INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT’S POPULAR SLOGANS

11th August, 2022 History

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Be it ‘Jai Hind!’ or ‘Vande Mataram!’, most of the popular patriotic slogans raised today are likely to have their origins in the movement for Indian independence.
Some of those slogans have been invoked in the modern day too, such as ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ during the anti-corruption protests led by Anna Hazare in 2011, and the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests of late 2019.

Bengal’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose popularised ‘Jai Hind’ as a salutation for soldiers of his Indian National Army (INA), which fought alongside Netaji’s ally Japan in the Second World War. But according to some accounts, Netaji did not actually coin the slogan.
The term was coined by Zain-ul Abideen Hasan, the son of a collector from Hyderabad, who had gone to Germany to study. There, he met Bose and eventually left his studies to join the INA.

‘Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe aazadi doonga’ by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

As per the book ‘Subhas Chandra Bose: The Nationalist and the Commander – What Netaji Did, What Netaji Said’ edited by Vanitha Ramchandani, the slogan had origins in a speech Netaji made in Myanmar, then called Burma, on July 4, 1944.
“Friends! My comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you one thing, above all. I demand of you blood. It is blood alone that can avenge the blood that the enemy has spilt. It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom,” ending the sentiment with “Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe aazadi doonga” (Give me blood and I promise you freedom).

The term refers to a sense of respect expressed to the motherland.
In 1870, Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote a song which would go on to assume a national stature, but would also be seen as communally divisive by some.
Written in Bengali, the song titled ‘Vande Mataram’ would not be introduced into the public sphere until the publishing of the novel Anandamath in 1882, of which the song is a part.
Vande Mataram would soon be at the forefront of sentiments expressed during the freedom movement.
The novel Anandmath, set in the early 1770s against the backdrop of the Fakir-Sannyasi Rebellion against the British in Bengal, came at a time of the Bengal agrarian crisis when the region was hit by three famines one after another.
Chattopadhyay’s novel held the Muslim Nawab responsible for the excruciating circumstances, claiming it was the Nawab bowing down to The East India Company that had caused such a situation.
After the British rule ended, the song was in contention for being the national anthem, but was criticised by some and ended up becoming the national song instead.

‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long live the revolution) was first used by Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921.
Along with Swami Kumaranand — also involved in the Indian Communist movement — Mohani first raised the demand for complete independence or ‘Poorna Swaraj’, at the Ahmedabad session of the Congress in 1921.
He was later elected a member of the Constituent Assembly and was also a member of the drafting committee of the Constitution along with Dr B R Ambedkar.
His stress on Inquilab was inspired by his urge to fight against social and economic inequality, along with colonialism.
Before Mohani coined this slogan, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia made the idea of revolution symbolic of the struggle for oppressed nationalities globally.
It was from the mid-1920s that this slogan became a war cry of Bhagat Singh and his Naujawan Bharat Sabha, as well as his Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).
Bhagat Singh also wished for a social revolution to break age-old discriminatory practices. This slogan got major traction when he and B K Dutt dropped bombs in the Assembly on April 8, 1929, and shouted it.

“Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil men hai, dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil men hai” (Our hearts are now longing to die for a good cause, that we shall see what strength the arms of killers possess), are the first two lines of a poem written by Bismil Azimabadi, a freedom fighter and poet from Bihar, after the Jallianwalah Bagh Massacre of 1921 in Amritsar, Punjab.
In the poem, the line ‘Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil men hai’ is repeated, and the two lines have been used often in Hindi movies with patriotic themes.
The lines were popularised by Ram Prasad Bismil, another revolutionary.
He was a part of the Kakori train robbery, a successful and ambitious operation in which a train filled with British goods and money was robbed for Indian fighters to purchase arms.

On August 8, 1942, the All-India Congress Committee met in Gowalia Tank Maidan (August Kranti Maidan) in Bombay.
Gandhi addressed thousands after the meeting to spell out the way forward.
He told the people that he would firmly take his demands to the Viceroy, saying, “I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. Maybe he will propose the abolition of salt tax, etc. But I will say, ‘Nothing less than freedom’”.
He then told the people what they must do: “Here is a mantra, a short one, that I give you. Imprint it on your hearts, so that in every breath you give expression to it. The mantra is: ‘Do or Die’. We shall either free India or die trying; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery.”

While Gandhi gave the clarion call of ‘Quit India’, the slogan was coined by Yusuf Meherally, a socialist and trade unionist who also served as Mayor of Mumbai.
A few years ago, in 1928, Meherally had also coined the slogan “Simon Go Back” to protest the Simon Commission – that although was meant to work on Indian constitutional reform, but lacked any Indians.

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