Bollywood has continued to remain in news over its alleged copying scandals as music composers have been found stealing melodies of international songs for remaking them in Hindi under their name. This time, singer-composer Anu Malik is the latest to join the list.
Twitter was on fire yesterday after users discovered that the 1999 hit song “Mera Mulk Mera Desh”, which remained the most played song during local republic day events, has its music copied from Israel’s National Anthem.
The discovery was made during the Olympic games live visuals when Palestine-occupied Israel’s gymnast Artem Dolgopyat won the second gold medal. As rituals follow, the winning country’s national anthem in instrumental music is played at the medal-bestowing ceremony. The tune immediately caught the attention of Indian viewers who linked it to the song from Ajay Devgan’s film Diljale.
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Soon after, more people started realizing the similarity and trolled the 60-year-old composer for plagiarizing the song without permission and without due credits to its actual creator. The original song is ‘Hatikvah’, the national anthem of Israel that was composed in the 19th century and introduced formally as the anthem in 1948, much before Anu Malik beaded the tune for the Bollywood movie.
This isn’t the first time when Anu Malik has come under the limelight for copying songs as earlier too he was accused of doing so. Twiiter users dint spare the composer as they kept mocking him for the act, which has surfaced decades later.
Reacting to the scandal, a user wrote, “So, Anu Malik didn’t spare even Israeli national anthem while copying tune for Diljale’s Mera Mulk Mera Desh in 1996. Thanks to the internet we now know this,” while another tweeted saying, “The National anthem tune has some familiarity to the Indian song… Mera Mulk Mera Desh? Or is it just me?”
The singer-composer has been in the industry for more than 40 years. In April 2011, he had slammed music composer Pritam for copying the music of his song “Mohobbat Naam Hai” of “Ajnabee” movie and using it in Salman Khan starrer Ready’s “Character Dheela”.
Meanwhile, he is blamed for stealing the music of Linear’s Sending All My Love for Neend Churayi Meri from Ishq, European Toto Cutugno’s L’Italiano for Nasha Ye Pyar Ka Nasha from Mann and Wham!’s Last Christmas for Dil Mera Churaya Kyun.
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Anu Malik had received the National Award for Best Music Direction for the 2000 film Refugee starring Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. He has also won awards for composing the music of songs like Asoka, Prem Ki Diwani Hoon, Main Khiladi Tu Anari, Ajnabee, Tango Charlie, and others.
