EVERY COUNTRY has a national anthem. Some, like New Zealand, have two. But only India has an official song as well. This year, for the first time(首次，第一次), “Vande Mataram”, a rousing(令人振奋的，激动人心的) tribute to “Mother India”, featured(以……为特色，起重要作用) in Independence Day celebrations, greeting Narendra Modi as he arrived to give his annual speech on August 15th. An air-force helicopter flew past with a banner commemorating 150 years of the song’s composition. It marked the culmination(顶点，高潮，巅峰) of a years-long effort by Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to boost(提升，促进，推动) its status. A few days earlier it had become a criminal offence to disrupt(扰乱，打断，使中断) its singing.
每个国家都有国歌。有些国家，如新西兰，有两首。但只有印度还有一首官方歌曲。今年，首次在独立日庆祝活动中奏响的《母亲颂》——一首对“印度母亲”的激昂赞歌——在8月15日莫迪抵达发表年度演讲时向他致敬。一架空军直升机飞过，悬挂着纪念这首歌创作150周年的横幅。这标志着莫迪的印度人民党（BJP）多年来提升其地位的努力达到了高潮。几天前，干扰这首歌的演唱已成为刑事犯罪。
Mr Modi spoke of India’s achievements as it enters its 80th year of independence. He looked ahead to its glorious centenary. Such pronouncements(声明，公告，正式表态) acknowledge that India gained freedom from the British in 1947. Yet his BJP believes the country has been truly free for much less time. The clearest articulation of this sentiment came from Kangana Ranaut, a Bollywood actress and since 2024 a BJP lawmaker, who declared in an interview some years ago that India only achieved independence with the election of Mr Modi in 2014.(这一情绪最清晰的表达来自康加娜·拉瑙特，她宣称印度直到2014年莫迪当选才真正独立。)
莫迪在印度进入独立80周年之际谈到了印度的成就。他展望了辉煌的百年华诞。这些声明承认印度于1947年从英国获得自由。然而，他的印度人民党认为，国家真正自由的时间要短得多。这一情绪最清晰的表达来自康加娜·拉瑙特，一位宝莱坞女演员，自2024年起成为印度人民党议员，她在几年前的一次采访中宣称，印度直到2014年莫迪当选才真正获得独立。
The statement is one of those to be taken seriously, not literally(认真对待，而非字面理解). In the eyes of the BJP’s leaders, the India they inherited was too effete(软弱的，衰弱的，无能的), too anglophone(说英语的，英语化的) and too accommodating(迁就的，通融的) of minorities. Their project was to build a “civilisational(文明的，文明国家的) state defined by the country’s ancient Hindu heritage”, as Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment(卡内基国际和平基金会), a think-tank in Washington, put it(表达，说) in a paper in 2024. He described the new political order as India’s “Second Republic”.
这句话是那种需要认真对待、而非字面理解的话。在印度人民党领导人眼中，他们继承的印度过于软弱、过于英语化、过于迁就少数群体。他们的计划是建立一个“以国家古老印度教遗产为定义的文明国家”，正如华盛顿智库卡内基基金会的米兰·瓦伊什纳夫在2024年的一篇论文中所说。他将新的政治秩序描述为印度的“第二共和国”。