BANDE MATARAM !

Why do we nowadays only say 'Jai Hind' by way of national greeting? Why not 'Bande Mataram' ('Vande Maaram') as well? Are we not trying to rewrite the true history of our freedom struggle? Was not 'Bande Mataram' the clarion call for freedom throughout the movement for independence save in its final phase in the INA? Did not the extreme revolutionaries chant it as the national mantra for freedom even as they endured torture at the hands of the British police in prison, in the dreaded Cellular Jail across the seas (kalapani) and even as they walked to the scaffold to hang for the freedom of future generations who would betray them at every turn in the name of non-violence as being their credo for freedom as their perfidious politicians would brainwash them into submissive acceptance?

I call my mother, 'Ma', do you? If so, then know for certain that Hind has a mother, too, and she is not called 'Hind' (abbreviation for Hindustan), but 'Mataram', meaning 'Mother'. And we, her children, must hail her with the mantra she has fed into us with the milk of her breast -- 'Bande Mataram!'.

We do not merely aspire for the victory of India and all that she stands for, which is the essence of the greeting 'Jai Hind', but we also venerate our motherland as mother and express our heart's highest adoration in the mantra 'Bande Mataram' which means 'I worship thee, mother, who art my motherland'.

Henceforth, let us, patriots worth the call, devotees of our beloved motherland, children of immortal bliss, ring the skies of this holiest of lands with the music of 'Bande Mataram' taught us by our great poet-patriot, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. Bande Mataram! Oh, a shiver runs down my spine as I behold Khudiram hanging from the noose!