New Delhi: BJP has now been declared ‘anti-national’. The party’s PR move to highlight the Mumbai-Pune missing link as an ‘infrastructural marvel’ backfired because of one wrong move— the 9-second reel had a Pakistani song. The irony and the hypocrisy are up for a cross-border debate.
BJP used ‘Safar,’ a popular 2024 song by the Pakistani alternative rock band Bayaan from Lahore. The track has become a viral sensation on Instagram Reels and TikTok and has accumulated more than 34.7 million streams on Spotify and roughly 2,94,000 daily streams, making it one of the band’s fastest-growing and most popular releases.
The BJP video garnered 1.2 million views on X but also attracted a wave of criticism. The controversy was particularly pointed because the Indian government had previously issued an advisory instructing digital streaming services, over-the-top platforms and online intermediaries to remove content originating from Pakistan, including songs, films, web series and podcasts, citing national security concerns post the 2025 Pahalgam terrorist attack. As a result, major platforms, including Spotify India and YouTube Music, pulled popular Pakistani tracks and even changed promotional album artwork.
Citing national security, the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting invoked the Information Technology Rules to justify the clampdown, saying that media content originating in Pakistan could potentially affect India’s sovereignty, integrity or public order.
Pakistani actors were also digitally scrubbed from film covers. The Sanam Teri Kasam album artwork on Spotify and YouTube Music no longer featured Mawra Hocane; only her Indian co-star Harshvardhan Rane remained. Similarly, Mahira Khan was edited out of promotional imagery for Raees (2017), leaving Shah Rukh Khan standing alone.
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‘Hypocrisy louder than music’
Against that backdrop, the BJP’s decision to use the song prompted a series of pointed reactions. Indians and Pakistanis both chimed in.
“Selling an anti-Pakistan narrative to Indian people since last 20 years and then using Pakistani songs on social media posts, is such an audacious thing,” Pakistani X user Shaheer Malik wrote.
Another user called eminem_chacha added: “Imagine banning Pakistani artists and Pakistani music in the name of nationalism, only to use a Pakistani song when it suits you. The hypocrisy is louder than the music.”
A Pakistani account, Yang Goi, wrote: “acha yeh toh sahi hai but why the eff are you using a Pakistani song? Don’t you have your own songs? What happened to Arijit and other marasis in India?”
Mensch, another X user, took a more playful approach: “Pakistani music is so goated, even the BJP couldn’t resist borrowing the vibes.”
Indians weren’t far behind, especially members of the Congress.
“Hey @BJP4India by your own logic Now you are an anti-national. Didn’t you find an Indian song? Did you have to choose a Pakistani song?” Lavanya Ballal Jain, chairperson of the Karnataka State Seed and Organic Certification Agency, asked.
Vijay Thottathil, the president of INCAS, Kozhikode district, and a member of the Congress Digital Media Cell, also criticised the choice of music.
“Relation between BJP & Pakistan is so heart-touching that they are using Paki song to show the infra marvel,” he wrote, asking the BJP, “you didn’t get any indian song?”
The dispute over the song comes against a wider backdrop in which cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan have repeatedly become casualties of political tensions.
However, cultural contradictions do not run in only one direction. In April 2026, Pakistan’s media regulatory authority, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, or PEMRA, issued a show-cause notice to the country’s biggest media house, Geo News, over its airing of content related to Asha Bhosle. PEMRA questioned Geo News over its use of Indian songs and film clips while reporting on her death, citing a standing ban on Indian content and a 2018 Supreme Court judgment.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)