The ‘Jana Gana Mana’ saga

Nehru recollected in Tagore’s centenary year that he had requested the latter, a little before his death, to compose a national anthem for a new India. The poet had partly agreed. What is very significant about this request and the response is that neither (Jawaharlal) Nehru nor (Rabindranath) Tagore had thought of ‘Jana Gana Mana’ as the national anthem. Nehru recollected very explicitly that when he had requested Tagore, he did not have ‘Jana Gana Mana’ in mind. He was obviously thinking of a new song. So was Tagore, since he did not suggest ‘Jana Gana Mana’. After Independence when Tagore was no longer alive, the decision to make ‘Jana Gana Mana’ the national anthem was probably inspired by the choice that Subhas Chandra Bose had already made in the early 1940s.

It is worth posing the question, even at the risk of speculation, why Tagore did not immediately suggest to Nehru that ‘Jana Gana Mana’ be made the national anthem. One possible answer is that Tagore possibly did not see ‘Jana Gana Mana’ as a song that upheld nationalism.

The song was, of course, about India — its geography, its people, its religious faiths, and its unity. But it was more importantly a paean to the dispenser of India’s destiny, Bharata bhagya bidhata. The stirring refrain ‘Jaye hey’ is to that bidhata. In this sense, the song is a hymn to divinity. When Tagore published the text of the song in January 1912 on the pages of Tattvabodhini Patrika, he described it as Brahmo sangeet. If Tagore had lived longer and had acquiesced completely to Nehru’s plea, it is possible that he would have composed a song on a different emotional register. It is possible to speculate this because from around the second decade of the twentieth century, Tagore’s views on nationalism had undergone a radical transformation.

He had been arguing that nationalism was too restrictive, too inadequate — even corrosive — ideology and emotion. His thinking had veered towards a comprehensive humanism which brought India and the world together. It is thus somewhat of an irony that one of his memorable songs clearly extolling divinity was made the anthem for the new nation state. The choice enriched India, but one is left with the lingering doubt that Tagore may not have completely approved. Nationalism in India appropriated a divine song.

Tagore’s music drew from various sources. He could be, when he wanted, a purist, but equally true is his willingness to deviate from the purity of a raga. In spite of this musical eclecticism, one wonders what he would have made of a longish song being curtailed to only its first verse and then being played/sung for only fifty-two seconds to meet the protocol demands of a nation state.

‘Jana Gana Mana’ celebrates the unity of India and its people. But the song was made the national anthem only after the unity had been tragically shattered by an independence that came with the partition of the country. The song mentions Sindh as one of the regions of Bharat but when the song becomes the national anthem, Sindh was not a part of India that is Bharat. The unity that is hailed in the verses of the song had been adversely challenged when ‘Jana Gana Mana’ had been made into a national anthem.

Towards the end of the song, the dispenser of India’s destiny is described as a tender and compassionate mother. In the course of 1946-47 and in the aftermath of Partition, indescribable violence destroyed the lives and homes of people. On the watch of the tender and compassionate mother, rape, murder, and plunder ripped apart the unity of India. Tagore’s vision — idealisation if you like — of India had been turned on its head. The words of the song could not but have a hollow ring to the victims of the Partition holocaust. It could be argued that precisely when the unity had been ruptured, the unity had to be reiterated through an anthem.

‘Jana Gana Mana’, perhaps because it sprang from the fountainhead of Tagore’s piety, had embedded in it the idea of destiny controlled by an eternal and supreme entity. Every phase of India’s history and civilisation carried the imprimatur of this divine will. It was possibly in this spirit that Nehru had unforgettably spoken of India’s Independence as a ‘tryst with destiny’. Stretching this notion of destiny, would it be unfair to argue that Partition and the violence that was part of it were the outcome of the will of the dispenser of India’s destiny? Did Bharata bhagya bidhata will it this way? Or should one leave the poet’s lofty vision free from the messy ways in which human beings make their own history?

India’s national anthem evokes a vision of India as perceived by a poet. The vision contains within it a promise and a pledge. Citizens when they stand up in respect when ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is played or sung should remember that standing to attention carries with it the responsibility to fulfil the promise and honour the pledge and thus fuse together the will of Bharata bhagya bidhata and the will and resolve of we the people of India.

— Excerpted from ‘Song of India: A Study of the National Anthem’, with permission from Aleph