Nation Building Lessons from a Bollywood Song

Perhaps the most inspiring lines celebrating India, as evergreen as they are rousing, are from a Hindi film made just 13 years after Independence. In the title song of Ram Mukherjee’s Hum Hindustani (1960), Usha Khanna, Prem Dhawan and Mukesh earnestly persuade us Indians to forget the tired old matters of the past, and shape a collective new narrative for a new era. “Chhodo kal ki batein, kal ki baat purani/Naye daur mein likhenge, mil kar nayi kahaani, hum Hindustani!".