The 36 day student protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar has ended, but one unexpected takeaway from the movement has been the revival of an eight year old song. As videos from the protest spread across Instagram and other social media platforms, Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain quietly became one of the tracks most closely associated with the demonstrations.
The song featured in countless Reels documenting everything from speeches and marches to moments of solidarity among students. For many who came across these videos online, it became the soundtrack of the protest.
The song that found a second life during the protest
Interestingly, Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain was never a chartbuster when it was released as part of Manto in 2018. It was appreciated by a section of audiences and critics, but remained largely outside the mainstream. The recent student movement, however, has given the song a fresh audience, with many discovering it for the first time through social media.
Originally featured in Nandita Das’s biographical drama Manto, the song appears in a sequence featuring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rasika Dugal. Much like the film itself, it speaks about speaking truth to power and the importance of preserving freedom of expression, themes that many social media users felt echoed the mood of the protest.
The poem behind the song
The song is based on Bol, Ke Lab Azaad Hain Tere, one of the best known poems by celebrated Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Written in the 1930s, the poem has endured for decades, finding a place in literature, theatre, music and public movements across South Asia. Its words have been revisited by several artists over the years, each bringing a new interpretation to Faiz’s timeless verses.
For Manto, composer Sneha Khanwalkar adapted the poem into a song, with classical vocalist Rashid Khan, widely remembered for Aoge Jab Tum from Jab We Met, and singer Vidya Shah lending their voices. While the track attracted little attention when the film was released, its recent resurgence has introduced both the song and Faiz’s poetry to a younger generation.
Watch the full song here:
Why does the song still resonate?
Part of the reason Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain continues to resonate is that its message has never really gone out of date. At its heart, the poem is about the courage to speak up, even in difficult times. It reminds people that having a voice also comes with the responsibility to use it.
That is perhaps why the song has resurfaced time and again during moments of public debate and protest. Decades after Faiz first wrote the poem, its words continue to find meaning in new contexts, reaching audiences far beyond the era in which they were first penned. This latest revival through the Jantar Mantar protest is another reminder of how poetry, when tied to lived experiences, can take on a life of its own.
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