In the days since Gully Boy's latest track Azadi dropped online, social media users have pointed out how the makers have presumably played it safe by dropping references to casteism and Brahmanical oppression that the original song bore.

Musician Dub Sharma had created the song in 2016, after Kanhaiya Kumar made the slogan popular during his protest against the 2013 hanging of Afzal Guru at JNU. Sharma's track had lines that went, 'Aazadi...Manuvaad se, Aazadi... Brahmanvaad se', thus reiterating the JNU students' protests against social evils. However, the reworked version featuring Ranveer Singh has relatively tepid lines that go, 'Aazadi bhukhmari (poverty) se, aazadi bhedbhav (discrimination) se.'