WHEN WE MEET AND WE GREET, SAY, JAI HIND

This should be the national greeting, not merely in principle but in practice as well. For what is there in a morning, however good, that is not there in the victory of the motherland every moment? Moments strung together form the morn. So, let India rise and may we greet each other 'Jai Hind'.

An objection may be raised that the practice of greeting each other by 'Jai Hind' will stifle individualism by the imposition of nationalism. But no enforcement is being advocated here. It remains a free choice for all how they will conduct themselves in civic life in accordance with the freedom enshrined in the Constitution of India. Our fundamental rights are not to be infringed in any way by enforcement of any set of words and, if so, we have recourse to the Right to Constitutional Remedies to redress the situation, restore to ourselves our lost freedom. However, one has to stretch one's imagination fairly far to detect any possibility of a loss of individual freedom and a disruption of the harmony between the individual and the State by the citizens of this land adopting this greeting which is so very symbolic of national integration, and it is most meet that we do so now at a time of petty provincialism and secessionist tendencies when the call for national cohesion assumes an importance more than oftentimes in the past.

Netaji, in alliance with his adjutant Abid Hassan Safrani, had coined this greeting in wartime Germany for all Indians to feel a strong sense of national identity overriding all other forms of religious, class, caste, linguistic and racial divergences that threatened to tear India apart and which, indeed, since the heady days of the war when this formulation took place, have torn India apart. Netaji had envisioned the threat to national stability then and thereafter, and had, therefore, sought to strike this verbal affirmation of positive nationalism by way of thwarting all fissiparous tendencies.

Now it is up to us how we honour our greatest freedom fighter, our liberator from British tyranny, our prophet of nationalism, prince among patriots, our residual hope of a renascent India amidst the degeneration of the times. Will we stand up as a nation and send out the clarion call 'Jai Hind' or will we sink into a cacophony of provincialism and its other aberrations? For my own self I have volunteered in bliss to be on the side of our beloved Netaji and so do I with a thunderous sound send to you all my greetings, Jai Hind!