Sona Mohapatra has reignited the conversation around gender bias in Bollywood music. The singer, known for her outspoken personality, claimed that heartbreak and romantic songs are overwhelmingly dominated by male artists. She added that due to the same, it has left little creative space for women.
Sona Mohapatra takes aim at Bollywood’s male-centric music industry
In a video shared on her Instagram account from an event she had atteneded, Mohapatra made a pointed observation about how female singers are sidelined even in duets. Recalling her experience with the popular 2017 Raees song ‘Zaalima’, originally sung by Arijit Singh and Harshdeep Kaur and picturised on Shah Rukh Khan and Mahira Khan, she said, “All those heartbreak songs in Bollywood are reserved for the men. Men have heartbreak, men in current times feel love. Because every time I was called to sing a duet, I somehow have the ending chorus. You must hear this song called ‘Zaalima’. It is Arijit [Singh]’s song, and I was called to sing that, and I was flabbergasted.”
Sona Mohapatra questions the structure of Bollywood duets
Questioning why female voices consistently appear only in the final moments of a song, she added, “Because the mukhra, antara, mukhra, antara… all of them were taken up by the man. It is not Arijit’s fault; he is a great artist. But why is the female coming in the end? My question to Pritam was, ‘Is the man making love to himself?’ What kind of a duet is this? … The thing is it is nobody’s fault, but the system of music in the industry has become so risk averse.”Taking the debate to the comments section of her post, Sona connected the lack of female-led songs to the broader decline of iconic female music stars in India. She wrote, “This conversation is about representation. If an industry stops creating iconic female narratives, it will eventually stop creating iconic female stars.”She further argued that the imbalance has been systemic and long-standing, not incidental. Sona added, “The point isn’t that women never sang heartbreak songs. The point is that Bollywood stopped writing enough of them. An industry that gives 80–90% of its biggest romantic and heartbreak narratives to male voices for nearly two decades should not be surprised when it struggles to produce female music stars of equal cultural scale. This is a conversation about systems, not victims. Count the songs. Then let’s talk?”Mohapatra, who has previously spoken out on sexism, objectification, and the lack of female agency in mainstream Indian films, continues to be one of the most consistent and fearless voices in the industry on issues of gender representation.