history of this sort of musical politics. The freedom movement stretched across languages and regions, and the songs travelled with it.

“Bella Ciao” travelled from the Italian resistance into the international protest repertoire. South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle had “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” and the haunting “Senzeni Na?”. Chile’s Nueva Canción movement put politics into folk music, with Víctor Jara among its best-known voices. Bob Marley put protest over a reggae beat. “Get Up, Stand Up” was not exactly a request for patience.

Songs have also escaped the movements for which they were written, or sometimes the movements for which they were never written. “Do You Hear the People Sing?”, from Les Misérables, turned up during the Hong Kong protests. Once a crowd takes possession of a song, its original address can become almost beside the point.

India has an unusually long history of this sort of musical politics. The freedom movement stretched across languages and regions, and the songs travelled with it.

“Vande Mataram” became the great nationalist rallying cry, moving from Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Anandamath into the political life of the anti-colonial movement.

But there was no single soundtrack to the freedom struggle. In Tamil, Subramania Bharati wrote songs that seemed almost impatient for independence; “Aaduvome Palli Paaduvome” celebrated freedom before it had arrived.

Telugu-speaking regions had their own repertoire in which language, land, cultural pride and nationalism came together. One of the best-known was Garimella Satyanarayana’s “Māku Oddi Tella Doratanam” — “We do not want this white man’s rule” — written in 1921 and widely sung during the Non-Cooperation Movement in Andhra.

Punjab had “Pagdi Sambhal Jatta”, written by Banke Dayal in 1907 and taken up by agrarian and revolutionary politics. Assam had Lakshminath Bezbaroa’s “O Mur Apunar Desh”. Maharashtra had the powada tradition, with shahirs turning tales of valor and resistance into songs for public gatherings.

The Indian National Army understood the more literal power of a marching song. “Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja”, composed by Captain Ram Singh Thakuri, was meant to keep soldiers moving. “Shubh Sukh Chain”, the anthem of the Azad Hind government, gave Bose’s movement its own musical identity. Later, the Indian People’s Theatre Association carried songs and theatre into workers’ neighbourhoods and villages.

The songs kept finding new occasions. Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge” acquired a new life during the anti-CAA protests. Aamir Aziz’s “Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega” became another familiar sound of that movement. Farmers’ protests have produced their own songs and adapted older ones. Student movements have done the same.

The journey from rally to audience has changed, however. Earlier, a song had to be learnt at a meeting, carried to another rally and taught again. Now somebody can record it at Jantar Mantar, put the clip online and let it spread across the country before the day’s protest is over. The protest itself becomes the music video.

“Police Wale Babu” belongs to this new world, but there is an older political instinct in its mockery. “Babu” is not quite an innocent form of address in Indian public life. Politicians and the media have long used “babu” and “babudom” to describe red tape, inefficiency, officiousness and the perceived arrogance of government machinery. The policeman in the song is therefore not simply being called “sir”. The word has a sting.

The state has the danda. The protesters have the joke.

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V.V.P. Sharma is a senior journalist and commentator based in New Delhi. This opinion was first published on the author’s Facebook.