India plagiarizing Pakistani content is nothing unheard of. Pakistani songs, their compositions, and tunes are being copied by those across the border all the time. In fact, just earlier this month singer Brham Darya copied Shani Arshad’s track ‘Ki Jana’ frame to frame in his music video.
This time it’s singer Dhvani Bhanushali with her latest track ‘Mehendi’ which copies heavily from the classic Pakistani song ‘Gagar.’
What Happened
The song is originally from one of the pioneers of pop music in Pakistan, Alamgir. A remake by Umair Jaswal however was released last year for VELO Sound Station. Dhvani’s song ‘Mehendi’ while having its own original lyrics copies the exact tune from the Pakistani songs. The composition in the chorus part of her song is a blatant rip-off of the Pakistani classic and yet no Pakistani has been credited for the song in any capacity.
The Outcome
The song became the most viewed song on YouTube in 24 hours beating out big names for the top spot. Umair Jaswal took to Instagram to call them out. He tagged all the creatives behind the song including Alamgir.
Bollywood is a huge space and yet it still relies heavily on Pakistani musicians’ works. However, with its gigantic audience, they are almost always bound to outperform the Pakistani originals. Plagiarism like this is most frustrating because ‘Mehendi‘ with its plagiarized tune will reach the most people and be known as its own original work by the general population. Meanwhile, the Pakistani creatives didn’t even get as much as a song credit.
Recently with the internet at least it’s easier to call out plagiarism so it doesn’t go unnoticed anymore. We can only hope that people from India themselves call out their own creatives from blatantly ripping off others because it needs to stop