Who Is Anita Dube? Artist Accused Of 'Theft, Appropriation' By Poet Aamir Aziz

Mumbai-based poet Aamir Aziz has alleged that renowned contemporary artist Anita Dube used verses from his poem, Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega, in her work without his consent, credit, or compensation. Aziz addressed the issue on social media on April 19, questioning the ethics, profit, and the often-unspoken power dynamics within the Indian visual art community. “On 18th March 2025, a friend saw my words stitched into a work on display at Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi and immediately called me. That was the first time I learned Anita Dube had taken my poem and turned it into her ‘art,’” he wrote in a statement.

Aziz's poem, Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega, was curated during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests of 2019–20. It became a powerful symbol of resistance, with its verses recited in rallies across India. Even Pink Floyd's Roger Waters quoted the poem during the recent pro-democracy rallies in the United Kingdom.

Dube's latest exhibit, Timanjala Ghar, was featured at Vadehra Gallery until recently. It featured a series of velvet banners decorated with slogans, drawn from many sources, including Aziz’s poetry. On social media, the gallery said the show “imagines unity amongst marginalised communities through intersectional discourse."

The issue in detail

Aziz claimed that Anita Dube adopted his poem without due credit. He wrote on social media, “Let’s be clear: if someone holds my poem in a placard at a protest, a rally, a people’s uprising—I stand with them. But this is not that. This is my poem, written in velvet cloth, another carved in wood, hung inside a commercial white cube space, renamed, rebranded, and resold.”

Aziz reportedly issued a legal notice to Dube and accused her of “using my poem for years." He stated that she also used his verses in a 2023 exhibition titled Of Mimicry, Mimesis and Masquerade, curated by Arshiya Lokhandwala, and also displayed at the India Art Fair 2025. "She didn’t mention this in our first conversation. She hid it deliberately."

Aziz also stated that when he confronted Dube, she "made it seem normal—like lifting a living poet’s work, branding it into her own, and selling it in elite galleries for lakhs of rupees was normal." He further accused Dube of appropriation. "This is not solidarity. This is not homage. This is not conceptual borrowing. This is theft. This is erasure."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Aamir Aziz (@aamir.aziz.3785)

Anita Dube's response

Anita Dube posted a statement about the "ethical lapse." She wrote, "I have been in love with Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega, especially some lines which swirled around in my head like dervishes... I work with materials that I love, that become means to critically comment, and the intent of quoting words from Aamir Aziz’s poem was to celebrate them."

Vadehra Art Gallery has withdrawn the contested works from sale and disabled comments on social media. They also released a statement, "hoping for an amicable resolution." Many artists and critics like Shilo Shiv Suleman and Devanshi Tuli have expressed public support for Aamir Aziz and called for broader accountability within the art community.

Who is Anita Dube?

Lucknow-born Anita Dube is a historian and critic turned visual artist. She studied art history and criticism at the University of Delhi and the Baroda (now Vadodara) Faculty of Fine Arts. She is known for her mixed-media sculpture and installation art that explore themes like politics, society, womanhood, and identity. Dube was formerly a writer for the catalogues of the exhibitions Seven Young Sculptors in 1985 and Questions and Dialogue in 1987. She was also the first female curator of the popular art festival, Kochi-Muziris Biennale.