Anthem of anger

Can the national anthem be parodied, or altered in any way? That question has once again come to the forefront with the imminent release of Ram 

Rann (War), starring Amitabh Bachchan. The title song of the movie goes: Jana gana mana rann hai ... iss rann mein zakhmi hua hai Bharat (War has left India wounded). While Varma has reportedly clarified that the song "is not composed to ridicule the national anthem", jurists claim that any form of disrespect to the national flag or the national anthem is in violation of the constitutionally mandated duties of citizenship. 

This is not the first time that Rabindranath Tagore's song has sparked a controversy. In fact, it did so the very first time it was publicly sung, with Tagore himself joining in, on December 16, 1911, during the second day of a convention of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta. As the agenda of the day including felicitating the visiting emperor George V, it was widely surmised that Tagore had written the song in praise of the British monarch who was seen to be the "overlord of India's destiny". 

Reporting the event, the newspapers of the day said that the song had been composed and sung as a tribute to the emperor, though Tagore himself later emphasised in correspondence with a friend that "That Lord of Destiny, that Reader of the Collective Mind of India... could never be George V, George VI, or any other George". 

Royalist associations apart, Jana gana mana has faced flak on other counts, not least being what some critics describe as its lugubrious, dirge-like tone, apart from its geopolitical anachronism which includes Pakistan's Sindh in India, but leaves out Kashmir, among other states. A proposal to replace the word 'Sindh' with 'Kashmir' was rejected by the Supreme Court, which, however, in 1986 reversed a 1985 Kerala high court judgment which had upheld the expulsion from a local school of some students belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses sect who had refused to sing the song. In its verdict, which reinstated the expelled students, the apex court ruled that "Our tradition teaches tolerance, our philosophy teaches tolerance, our Constitution teaches tolerance, let us not dilute it". 

Will these words of wisdom be heeded in the general outcry that Rann's take on the national anthem will probably provoke? Unlikely. Narrow-minded priggishness posing as patriotism has long been one of the less attractive features of our national life, and Ram Gopal Varma would be prudent in keeping a weather eye open for stormy protests. Some, however, might feel that the episode should be seen as an opportunity to have a national debate on the national anthem. 

Many argue that the Bengali Jana gana mana inevitably gets mangled almost beyond recognition by non-Bengali speakers, and that Iqbal's Urdu lyrics of Sare jahan se achha would have been more appropriate in a country where Hindustani is the commonly accepted lingua franca of the majority. Others, notably members of the sangh parivar, might opt for Bankim Chandra's Vande mataram as India's signature tune. 

As regards the question of lack of respect for the national anthem, the government's ill-advised directive during the 1960s and the 1970s that the song be played in moviehalls after each screening was responsible for overt displays of disrespect as audiences, instead of standing in solemn silence, scrambled to get out of the auditorium while Jana gana mana was playing. If voting with one's feet is any indication, many, if not most, Indians might concur that Tagore's song is out of sync with the times. 

Perhaps what we need is a national talent contest for a new anthem. Or maybe we've already had one, without knowing it, and A R Rahman has won. Maa, tujhe salaam? Why not? 

Source: timesofindia