Mumbai-based poet and musician Aamir Aziz has accused contemporary artist Anita Dube of using verses from his poem Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega without credit or consent. The dispute, unfolding on social media since April 19, has raised urgent questions about artistic ethics, profit, and the often-unspoken power dynamics within India바카라s commercial visual arts world.
Aziz바카라s poem바카라written during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests of 2019바카라20바카라became an emblem of resistance for many. Its verses were painted on placards at Shaheen Bagh and recited in rallies across the country; it was even quoted by Pink Floyd바카라s Roger Waters during a pro-democracy event in London. Now, Aziz says, the same work has been rebranded바카라co-opted by Dube and exhibited in elite gallery spaces without his knowledge or permission.
바카라On 18th March 2025, a friend saw my words stitched into a work on display at Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi and immediately called me. That was the first time I learned Anita Dube had taken my poem and turned it into her 바카라art,바카라바카라 he wrote in a statement posted across his social media platforms.
Dube바카라s latest solo show, Timanjala Ghar, on view at Vadehra until recently, featured a series of velvet banners emblazoned with slogans, drawn from sources ranging from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to Aziz바카라s poetry. In a now-deleted caption, the gallery described the exhibition as one that 바카라imagines unity amongst marginalised communities through intersectional discourse.바카라
Aziz has sharply contested that framing. 바카라Let바카라s be clear: if someone holds my poem in a placard at a protest, a rally, a people바카라s uprising바카라I stand with them. But this is not that,바카라 he wrote. 바카라This is my poem, written in velvet cloth, another carved in wood, hung inside a commercial white cube space, renamed, rebranded, and resold.바카라
He has since issued a legal notice to Dube and accused her of having used his work in multiple exhibitions without disclosure. 바카라I discovered she had been using my poem for years, including in a 2023 exhibition titled Of Mimicry, Mimesis and Masquerade, curated by Arshiya Lokhandwala, and again displayed at the India Art Fair 2025. She didn바카라t mention this in our first conversation. She hid it deliberately,바카라 Aziz wrote.
바카라When I confronted her, she made it seem normal바카라like lifting a living poet바카라s work, branding it into her own, and selling it in elite galleries for lakhs of rupees was normal.바카라
Dube responded in a statement issued shortly after the allegations, acknowledging the use of the lines, but as a tribute rather than explicit plagiarism or appropriation. 바카라I have been in love with Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega, especially some lines which swirled around in my head like dervishes,바카라 she wrote. She apologised for not seeking permission, calling it an 바카라ethical lapse.바카라
Vadehra Art Gallery has since withdrawn the contested works from sale, disabled comments on social media, and released a statement expressing hope for an amicable resolution.
Aziz, however, has made it clear that he sees Dube바카라s activism, political engagement and apology as performative, 바카라This is not solidarity. This is not homage. This is not conceptual borrowing. This is theft. This is erasure. This is the entitled section of the art world doing what it does best바카라extracting, consuming, profiting while pretending to be radical.바카라 He wrote.
Many other artists, writers, and cultural critics have expressed public support for Aziz, including Shilo Shiv Suleman and Devanshi Tuli, opening up dialogue for a broader reckoning among creators in India's visual art world.
At the heart of the matter are questions surrounding the art world바카라s appetite for the language of resistance, without the accountability it demands. What began as poetry written for the oppressed has been transplanted into a luxury space only accessible to those with power.
Who gets to speak in the language of dissent, and who gets published, platformed, and paid for it? When protest becomes a product, what happens to the people for whom it was written?
