Watch: This ‘Gully Boy’ song is a perfect fit for how some channels covered India-Pakistan tensions
‘Jingostan’, composed and rapped by Dub Sharma is about jingoism ripping the country apart.
The music of Zoya Akhta’s Gully Boy has been making waves across India since its release, especially because of its political themes. While the song Azadi was used in a rap-battle-of-sorts between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Twitter, composer Dub Sharma’s song Jingostaan has now been used by YouTube channel Official Peeing Human for a video on media coverage of the tension between India and Pakistan.
On February 27, India conducted air strikes in the Balakot area of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the wake of a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pulwama on February 14 that resulted in at least 40 casualties.
The air strikes led many to fear an escalation of armed conflict between the two neighbouring countries. Even as many social media users participated in campaigns to say no to war between India and Pakistan, several television news anchors insisted that the only solution to the India-Pakistan conflict is a full-blown war. Some studio anchors even pretended to be standing in border areas while reporting.
In its video, Official Peeing Human, which is run by Ramit Verma, showcases anchors who demanded war, as well as others who used bizarre visual effects to their studio coverage of the crisis, all with the Gully Boy track playing in the background.
Inspired by the word jingoism, which means “extreme or aggressive patriotism”, the song is the perfect soundtrack for how many news channels covered the conflict.
