This Kanhaiya dubstep will make every 'anti-national' proud

We all knew revolution and music have an intimate history, but looks like we had forgotten that important part of our tradition as freedom. As far as the Indian public discourse is concerned, the centre of the universe is Jawaharlal Nehru University and its besieged campus, its scholarly sentinels and professors of peace, and those who want to brand them "anti-national".

But like Javed Akhtar puts it, ideas are like birds: they don't respect borders - national or international. Hence, Chandigarh-based artist Dub Sharma's lovely track, fusing jailed JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's allegedly "seditious" speech to dubstep beats, is breaking the internet. It's a beautiful celebration of the lost idealism that our persecuted students are trying to recover through their intrepid locking of horns with the all-powerful "system".

More often than not, mass culture is irrigated and fertilised by poetry and philosophy emanating from our much-maligned centres of academic excellence. Before it became Bollywood, Hindi film industry saw many a poet-turned-lyricist give us revolutionary poem-songs.

Dub Sharma's electronic backdrop to Kanhaiya Kumar's speech a day before his arrest somehow makes it both surreal and accessible. Because a catchy tune can make even the hardest of words discernible, 'Azadi' serves as a reminder that Kanhaiya - who demanded freedom from oppressions of caste, class, poverty, capitalism, feudalism, Brahminism, Manusmriti-touting gents in government and its adjuncts - is in jail, illegally.

And, Umar Khalid - who has returned to JNU and whom a cannibalistic police state wants to eat alive, and whom television channels have labelled a "terrorist", "Maoist sympathiser", "Islamic fundamentalist", "anti-national" and much more - is also being paid a hat tip to.

It's time we join in the chorus and sing this freedom song.