Opinion Bengal sang in metaphors, not memes: Why Anirban Bhattacharya’s Hooliganism missed the protest beat
Bengal’s history of lyrical resistance clashes with Anirban Bhattacharya's crude mockery, trades Bengal’s rich protest tradition for viral gimmickry.
Yet, to dismiss Anirban Bhattacharya outright would be to miss the larger point. (Image: @anirbanbhattacharyaofficial/Instagram) 
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When actor Anirban Bhattacharya took to the stage with his band Hooliganism in Kolkata last week, the group took on political leaders from across the aisles. They mocked policy failures and derided ideological dogmas. Here was one of Bengal’s most acclaimed contemporary artistes stepping into the lineage of dissent through music. But what should have been a moment of artistic defiance collapsed into a noisy caricature of nine minutes. Political potshots masqueraded as satire; crude wordplay replaced craft. It was a protest, yes, but of the lowest rung – more gimmick than gravitas. And that is what stings.
Bengal has had a centuries-long tradition of protest through verse and music, and it has rarely been about cheap laughs. Through sharp, layered critiques, these verses and songs have turned dissent into movements. Bhattacharya’s descent into blunt parody, therefore, was not just disappointing; its personal tone and lack of nuance risked flattening a rich tradition into something forgettable.
Protests past
Consider the 19th-century mystic Lalon Fakir, who sang “Lalon bole jaat-er ki rup, dekhlam na ey nojore (Lalon says what does caste even look like? I have never seen it with my eyes).” It was a criticism of caste, wielded with simplicity and humour.
The only portrait of Lalon made during his lifetime, sketched on a boat at River Padma. (Wikimedia Commons)
Kobi gaan, public duels of verse, turned protest into theatre. Poets squared off with biting rhymes, skewering landlords, British officers, and local corrupt elites. They entertained people, but they also mobilised them.
In 1905, when the British first proposed the partition of the Bengal Presidency, Rabindranath Tagore’s Ekla cholo re became a protest anthem and a hymn of solitary courage. Tagore’s characterisation of “Bishu Pagla” in Raktakarabi – an eccentric man who seemingly criticises Gandhian morality without naming him – showed that the assertion of political differences needn’t always be a show of indignity. “Bidrohi kobi” — “Rebel poet” Kazi Nazrul Islam’s verses thundered against tyranny in cadences that shook empires but never descended into cheap provocation.
In the 1970s, Gautam Chattopadhyay’s Moheener Ghoraguli channelled alienation into restless, politically charged rock music. Chattopadhyay wrote laments for a homeland in flux amid the Naxalite upheaval, for a restless generation disillusioned by broken promises. “Ei muhurte bhitu manusher bhire basbhumi osthir ei muhurte… Notun thikana chai jekhane sobar thai (At this moment, our homeland is restless with scared people… they want a new address where they will be welcomed).”
Moheener Ghoraguli performing at Rabindra Sadan, 1979. (Wikimedia Commons)
Written in a Bengal scarred by violence and migration, the verses still resonate. Protest here was never a meme, it was memory; not jest, but a journey.
In the ’90’s, Kabir Suman carried this inheritance into the intimate and the everyday. His deceptively simple tunes distilled people’s frustrations with politics, religious fundamentalism, unemployment, or love in a collapsing Calcutta:
“Ami chai Hindu netar Salma Khatun putrabadhu” (I want a Hindu politician to have a Salma Khatun as daughter-in-law). Similarly, his critique of neoliberal consumerism and market-driven behaviour comes as: “Amake na amar aposh kincho tumi” (you have not bought me, but my compromises). His radical imagination of politics makes him stand out amidst populist singers like Nachiketa and Anjan Dutta.
Kabir Suman practicing double deck organ at his flat in USA. (Wikimedia Commons)
Compare this to Bhattacharya’s jibe at a politician for marrying late: “Dada khub e romantic (Brother is very romantic)”. One unsettles prejudice, the other settles for slapstick.
More gimmick, less satire
Against Bengal’s rich inheritance, Bhattacharya’s performance feels painfully thin. His targets were predictable – party turncoats, arrogant leaders, the Prime Minister. Satire, yes, but of the thinnest kind: Disposable, consumable, engineered for viral applause.
In today’s climate, even such bluntness carries risk. An FIR filed against him and the band is evidence that dissent of any kind is endangered. But blunt protest is also disposable. A week from now, the clip will circulate as WhatsApp entertainment, stripped of its edge, remembered more for its gimmickry than for its bite.
That is the tragedy. Bengal once birthed songs that governments feared because they lingered. A Lalon verse or a Suman lyric still draws knowing nods today. Bhattacharya’s act risks being reduced to the punchline of the day.
The cost of low-brow satire
What makes this all the more galling is that Bhattacharya himself has proven capable of more. His song on the NRC “Ami onno kothao jabona, ami ei deshetei thakbo” (I won’t go anywhere else, I will stay in this country) was sharp, poetic, and haunting. It placed him in the lineage of Bengal’s protest artists. Which is why this descent into gimmick feels like a betrayal of craft, tradition and audience.
Yet, to dismiss Bhattacharya outright would be to miss the larger point. His song may lack the artistry of Bengal’s traditions, but its very existence proves that the impulse to resist still finds a stage in the state. But Bengal deserves more than gimmicks. It deserves protest that does not vanish into the scroll but lodges in the conscience.
Because when dissent loses nuance, it loses legacy. When it trades allegory for punchline, it risks becoming indistinguishable from stand-up comedy – cathartic for a moment, empty the next.
stela.dey@indianexpress.com
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