For decades, Javed Akhtar has been recognised as a voice — sometimes lyrical, sometimes combative, often unmistakably his own. His public life has unfolded through words: film songs memorised by generations, essays that argue with precision, interviews that rarely soften a position for comfort. It is perhaps fitting, then, that the latest controversy surrounding him is about speech he never gave and an image that does not belong to him.
Earlier this week, a video circulated online showing Javed wearing a skull cap and appearing to speak about religion. The clip looked convincing enough to prompt commentary, confusion and, in some quarters, celebration. It was also entirely fabricated. Created using artificial intelligence, it placed Javed inside a narrative he has never occupied.
Javed’s objection was immediate and unsparing. He dismissed the video publicly and warned that legal action was under consideration. What troubled him was not simply the impersonation, but the ease with which a lifetime of publicly stated views could be overwritten by a few seconds of synthetic footage.
Religion has long been a subject Javed approaches with clarity rather than ambiguity. He has spoken, repeatedly and at length, about atheism, scepticism and the importance of reason. The deepfake did not misquote him so much as recast him, borrowing his face and voice to suggest an ideological turn that never occurred.
What makes such fabrications unsettling is their ordinariness. There is no elaborate conspiracy here, no sophisticated operation. The tools used to create the video are widely available. The platforms that carried it are familiar. The audience that shared it acted, for the most part, without malice — forwarding before questioning.
In recent years, public figures have learned that visibility now comes with a peculiar vulnerability. One can be present everywhere and still lose control of one’s own image. Deepfakes collapse the distinction between documentation and invention, leaving viewers to navigate a space where disbelief feels almost impolite.
Javed’s response suggests a refusal to accept that erosion as inevitable. His warning about legal consequences is as much symbolic as procedural, an attempt to reassert authorship over a self increasingly treated as raw material.
The larger question, still unresolved, is whether the law can keep pace with a technology that renders authenticity optional. Until it does, figures like Javed are left to do what they have always done: speak plainly, correct the record and hope that attention eventually drifts back towards the truth.
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