Abid Hasan

Few days back, I was watching “The Forgotten Hero” movie on Netaji Subhashchandra Bose. As title suggests, he is really forgotten in his own country in less than a century. The history of India’s freedom fight has been reduced to history of only one party and rest of the freedom fighters are already forgotten or marginalized. While watching the movie, the character played by Rajit Kapur stuck to my conscious. I felt this person must be very cheerful, modern, highly patriotic and very sophisticated. Therefore, I started collecting more information about him. His name is Abid Hasan.

Abid was born in a very influencing and resourceful family in Hyderabad. His father was collector in Nizam state. His mother was Iranian. In those days, Nizam bureaucrats used to send their children abroad for education. Since his mother was against British, she sent her kids to Germany. Abid had taken admission in Engineering college. History tells that Subhashbabu went to Germany in 1941 for seeking help from Germans for raising arm struggle against British for liberating India. He also realized that Netaji’s way is the only way to liberate India from British. He was Netaji’s German interpreter. He negotiated with Indian POW laying in German camps to join Indian Legion.

When Netaji met with Hitler, Abid did not want to follow German salutation. Therefore, he saluted Hitler by saying “Jay Hind”! Netaji was very much impressed by this salutation and made the salutation of Azad Hind Fauz. Pandit Nehru also like this salutation and kept it as salutation of Indian army after the independence. In short, he is the originator of this salutation.

He was very brave and patriotic person. He accompanied Netaji during his journey from Germany to Japan by submarine in hostile water. One can only imagine their courage and love for mother India that they had taken such a dangerous journey in those days.

After taking over Azad Hind Fauz from Rashbehari Bose, Netaji made Abid his personal secretary and Major in Azad Hind Fauz. Once, members of Azad Hind Fauz were discussing the flag of free India. Hindu soldiers were insisting on saffron color in the flag. But after intense negotiations they dropped their demand. Abid was highly impressed by this gesture. To respect this decision, he added Saffroni at the end of his name and became “Abid Hasan Saffroni”.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II and mysterious death of Netaji, British capture Azad Hind Fauz and tried them in military court. He was imprisoned in Singapore. After his release and returned to India, he joined Indian National Congress for brief period. But he was disappointed with the politics. He then joined newly formed Indian Foreign Services. He worked in many countries in Middle East and Europe. He was also India’s ambassador to Denmark and Germany. He settled in his native place Hyderabad after his retirement.  

People, who worked with him during his diplomatic career, described him as very sophisticated person. He can became Middle Easterner in Middle East. He can behave as European in Europe and still very Indian at his heart. He never spoke about his association with Netaji and INA during his diplomatic career. He is really a jewel of India. I can only salute him “Jay Hind”!