Sedition to anthem: Many lives of ‘Azadi’ chants in India’s youth protests

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that the Hindi word “Azadi,” or freedom, has moved from a contested protest slogan to a widely recognized anthem in India’s student politics. The article traces its rise through campus activism, especially at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where chants of “Azadi” became nationally prominent during a 2016 controversy over a student meeting and the politics of dissent. According to the report, that episode led to sedition cases, arrests, and a wider media and political campaign that portrayed some student protesters as anti-national.

The story places this in a broader pattern of pressure on university activism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, including crackdowns tied to protests over caste discrimination and later demonstrations against proposed citizenship law changes. It says several student activists were jailed or remained in legal trouble, while campus spaces for debate and protest became more restricted. The piece notes that these events helped transform “Azadi” from a slogan associated with subversive politics into a symbol that more students and protesters embraced.

Al Jazeera also describes how the chant reappeared in the recent exam leak protests in New Delhi and spread to other cities, showing its renewed force among younger demonstrators. The article frames this evolution as both a cultural and political story: the slogan’s meaning expanded from demands for freedom into a broader expression of opposition to inequality, censorship, and state power. As background, the piece links the chant’s later mainstream visibility to music and film, though it stresses that its protest origins remain central.