Bhrigu Sahni carries with him a legacy of art that is inextricable from protest and politics. On Gandhi Jayanti and the first day of the anti-SIR protests on October 2, the grandson of playwright Bhisham Sahni, known for his partition novel Tamas and his work with the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), released a song titled ‘Azadi’ – the music video of which consists entirely of footage from the satirical party Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) protest, that resulted in the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Sahni created the song with his band Bhrigu and the Jaanemans as he turned 37, the culmination of a more inchoate, personal feeling of freedom. But after attending the CJP protests in Mumbai, he found himself awe-inspired by the thousands of people who had gathered, and the sense of collective liberation. “The song just lends itself so perfectly to the movement. And so, we decided to make this video, where we interspersed the protest footage,” he said. “We went to the protest several times. Initially, because we had seen what had happened at Jantar Mantar, we were wary. But everyone we met was walking towards the protest site, and because of that unity, we felt protected.”Azadi isn’t loud, it doesn’t carry the masculine bravado which many protest songs do. Sahni brings a lighter touch. The song, despite not having been written exclusively for the protests, has the same tenor as the CJP originally did – a note of unseriousness. In the video, for instance, there is a scene which shows a teargas launcher blowing smoke into the air. The very next second, you have Sahni determinedly singing “huyi azadi. Meri azadi.” Lathi charges are being undertaken to the strum of an electric guitar. It is moments like these, this weaving together of an easy joy as resistance against the state, is what characterises Gen-Z protests. “They carry the most hilarious placards. There’s levity to this movement, there’s humour. That’s what Gen Z is bringing. And it is so nice,” he said. “It’s not a sombre sort of movement, you know? There’s a guy in a Spider-Man costume. It’s ridiculous.” ‘We belong to a country with a rich tapestry’The release of the song also comes at a time when the word Azadi has taken many hits. Over the last decade or so, its use has grown contentious. Even as recently as July, a CJP volunteer said that protestors were “not allowed” to chant Azadi slogans, and instead encouraged chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. Quite famously, then student leaders Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar, and Anirban Bhattacharya were charged with sedition for raising “anti-national” slogans in 2016. Almost immediately, slogans about and around questions of freedom or Azadi became shorthand for anti-nationalism. “This is just the government’s way of singling people out. This is something one can easily see through. Azadi is freedom from a repressive regime. Freedom to say what you want to say.”These are the values, the practices that Sahni has subliminally imbibed. He grew up with his father narrating stories of his grandfather and granduncle’s commitment to anti-communalism and compassion for all human beings. “The point is that he [Bhisham Sahni] saw incredible amounts of violence and hatred owing to the Partition. But that brought about a deep understanding and care for his fellow human beings, which is what he had all his life,” he said. “We belong to a country with a rich, beautiful tapestry. And what is being done to it? So at the very least, it was time to put out a song.”