Bollywood And Its Love For Pakistani Music
India will never miss a chance to accuse Pakistan of anything wrong that may happen in the country, yet when it comes to music, they sing a completely different tune. Copying Hollywood music is usually taken for granted, assuming that no one out there really comes to know about it. But Pakistani music is a different ball game.
Owing to similarities in culture and taste, many a time, a simple Hindi translation of Urdu words is sufficient to adapt a song into Indian movies. Anu Malik and Pritam are infamous for such acts.
The recent controversy on Karan Johar directed “Jugjugg Jeeyo” and the song ‘Nach Punjaban’ is the perfect case study here. Pakistani singer and politician Abrar Ul Haq has assured his fans that he is still taking legal action against Karan Johar and T-Series for allegedly stealing his song.
The song first appeared briefly in the trailer of the movie and prompted Abrar Ul Haq to Tweet to claim that he has not sold his song to anyone and will approach courts against Johar. In response, T-Series said it had “legally acquired” the rights to the song and it is also available on Lollywood Classics’ YouTube channel.
Stop stealing our songs
.
.@karanjohar @TSeries @DharmaMovies #StopStealingOurSongs pic.twitter.com/6EMJ6rZRlD— Abrar Ul Haq (@AbrarUlHaqPK) June 4, 2022
Just recently Pakistani singer Hadiqa Kiani had brought to fore the blatant disregard with which Kanika Kapoor released her song ‘Boohey Bariyan’ without giving her any due credit.
Bollywood has always fumed over the prevalent piracy of movies from Pakistan, but the same ethics seem to disappear when it comes to copyright violations of Pakistani music. A few years ago, a Twitter thread had gone viral, that listed the popular Bollywood songs which were simply lifted from Pakistani originals. Seems like this trend is unfortunately continuing.
‘Zalima Coca Cola’ featuring Nora Fatehi, from the film “Bhuj; The Pride of India” is another song that was pilfered from the original song that was sung by Noor Jehan in 1986 for a Punjabi film “Chan Te Soorma”. The Bollywood version was sung by Shreya Ghoshal and the music has been given by Tanishk Bagchi, a composer more famous for his remixes than his original scores.
The secret to making a hit Bollywood movie, more often than not, depends a lot on its music. Appropriating music that is already liked by people across the border with similar taste to that of Indians is an easy target. This practice can be stopped only with awareness amongst the audience and the implementation of stringent copyright laws, which, unfortunately, do not seem to affect the big Bollywood honchos.
