Poet Aamir Aziz, famous for writing the poem Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest, on Sunday accused artist Anita Dube of using his poem at a recent exhibition in Delhi without his consent, credit, or compensation.
“My poem Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega has been used without my knowledge, consent, credit or compensation by the internationally celebrated artist Anita Dube,” Aziz alleged on social media.
Aziz, who is a Jamia Millia Islamia alumnus, condemned the unauthorized use of his work and called it “cultural extraction and plunder” in a 13-slide Instagram post.
Aziz said he first learned about the alleged plagiarism when a friend spotted his poem stitched into an artwork displayed by Dube in her exhibition, which was titled Timanjala Ghar, or “Three-storied Home”, at Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi on March 18.
Aziz said that when he confronted Dube, she tried to make her actions “seem normal”. He accused her of “lifting a living poet’s work, branding it into her own, and selling it in elite galleries for lakhs of rupees”.
Aziz also alleged that Dube had been plagiarising his poem “for years”, including at a 2023 exhibition titled Of Mimicry, Mimesis and Masquerade.
“She didn’t mention this in our first conversation. She hid it deliberately,” Aziz said.
“This is not solidarity. This is not homage. This is not conceptual borrowing. This is theft. This is erasure. This is the entitled section of the art world doing what it does best – extracting, consuming, profiting – while pretending it’s radical,” he further wrote.
Aziz also took to X, formerly Twitter, and shared his original work and the work used by Dube.
“And the irony? The poem raged against injustice. Anita Dube turned it into a luxury commodity—proof not only that injustice is alive, but that it now wears silk gloves and sells itself as art. That a poem written in defiance was gutted, defanged, and stitched into velvet for profit,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Dube replied to the allegations, calling it a “social media trial” by Aziz.
“I realise that I made an ethical lapse in only giving credit, but not checking with Aamir using words from his poem. However, I reached out and called him, apologized, and offered to correct this by remuneration. Aamir instead chose to send a legal notice, and then I had to go to a lawyer as well. As far as the accusation of my wanting to monetize the poem goes; I immediately put the works not for sale. I hope to resolve this issue in a fair manner,” she said.
The post had massive reactions from people, with many calling out the artist and the gallery for it.
This led to Vadehra Art Gallery issuing a statement saying they are looking at the matter very seriously. “We immediately ensured that the works Aamir Aziz has concerns with were not offered for sale,” the gallery said in a statement.
“We hope that the discussions that are ongoing between Aamir Aziz and Anita Dube can be resolved in an amicable and constructive manner,” they said.
Artist Sabika Abbas Naqvi also took to Instagram, shared her solidarity with Aziz, and called the whole incident a theft of art.
“Savarna artists from elite circles swooping in to borrow from the margins—only they never return what they take. Poems become props. Writings become wallpaper. Movements are mined for inspiration but never credited, never paid, never acknowledged,” she wrote.
Aziz first shared the poem on his YouTube channel in January 2020 amid the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests.
