Lyrics that voiced a free Bangladesh

If you happened to open YouTube on your phone today and swipe to the top left corner to check out the trending music, you would find Bollywood diva Tamanna Bhatia's latest viral music video sitting at the top with around 60 million views.

Just below her video, trending at numbers two and four in our region, are the very first songs to echo what you, me and every other Bangladeshi have been feeling the past two weeks.

As fate would have it, the songs are of a genre that was never readily accepted by the mainstream population of our nation, but somehow rappers Shezan and Hannan Hossain Shimul's 'Kotha Ko' (speak up) and 'Awaaz Utha' (raise your voice) respectively ended up voicing exactly what we wanted: answers, accountability, rebellion and justice. 

These songs, more so than musically, resonated with the listeners lyrically.

When Hannan released Awaaz Utha on 18 July, Bangladesh had just started bleeding — literally. Perhaps that is why it was immaculately fitting to have a specific segment of Banglabandhu's iconic 7 March 1971 speech serve as the opening lines before Hannan kicked in with his rap verses.

"Since we have paid in blood, we shall give more. [But] we will free the people of this land!"— these very words once pumped millions of Bangladeshis up five decades ago and it is safe to say the words resonate with today's listeners as well. 

As Hannan steps in with his verse, he asks the people to speak up and questions who it was that shot and killed innocent people. He asked why there was blood on the streets when all everyone sought was righteousness and justice.

Awaaz Utha also sends the message that it is the youth and students who must speak up, as they are the ones who will need to "raise their voice" and lead the nation to freedom, ensuring that everyone's freedom and rights are secured.

Hannan, through his lyrics, further denounced all the acts of violence. Rather than the ones who pulled the trigger or charged with sticks, he asks the ones who gave the order whether they would have been as heartless towards their own kin.

Around 30-odd releases from a plethora of Bangladeshi musicians in the past few weeks resonated with the same message. 

Shezan had released Kotha Ko two days prior to Hannan's Awaaz Utha on 16 July and his song sends a very similar message, but in different words.

Kotha Ko starts off by posing a very real question as to how 2024 is any different from 1952; a time when students protested for the right to speak in their mother tongue, Bangla, only to be inhumanely gunned down by the Pakistani occupying forces. 

How is 2024 any different from when students asked for a reform of privileges that to them were unjust, only to be shot at, beaten and tortured by law enforcement of their very nation who once swore to serve and protect?

Kotha Ko further points out how the very rulers who made promises when they needed the people's support, betrayed them in their time of need. 

The song is a rebellion, exposing the people's lack of basic human rights such as freedom of speech. Through its lyrics, it says that everyone gets their tongues slit if they dare speak up against the atrocities if they speak the truth.

In almost every alternate line, Shezan asks everyone to speak up (kotha ko) against every act of wrongdoing. And Bangladesh listened. Not necessarily listening to him, but as everyone shared the same vein of thought, we saw lakhs of people lining up beside each other, demanding a free Bangladesh.

As the sun rises on a "new" Bangladesh, one can only hope the agony and anguish reflected in the two songs are never to be seen again. Freedom, and freedom of speech, should never be tainted. And it is with that hopeful belief that I, for the first time in two weeks, can fearlessly put my name on the byline of an article that under the previous regime, would have been brandished as "anti-national." Joy Bangla!

Kotha Ko garnered 2.5 million views and Awaaz Utha garnered nearly 2 million views, respectively,  in two weeks.