A Delhi-based poet-activist has accused artist Anita Dube of using his widely known protest poem ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega‘ without his consent, credit, or compensation. Aamir Aziz, the Jamia Millia Islamia alumnus, condemned what he termed as “cultural extraction and plunder.”
The 35-year-old said he first learned about the unauthorised use of his work when a friend spotted his poem stitched into a display at Vadehra Art Gallery on March 18. The gallery, one of India’s most reputed art institutions, is currently hosting an exhibition of Ms Dube’s work.
Mr Aziz alleged the poem had been renamed and recontextualised in the gallery space, making it appear as Ms Dube’s original work.
“That was the first time I learned Anita Dube had taken my poem and turned it into her ‘art.’ When I confronted her, she made it seem normal – like lifting a living poet’s work, branding it into her own, and selling it in elite galleries for lakhs of rupees was normal,” Mr Aziz wrote in a statement on social media.
According to Mr Aziz, this was not a one-off incident. He later discovered his poem had been previously used in a 2023 exhibition titled ‘Of Mimicry, Mimesis and Masquerade’, curated by Arshiya Lokhandwala, and once again showcased at the India Art Fair in 2025 – both times without his knowledge.
When Mr Aziz confronted Ms Dube, she did not mention these previous exhibitions. “She didn’t mention this in our first conversation. She hid it. Deliberately,” he wrote.
“Let’s be clear: if someone holds my poem in a placard at a protest, a rally, a people’s uprising – I stand with them. But this is not that,” he said. “This is not solidarity. This is not homage. This is not conceptual borrowing. This is theft. This is erasure.”
Mr Aziz also claimed that parts of his poem were reworked into wood carvings and velvet cloth installations, showcased in commercial gallery spaces, renamed and rebranded, but never credited to him.
He accused Ms Dube and the galleries of using the work of marginalised voices without credit to make money, calling it “the oldest trick in the book, inherited from the same colonial masters: steal the voice, erase the name, and sell the illusion of originality.”
‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega‘ gained prominence during the anti-CAA protests. In February 2020, band ‘Pink Floyd’s co-founder Roger Waters read out Mr Aziz’s poem at a London event. It also resonated widely during the violent anti-CAA protests in Delhi.
Now, Mr Aziz says, the same poem that stood for resistance has been “gutted, defanged, and stitched into velvet for profit.”
He said he sent legal notices to Anita Dube and Vadehra Art Gallery, asking for answers and for his poem to be taken down from the show. But he claims they didn’t take him seriously.
“In return: silence, half-truths, and insulting offers,” he wrote. “I asked them to take the work down. They refused. The exhibition at Vadehra Art Gallery is on till the 26th of April.”
My name is Aamir Aziz. I am a poet.
My poem Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega has been used without my knowledge, consent, credit, or compensation by the internationally celebrated artist Anita Dube.
— Aamir Aziz (@AamirAzizJmi) April 20, 2025
Anita Dube is a well-known contemporary Indian artist who uses text, found objects, and materials like velvet, beads, bones, and ceramic eyes – to explore the interplay between personal and collective histories. Her work often addresses themes of loss, regeneration, and resistance.
A public comment on this matter is awaited from her.
