The Hindu : National : Not the `centenary' of the song

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Friday, Sep 08, 2006

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National

Not the `centenary' of the song

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The nation observed the `centenary' of the Vande Mataram on Thursday. But, few of those who sang it with gusto at 11 am knew that the song was neither written on this day a century ago nor was elevated to the status of the national song on September 7, 1906.

According to noted historian Sumit Sarkar, the song was written in 1875 and published for the first time as part of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's novel Ananda Math in 1882. In an article that appeared in The Times of India on August 31, Prof. Sarkar clearly spells out how September 7, 2006, is not the `centenary' of the song.

No decision

"The surprising thing is that nothing relevant to the song happened on September 7, 1906 (or 1905). The Congress did not take any decision then about its national status for the simple reason that it always met in the last week of December. The Benares session of December 1905 did hear the song sung by Sarala Debi, in what had become a common practice since the beginning of the anti-Partition movement in Bengal a few months back. But, there was no discussion or decision about a national anthem, there or in the session held exactly a year later in Calcutta in 1906."

On nationalism

Prof. Sarkar brings to the debate a decade of research on nationalism in Bengal during 1903-08. Referring to the discussions in the Congress on the status of the song in 1937, he said Rabindranath Tagore made the point that "what begins in the first two stanzas with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland then collapses the country into Durga."

Tagore made this point when Jawaharlal Nehru sought his opinion in 1937 and then the Congress decided to adopt only the first two stanzas; a fact reiterated by former Visva-Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya in his recent book on the Vande Mataram.

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