Faiz is trending again. Which means either a bulldozer rolled into someone’s home or democracy just tripped over its own shoelaces. It’s become a pattern—news breaks, hashtags brew, and before you can say “inquilab,” “Hum Dekhenge” is echoing across Instagram reels, Twitter threads, and protest playlists. The man whose verses once lit up underground gatherings now makes regular appearances between viral memes and Spotify ads. Faiz Ahmed Faiz: revolutionary poet, reluctant influencer, and unofficial bard of every political meltdown since 2019.
This isn’t merely nostalgia—it’s a whole aesthetic. Protest has gone digital, visual, and consumable. Once upon a time, dissent was scrawled in manifestos and screamed in streets. Now it’s captioned in cursive fonts over grainy footage of candle marches. Revolutionary poetry has become background noise for influencers doing slow-motion turns in dramatic lighting. Faiz didn’t write to trend, but here we are—his verses looped under motivational YouTube Shorts and clipped into reels that aim to raise awareness while maintaining a pleasing colour palette. The algorithm loves Faiz almost as much as the revolution did.
We’ve traded pamphlets for push notifications and lathis for lo-fi. Civil disobedience has been repackaged into an “engagement strategy.” The power of collective anger now runs on curated soundtracks. “Bol ke lab azaad hain tere” isn’t just a rallying cry—it’s also background audio for someone’s resistance-themed workout reel. Activism has gone ambient. Somewhere between sincerity and satire, a new genre was born: protest as performance. Imagine Bhagat Singh getting push notifications. “Hey Bhagat, new track from @RevolutionRaja just dropped. Features Ambedkar AI vocals!” Yeah, he’d probably throw his wireless earbuds out the window.
Enter the Blue-Ticked Bards. Verified voices of virtual resistance who drop protest EPs with better cover art than most corporate campaigns. Every protest now comes with its own playlist. Farmers’ protests had Punjabi rap. Anti-CAA rallies brought back ghazals. Manipur? A remix of “Vande Mataram” trending on Shorts. Some of these artists mean every word, but others do not. But they all know their audience: an algorithm that rewards rage only when it rhymes.
In this Spotify-fueled uprising, dissent is just one more mood category. Protest songs play alongside productivity playlists and self-care audio guides. The revolution, it turns out, is not televised—it’s monetised, mood-matched, and available in HD. You can stream civil disobedience on your morning run and still be in time for your Zoom call. And somewhere between a makeup tutorial and an Amazon ad, Faiz plays on.
Even protest reels have their own language now—sepia tones for solemnity, dramatic pans for passion, and quotes pulled from Faiz or Audre Lorde, always styled in vintage serif fonts. It’s hard to be angry when your feed looks so good. Yet, ironically, it works. Faiz’s words still cut deep, even when filtered through a reel. They burn, not in the chest, but somewhere subtler—between irony and impact, performance and pain.
And all of it is beautifully, disturbingly efficient. The system doesn’t need to silence you anymore—it just needs to trend you. Rebellion has a shelf life now. Today’s viral protest post becomes tomorrow’s “On This Day” memory, neatly archived with likes and heart emojis. It’s not suppression—it’s saturation.
The most absurd part? Even capitalism is in on it. No movement is sacred. Once Faiz starts trending, brands are never far behind. Expect slogans on coffee mugs, protest-themed discounts, and solidarity-themed ad campaigns. “Support local farmers—order protest-themed parathas now!” The co-option isn’t clever—it’s clumsy. And yet, it’s constant. Protest has a market now. “Azaadi” gets sold in three fonts. Kendrick Lamar is licensed for Nike campaigns. Bob Dylan lyrics are QR-coded onto T-shirts sold at indie lit fests.
Meanwhile, the real protestor—the one sweating in the street, chanting slogans in a storm, dodging police batons—is nowhere in the feed. They’re not “on brand.” They’re not optimised. They don’t have pastel graphics or Canva-friendly slogans. What they do have, however, is truth. And often, that’s not click-worthy enough.
But every now and then, the illusion breaks. A grandma in Shaheen Bagh sings Faiz through a loudspeaker and refuses to move. No filter. No aesthetic. Just grit. Just the verse, raw and loud. It’s a reminder that not all resistance can be curated. Some of it is messy. Some of it is off-key. But all of it is real.
Somewhere between Faiz’s poetic defiance and Gully Boy’s “Apna time aayega,” Indian protest music found its swag—then promptly got invited to Koffee with Karan and forgot why it was angry. Protest music in India has never been about just music. It’s been rage in rhythm. Faiz, Habib Jalib, and Pash wrote with exile in their bones. They weren’t trying to go viral—they were trying to stay alive. Then came the new wave—Divine, Naezy, Prabh Deep—spitting verses about slums, state violence, and stolen futures. But soon even their rebellion was co-opted, Bollywood-fied, and served with abs and Auto-Tune.
“Apna time aayega” became a party anthem. The fire was still there, but so was the spotlight. And when protest music enters the mainstream, it often forgets who it was written for. What began in chawls ended up in coffee shops, scrubbed clean for mass consumption. The same rage that once threatened the system now sells sneakers.
Still, the underground scene resists. Dalit rappers in Tamil Nadu spit truth through grainy mics. Kashmiri poets write under surveillance. Folk singers from Punjab smuggle metaphors through their melodies. They’re not viral, but they’re vital. And while brands chase the next protest trend, these voices remind us what rebellion sounds like without filters. The protest isn’t dead. It’s just struggling through auto-tune and NDMA approvals. The underground scene still breathes. Kids are still spitting truth between electricity cuts. Somewhere, in a chawl or a chawni, India’s next anthem is being written.
And no, it won’t be coming soon on Amazon Prime.
Bollywood, as always, joins the protest party late and leaves early. Celebs tweet solidarity during peak outrage, then show up smiling at corporate events the next day. Films flirt with dissent—Article 15, Udta Punjab—but rarely go the whole way. Real anger is risky. Even when the script is about justice, the spotlight always lands on a Savarna hero.
What we get instead is limited-edition rebellion. Just enough to trend, not enough to offend. Meanwhile, the actual issues—Hathras, Manipur, Kashmir—remain untouched, off-limits, or turned into metaphors so vague they mean nothing.
At the same time, a new figure has emerged: the protestfluencer. Armed with pastel slides, trendy fonts, and curated empathy, they make resistance digestible. Their posts are beautiful, their captions perfectly balanced—one part sadness, two parts aesthetic. And sure, some genuinely care. But when activism becomes a brand, who’s it really serving?
You raise your voice, but you also raise your visibility. And in a world where engagement equals existence, even dissent must perform. Meanwhile, the algorithm favours pretty outrage. Ugly truths get shadowbanned. Real anger doesn’t trend—it terrifies.
And then there’s their corporate cousin—the LinkedIn rebel. You know the type: wears a Che Guevara T-shirt under a Zara blazer, shares Faiz in Monday motivation posts, and thinks attending a diversity awareness seminar webinar is peak revolution. LinkedIn is their playground. Here, protest is performance art. Posts begin with “I don’t usually talk politics, but…” and end with 17 hashtags and a plug for their startup. They love Rage Against the Machine, but also love machines. Especially the AI kind that helps automate layoffs.
These fanboys (and fangirls) will write long essays on workplace empathy while their company breaks unions. They’ll post about social justice, right before announcing funding from the same conglomerates accused of human rights violations.
Faiz is their flavour of the week. Next week, it’ll be Mandela. Or Ambedkar. Depends on what’s trending.
But don’t worry—they mean well. Just not enough to be uncomfortable. Because true resistance doesn’t come with share options, it doesn’t reward virtue signals. And it certainly doesn’t care about your personal brand.
Yet, despite all the branding, the selling, the dilution, something still pulses. A verse in Tamil. A chant in Bhojpuri. A teenager rapping in a one-room home. An auntie refusing to move. The original fire may flicker under filters—but it’s not out.
Faiz is trending again. And maybe that means something is breaking. Maybe it means something is waking up. Or maybe it’s just another performance. But if even one person hears his verse, pauses, and questions the world around them—that’s one spark more than silence.
Let the influencers pose. Let Spotify monetize. Let Bollywood pretend. Somewhere, someone will still sing Faiz—loud, off-key, and utterly unbothered by your algorithm.
And that, mercifully, still can’t be auto-tuned.