Tracing the history, meaning, and emotional power of the songs that have defined Independence Day for generations, from Vande Mataram in Anand Math to A.R. Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam
A part of Independence Day celebration that has remained inviolable over the years is the patriotic songs blaring from speakers, like a sacred ritual. Growing up in the 1990s in North India, I have vivid memories of loudspeakers tied to electricity poles with wire that looked far too thin to hold them, their black cones pointed toward the neighbourhood like watchful sentinels. By the time the rain-darkened afternoons rolled in, they would be awake, broadcasting patriotic songs from cassette players whose buttons had lost their spring.
There was something hypnotic about those first notes drifting into the air on the eve of August 15: Lata Mangeshkar’s voice crooning Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon, Mohammad Rafi’s chest-swelling Mere Desh Ki Dharti, the inherent nationalistic fervour of Saare Jahan Se Achha. The morning of the 15th was always the loudest. The songs began before sunrise, soft at first, as though someone was easing the mohalla awake, then steadily rising until every corner was stitched together by the same refrain: Vande Mataram… Vande Mataram.
From our terrace, I could see the flags going up on school rooftops, some perfectly crisp and new, others faded from last year’s celebrations. And everywhere, the songs — sometimes crackling, sometimes perfectly clear — looped like the pulse of the day. That’s why even now, decades later, the strains of Kar Chale Ham Fida… unlock a very specific picture: tinny speakers, damp August air, and the impossible feeling that for one morning, the whole neighbourhood was grooving to the same songs. Today, the loudspeakers have been replaced by sleek JBL speakers. But the Independence Day celebrations continue to play the same sets of songs in the apartment in Delhi-NCR where I live.
Promise of a new Republic
In the years immediately after the independence in August 1947, Hindi cinema saw to it that the nation’s heart had a pulse, and it was often reflected in its songs. Early songs of freedom showed people not just the idea of India, but how it might feel to live in it, revel in it. Vande Mataram from Anand Math (1951) was one such song. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 19th-century hymn found a life of its own in Hemant Kumar’s stirring composition and Lata Mangeshkar’s voice.
The historical drama film, based on Chatterjee’s novel of the same name, was set during the Sannyasi Rebellion (Hindu saints and Muslim fakirs took up the cudgels against East India Company in one of the earliest uprisings against the British) in the late 18th century Bengal. Directed by Hemen Gupta (1912-1967), Anand Math starred the leading actors of the time: Prithviraj Kapoor, Bharat Bhushan, Pradeep Kumar, Geeta Bali, and Ajit. Gupta was born in Rajasthan and his films include Kabuliwala (1961), based on a story by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
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In a country still healing from the wounds of Partition, it was less a victory lap and more an incantation, an attempt to bind together a nation in the making. By the mid-50s, the new Republic was trying to define itself beyond independence. Songs like Saathi Haath Badhana (Naya Daur, 1957) captured that optimism. Sung by Mohammed Rafi and rendered in O. P. Nayyar’s buoyant score, it was a worker’s ballad, a promise that collective effort could pave the road — literally, in the film — towards progress. These ideals somehow seemed to be tangible, tied to labour, sweat, and the idea of building something together.
The ballads of sacrifice and resolve
If the 1950s had the unmistakable energy of construction, the 1960s were soaked in the spirit of sacrifice. Ae Watan Ae Watan (Shaheed, 1965), Rafi’s full-throated ode to the motherland, came at a time when the memories of colonial struggle were still personal histories. I still get the goosebumps while listening to “Aye watan aye watan humko teri kasam, teri raahon mein jaan tak luta jaayenge / Phool kya cheez hai, tere kadmon pe hum, bhent apne saron ki chadha jaayenge (O my country, O my country, we swear by you — / we will give our very lives on your path / What is a mere flower before you? / We will lay down even our heads at your feet as an offering).”
The song, written and composed by Prem Dhawan, was a tribute to martyrs, anchored in the film’s portrayal of Bhagat Singh (Manoj Kumar, who died in April this year). Directed by B. R. Chopra and based on a story by Akhtar Mirza, father of filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza, the film also had the powerful patriotic anthem, Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna, originally written by Bismil Azimabadi and immortalised by the freedom fighter Ram Prasad Bismil, who made it famous as a call for revolution against British rule.
Mat Ro Mata Lal Tere Bahutere (Don’t cry, mother, your sons are many) from Bimal Roy’s Bandini (1963) was picturised on a young revolutionary, on his way to the gallows, who tells his mother not to weep. He is proud for he has been granted the honour of dying for the motherland. It is a sentiment soaked in courage, but also in tragedy because for the mother left behind, patriotism is a poor substitute for a son’s presence. Perhaps Roy, attuned to the undercurrents of human loss, meant the song to foreshadow the grief of those who survive: their sacrifices often unrecorded, their heroism uncelebrated.
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Kar Chale Hum Fida (Haqeeqat, 1964), written by Kaifi Azmi, sung by Rafi, and composed by Madan Mohan, came after the heartbreak of the 1962 Sino-Indian war. It was a soldier’s farewell, an elegy sung in the voice of those who would never see the nation they died for. It forced India to come to terms with the cost of its security, long before “national security” became a television slogan.
Changing notes in a changing India
By the ’70s and ’80s, patriotism in Hindi cinema became all about safeguarding the nation against its new anxieties — border conflicts, political unrest, and corruption. The soundtracks mirrored the shift from collective idealism to individual heroism. Manoj Kumar’s films (Upkar, Purab Aur Paschim) were textbook examples: full of earnestness, sometimes bordering on sermon, but hugely influential in shaping a generation’s idea of service to the nation.
Mere Desh Ki Dharti from Upkar (1967) carried the rustic pride of soil and harvest. It underscored that patriotism wasn’t confined to battlefields, but was also manifest in fields and factories. The sentiment was populist, but the melody was unforgettable, and the reach immense, largely due to Kalyanji-Anandji’s magical touch. However, around this time, the patriotic song was in danger of becoming formulaic.
By the late 80s, the genre often felt like a checkbox in Independence Day or Republic Day broadcasts: a rising flag, a choral swell, and lyrics that were variations on the same motherland metaphor. What kept it alive were singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Rafi, whose sincerity could rescue even the most hackneyed verse.
A new Millennium, a new vocabulary
The 1990s brought with it liberalisation, satellite TV, and a different relationship with the idea of India. In 1997, the 50th anniversary of independence, A. R. Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam won many hearts. It didn’t come from a film, but Rahman’s modern arrangements made it sound like the country itself was breathing differently. Its opening call, stretching “Vande Mataram” into an elongated prayer, made it a song that the new generation took a shine to.
This was also the decade where the film industry began to see diaspora stories as part of its patriotic narrative. By the time Swades (2004) arrived, Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera, Javed Akhtar’s words sung by Rahman, gave us a new soundtrack to show our love for the country, specially to those who had left its shored for better lives elsewhere. It was intimate and personal: a tug of soil, food, language, and memory pulled an NRI scientist home. Its beauty lay in its simplicity: loving your country didn’t mean rejecting the world; it meant recognising where you belonged.
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Songs like Des Mera Rangrez (composed by Indian Ocean for their 2003 album Jhini, and used in Anusha Rizvi’s Peepli Live, 2010) took an even sharper turn. Patriotism was laced with satire: Indian identity seen through the eyes of rural poverty. The fusion of rustic folk with contemporary beats created a space where love for the country could coexist with criticism of it. It was no longer unpatriotic to question; it was part of the love affair.
The rush of belonging
By the 2010s, the patriotic song had diversified into multiple registers. Some, like Ae Watan in Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi (2018), returned to the earnest emotional pitch of the ’60s but filtered it through personal dilemmas: what does loyalty mean when it demands betrayal? Arijit Singh’s restrained delivery and Gulzar’s layered writing made it a song as much about identity as allegiance. Others, like Challa (Main Lad Jaana) from Aditya Dhar’s Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), widely criticised to be a propaganda film, fed a climate where patriotism is increasingly defined in combative terms. The song’s drumbeat urgency mirrored the film’s tone, a far cry from the lyrical introspection of Swades.
We are living in a time when patriotism is often commodified, reduced to hashtags, merchandise, and prime-time shouting. But these songs remind us that to love a country is to feel something that can’t be legislated or sold. It’s the pull of a melody, the phrasing of a lyric, the way your voice catches on a word you’ve sung since childhood. Today, when jingoism is the order of the day, I think of the songs I grew up with, the ones that stitched the nation into my very sense of self.
I remember singing Ae Watan Ae Watan in school assemblies, my small voice joining hundreds of others. Those melodies never asked my name before they made my heart swell. They taught me that loving your country isn’t about proving it on demand; it’s about carrying it quietly in your bones. When I hear Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera or Maa Tujhe Salaam, I feel the same rush of belonging I did as a child on those damp August mornings, when the whole neighbourhood or the school sang together and no one asked who stood where in the line or which religion they belonged to.
