At first I thought I must have missed it. Then I went back to YouTube to check. Yes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of Red Fort with two slogans: Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram, with three repetitions. Among the many firsts accomplished by Modi, dropping Jai Hind (victory to India that is Bharat) at an Indian prime minister’s most important public function was also a first.

This act of omission embodies a landmark turn in the political and ideological shift that the Modi regime has been attempting to implement as part of its agenda of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. 

Among the many measures – the rewriting of history textbooks, changing names of places, the electoral mobilisation to consolidate Hindu votes, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and now the Census – dropping Jai Hind is the latest.

Origins of the term

Jai Hind was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s most important slogan. The irony is that while the Modi regime has elevated Bose as perhaps the most important leader of the freedom struggle after Mahatma Gandhi, and possibly Patel, it has simultaneously discarded the iconic slogan of his Azad Hind Fauj.

Gandhi made several artifacts weaving Jai Hind in Khadi for gifts and other uses. Independent India’s first postal stamp featured Jai Hind with the image of the Indian national flag. Jai Hind is now an integral part of the folklore of India. So many songs, films and creative acts have made it immortal. It is a part of the Indian and global vocabulary of anti-colonial revolution.

This slogan has a long history associated with nationalist revolutionaries. Most people trace the origin of the term to Chempakraman Pillai (1891-1934) from Thiruvananthapuram, who went to Europe to organise the Indian Independence Movement. In 1907, while still in India, he coined the term Jai Hind. He was part of the Provisional Government of India formed by Raja Mahendra Pratap and Maulana Barkatullah in 1915 in Kabul. British victory in World War I ended this attempt.

In 1943, Jai Hind became the official greeting of the Indian National Army. As per INA accounts, Major Abid Hasan Safrani of INA had suggested this to Netaji. Netaji had been inspired by the 1915 initiative and the group, including Pillai, had moved to Berlin to carry forward their efforts of Indian independence.

Hind vs Bharat

The most significant implication of the prime minister’s act of dropping Jai Hind is the persistent effort to replace Hind with Bharat for defining India. 

As an Odia, I grew up using Bharat and Bharatavarsha for India never for a moment thinking that it would one day be used by Hindutva forces to mean something else. For me Bharat and Hindustan were identical. 

Hind was a term used by travelers from West Asia and Central Asia to refer to the land across the river Sindh/ Sindhu/Indus. This is the reason why in most foreign languages India is translated as Hind country. In Chinese, Yindu for India does not mean land of Hindus, which should be Yindu jiao kuo or country of Hindu religion. The term India came from Hind.

Hind was our term for India as a land with multiple religions, languages and cultures. It was a term used for many centuries, used certainly before the many divisions of the subcontinent took place under colonial rule.

Allama Iqbal’s famous 1904 song Saa re Jahan se accha Hindustan Hamara, which everyone from children to soldiers sings with pride, will now attract scrutiny.

Every citizen of India, especially the Youth of India, which has risen in revolt under the leadership of the Cockroach Janta Party, must notice this latest move to change the character of Republic of India and consolidate its saffron avatar.

One can only hope that missing Jai Hind was a one-time slip by the prime minister. 

Manoranjan Mohanty is a former Professor at the University of Delhi. He can be reached at mmohantydu@gmail.com

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