Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Truth behind our National Anthem

The nation was outraged when Laloo Prasad Yadav sat through the national anthem at a parade in Bihar.

Many leaders belonging to various political parties took this as an opportunity to earn brownie point against him calling this act as an outrage, disrespect to the national anthem .
To all of them Laloo Yadav sent a recent piece of paper which happened to be a decision made by THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA …………..


TODAY I will tell you a fact which has come to my knowledge right now and as a true Indian I want every other Indian to hear about it.

It was 1911. George V , the reigning king of England was to visit India. To welcome him , as a token of appreciation (which was never needed) and gratitude (which the British government never deserved ) a song was written for him by a man known to quite a few of us …. Rabindranath Tagore . The song itself may sound familiar to you


Jana-gana-mana-adhinayaka, jaya he

Bharata-bhagya-vidhata.

Tava shubha name jage,

Tava shubha asisa mange,

Gahe tava jaya gatha,

Jana-gana-mangala-dayaka jaya he

Bharata-bhagya-vidhata.

Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he,


Jaya jaya jaya, jaya he!



The following is its English rendering

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,

dispenser of India’s destiny.

They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.

The saving of all people waits in thy hand,

thou dispenser of India’s destiny.


Victory, victory, victory to thee.


Yes friends , the national anthem is least NATIONAL . It was never meant to be NATIONAL . It was meant for the king , he was called the’ bhagya vidhata’. Don’t you ever wonder why no freedom fighter ever sang JANA GANA MANA during the days of freedom struggle . It was because they identified themselves with the song VANDE MATARAM written by another Bengali ( and a true nationalist) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay . So much so that when the 15 year old Chandra Shekhar Azaad was slashed 15 times every time the words that came out of his mouth were …..VANDE MATARAM.

Now an interesting fact. In 1914 Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Noble prize. Do you know who was the noble prize committee chairman ?...... George V. But the king realized that a prize could not be given just on the basis of a song . And so came the book by Tagore ….. GITANJALI …. an obscure piece which many intellectuals cannot understand.

It was in 1940 that Rabindranath Tagore wrote a letter to his brother in law in which he admitted that JANA GANA MANA was the worst song he ever wrote . He also asked his brother in law to publish the letter after his ( Tagore’s) death. The letter was never published .

This is the true story of JANA GANA MANA. The supreme court of India in its ruling has said that nobody can be forced to sing JANA GANA MANA .( I am never going to sing it again).

When the constituent assembly met to decide on the National symbols of India some unanimous decisions were taken. When it came down to the National Anthem the majority of the members were against JANA GANA MANA being the National Anthem . However one man was in favour. …. JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU. Finally it was decided that a voting should decide the National Anthem. 319 members were against Tagore’s song , one vote was in its favour , that of Nehru. Seeing that he was in a losing battle Nehru played his trump card….. he offered his resignation. The house relented . The three reasons Nehru offered for this’ Nationalistic ‘choice were

1) The music of JANA GANA MANA suits the orchestra ( by that he meant the English orchestra)

2) Most foreigners had already heard the song.

3) This one takes the piece of cake. He said NATIONAL ANTHEMS were meant to be heard by foreigners .

Dear friends for long I have had problems with Nehru . He was the person who had tried his level best that Hindi should not become our national language . Infact Hindi won by just one vote. It was Nehru whose selfishness caused us to lose a piece of land we now know as Pakistan.

Have you ever wondered why Vande Mataram was never sung in the parliament . It was because it was never allowed to. This question was raised by our former prime minister Chanradshekhar during the NDA rule and hence from 1997 the parliament proceedings started with VANDE MATARAM and ended with jana gana mana .

Mind you Tagore was ultra talented . If you just look at the songs he has written and the music he has given to them all the doubts on his genius vanish. But the truth is he never wrote Jana gana mana for Indians and the sooner we accept it the better for us. Please tell this true story to everyone you can . After all the truth will only help Tagore’s heart feel lighter. Lets take a resolve that we are never going to sing Jana Gana Mana . The law is with us on that. Lets make Vande Mataram our new identity .Here is the song so that you as well as others can learn it but above all tell the world that king George V was never our BHAGYA VIDHATA.


Vande Mataram!

Sujalam, suphalam, malayaja shitalam,

Shasyashyamalam, Mataram!

Shubhrajyotsna pulakitayaminim,

Phullakusumita drumadala shobhinim,

Suhasinim sumadhura bhashinim,


Sukhadam varadam, Mataram!


The following is its English rendering


I bow to thee, Mother,

richly-watered, richly-fruited,

cool with the winds of the south,

dark with the crops of the harvests,

The Mother!

Her nights rejoicing in the glory of the moonlight,

her lands clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom,

sweet of laughter, sweet of speech,

The Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss.

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