S. Krishnan, Tanisha Choudhary and Shubham Choudhary
Contemporary popular music is frequently laced with material that, not so long ago, would have been considered firmly taboo. Profanity, sexual content and racial slurs have become increasingly widely accepted across the industry. Contrary to popular assumption, the use of such content is not confined to rap or hip-hop: pop artists such as Maroon 5 and Katy Perry, and rhythm-and-blues singer Brian McKnight, have all been prone to explicit lyrics, as have hip-hop acts such as Lil Wayne, Eminem and 2 Chainz.
At present, rapper-singer Badshah is facing significant controversy and legal action over the lyrics of his Haryanvi song “Tateeree”. The situation has sparked an intense debate regarding the balance between artistic freedom of expression and public decency standards in India. The fundamental question this raises is whether these artists are exercising a legitimate creative voice, or whether the content they produce has become a deeper social ill — one that is actively and negatively reshaping cultural norms.
Background
The song “Tateeree” (released on or around 1 March 2026) stands accused of featuring indecent, vulgar and obscene lyrics that allegedly objectify women and minors. Complaints filed by activists centre on lyrics such as “Aaya Badshah doli chadhane, in sabko ghodi banane”, which have been flagged as deeply offensive. The complainant, Abhay Chaudhary, a social activist and resident of Chandimandir, contends that the track, released on the singer’s official YouTube channel and widely circulated on social media, contains objectionable lyrics and visuals that propagate a harmful message. The music video has drawn further criticism for featuring girls in school uniforms, which opponents argue sends a profoundly inappropriate signal to young audiences. The controversy has ignited a broader public debate, pitting artistic expression against moral accountability. Critics argue that the lyrics violate cultural norms and carry a corrosive influence on young listeners; supporters, by contrast, invoke the principle of creative freedom. The police registered a case under Section 296 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, along with Sections 3 and 4 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
The incident highlights a recurring and unresolved clash between popular, often deliberately raw, rap lyrics and the legal and traditional interpretations of obscenity operative in India.
Controversial Lyrics and Freedom of Expression
Musicians possess a singular capacity for self-expression: through lyric-writing, they can move audiences, lend voice to lived experience, and render themselves deeply relevant to their listeners. Yet popular music encompasses far more than the “touching”, “motivational” or otherwise affirmative, it is a vast landscape that includes lyrics steeped in controversy, whether through profanity, depictions of violence, references to drug use, or other content that cuts against prevailing social norms.
Controversial songs have always provoked intense debate, in which the claims of artistic freedom are weighed against prevailing societal standards, with lyrics frequently criticised for promoting violence, misogyny or hate speech. Whilst freedom of expression affords considerable protection to such works, legal systems across the world, including India’s, impose restrictions grounded in decency, public order and the prohibition of incitement.
The use of explicit content in music varies considerably from work to work. Some songs employ profanity without depicting violence, whether as affirmation or in its literal sense. A representative example is “Seven” by Jeon Jungkook, released in two versions: the standard and the explicit. The distinction amounts to a single word in the chorus: the standard version contains the line “you know night after night I’ll be loving you right”, whilst the explicit version substitutes one word to yield a markedly more sexual connotation. The change is minimal in form yet consequential in meaning, a clear illustration of how a single lexical choice can reframe an entire narrative.
At a considerably higher register of explicitness, several songs have incorporated graphic depictions of violence, substance use and sexuality. In 1992, the Los Angeles-based heavy metal band Body Count released an album featuring the track “Cop Killer”, which narrates the story of a young man planning to murder a police officer. The release provoked a storm of condemnation: prominent politicians ranging from Dan Quayle to Jesse Jackson publicly denounced the song; police departments across the country threatened to divest holdings in Time Warner, Body Count’s record label; and bomb and death threats were directed at record executives. Under the weight of this pressure, the band withdrew the album from circulation and removed the track entirely.
Two fundamental principles are engaged whenever a court is called upon to adjudicate a case involving freedom of expression. The first is the doctrine of content neutrality: the state may not restrict expression solely on the basis that listeners, even a majority of a community, find it offensive. In the domain of art and entertainment, this requires tolerating works that many may find offensive, insulting, outrageous, or simply without merit.
The second principle holds that expression may be restricted only where it will clearly cause direct and imminent harm to a significant societal interest. The canonical illustration is the act of falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre and thereby precipitating a stampede. Even in such circumstances, speech may only be silenced or sanctioned where there is no other proportionate means of averting the harm.
India has produced its own vivid instances of this tension. Earlier in his career, in 2013, Honey Singh attracted fierce public censure for songs featuring violent and misogynistic lyrics, including “Main Hoon Ek Balatkari”, widely condemned for degrading the dignity of women. His scheduled New Year performance was cancelled following mass public and media outrage over lyrics accused of objectifying women and, as one commentator put it, of “encouraging men to rape women who roam about alone at night”. During the 2019–20 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), rap emerged as a vehicle for political dissent: tracks such as “Sanda Seivom” by Arivu and “Streetocracy” by Shumais Nazar and Manosh Kochi gave voice to organised resistance against government policy and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The question that has animated public discourse for nearly two decades thus reasserts itself: is rap music a legitimate art form that reflects and represents the violent social realities from which it emerges; or is it a genre that exploits the cover of artistic freedom to incite violence and perpetuate misogyny?
In January 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed that free speech may not be curtailed on any grounds falling outside Article 19(2) of the Constitution. The case, Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2023 INSC 4, arising from a minister’s controversial remarks, consolidated the rule that no additional heads of restriction may be judicially grafted on to the exhaustive list set out in the Constitution. Even so, India’s higher judiciary has in recent years begun to incorporate considerations of “sentiments” into its assessment of what speech merits constitutional protection. Over the past decade, alongside a body of firmly pro-free speech judgements, a discernible sensitivity to public sentiment has taken hold — one whose implications for artistic expression remain to be fully tested.
Way Forward
Music represents one of the most powerful means by which individuals exercise their right to freedom of expression. Through the lyrics they craft, musicians articulate what they think and feel, often giving form to perspectives that resist expression through any other medium. Yet the individual’s right to freedom of expression can, at times, conflict with the rights of others, most acutely in cases where song lyrics employ abusive language, or traffic in more extreme content involving violence, drug use or the degradation of women and children. The mere fact that a song is the product of creative self-expression does not, of itself, insulate it from scrutiny; the exercise of that freedom must still be calibrated against the values and norms operative within the society in which it is received.
Given the volume of music carrying contentious lyrics, greater wisdom is called for in the airing, broadcasting and consumption of such material. In certain cultural contexts, content that would prove deeply contentious in one jurisdiction circulates freely in another, its reception shaped by local norms. This underscores the importance of individual discernment. Explicit or parental advisory labels, now standard on most streaming and music platforms, provide a ready reference point for listeners seeking to make informed choices. Beyond this, attention to one’s own psychological and emotional state before engaging with potentially distressing material represents a prudent, and often neglected, safeguard against the adverse effects that certain music can produce.
(Dr S Krishnan is an associate professor in Seedling School of Law and Governance, Jaipur National University. Tanisha Choudhary and Shubham Choudhary are law students at the same university)
