When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Tough has been the life of lyricist and singer Ramesh Gaichor. And tough is Ramesh. Consider this: In 2011, he and his mates in the Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural troupe, went into hiding, as the State hunted for them. It did not want the people to hear their songs against caste, class and gender oppression. In 2013, Manch activists courted arrest. Gaichor and Sagar Gorkhe were jailed, bailed out only in 2017. During incarceration, Ramesh wrote around 100 songs, his sister Pranali Prashant Parab says. The harshness of jail life would have silenced most.

Yet, in 2019, when the Modi government introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB) in Parliament, the first step towards preparing the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Ramesh got going. Words flowed from his pen. Read the lyrics, translated from Marathi by Advait Deshmukh: “By forming the NRC/ By forming the CAB/ It wants to snatch our nation away/ Say Inquilab, say Inquilab,/ Say Inquilab zindabad.”