WORDSPEAK
A song for a country
BY ANAND
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Many countries have a national anthem and a national song, although the issue may not be as contentious and politically charged as it is in India.
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Unique: Tagore wrote the national anthems of two countries.
TWO words frequently heard and seen in Indian media during the controversy surrounding the mandatory singing of "Vande Matram" in schools were national anthem and national song.
An anthem is generally taken to mean the official national song played, as in the case of India, to represent the country on public occasions. But early anthems were compositions set to scared (church) music. The first English national anthem was technically a hymn. Several denominations of the Christian church still have anthems in various forms of sacred choral work presented during the course of a worship service, but teamed with the word "national" it invariably means a composition recognised by a nation's government as the official song.
Representational
An anthem can also be a song of loyalty, or one used to represent a society, a group or an organisation, a movement and an ideology. Rock music fans often insist that The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" was an anthem for a generation. Media reports describe how John Lennon's "Imagine" has become the anthem of peace-lovers all over the world. The Olympic anthem is played at the opening ceremony of the Games. Revolutionary movements and trade unions are known to sing the hymn the "Internationale", composed in 1888 to the words written by Parisian transport worker, which was the official anthem of the USSR until 1944. Another socialist song "The Red Flag" is the anthem of Britain's Labour Party. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is America's national anthem, but the states that make up the United States of America have their own state anthems, and global corporations such as IBM have their corporate anthems. "Hail to the Chief", the official anthem of the President of the United States, is sung or played at (almost) every public appearance s the president.
Rather an ambitious journey for an innocent word in Greek meaning "verse response" (antiphonos) that was borrowed by Latin as antefena, and then became ontem, antefn (O.E.) before assuming the sense of a musical composition that not only evokes and celebrates the history and traditions of a people, but sometimes their struggles, too. Mirroring the cultural zeitgeist, the majority of early anthems were either marches or hymns in style. With the rise of nation states in Europe, individual nations began to select their own national songs.
The trend to write or compose something to serve as a national anthem is very 20th century, typified in the instance of Muhammad Ali Jinnah asking — on August 9, 1947 — the Lahore-based Hindu poet Jagannath Azad to write the lyrics for a national anthem for Pakistan in five days in time for its Independence Day ceremony. This anthem was replaced 18 months later by the present "Quami Taraana", another commissioned work, with words by Hafeez Jalandhari set to music composed by A.G. Chagla.
Patriotic songs
The majority of national anthems are patriotic songs that were adapted to serve the purpose, very few were written by well-known poets or composers; none as illustrious as Rabindranath Tagore who has the unique distinction of writing the words for the official anthems of two nations: India and Bangladesh. By comparison, "God Save the Queen" was written by someone whose identity is not known with any certainty.
Many countries have a national anthem (rashtra geet) and a national song (rashtra gaan), although the issue of a second official song may not be as contentious and politically charged as it is in India. "Rule, Britannia!", a patriotic British national song, has had its share of controversy, partly because of its colonial and imperialistic overtones. "There'll always be an England", an English patriotic song popular in World War II, sometimes does not find favour in Wales and Scotland that constitute the unit of the United Kingdom. Americans, inveterate flag-wavers, cannot reach a consensus which of the two should be the second official song: "America the Beautiful" or "God Bless America". One of the two is often played after the U.S. national anthem, and sometimes in place of the national anthem, at sporting events, church congregations and in schools. The popularity of both these songs rose considerably after the September 11 terrorist attack.
The words "Vande Matram" in the rashtra gaan were the real bone of contention. Lyrics of many national anthems and national songs include the word `mother'. Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar" Bangla and Sri Lanka's "Sri Lanka Matha" have mother as personification of the country. Since this column is about words and language, let's just take note of the occurrence of the controversial word in the lyrics, and leave the onus of drawing conclusions on the readers.
I often get e-mails addressed to the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning Malayalam writer Anand (P. Sachidanandan). While I do not mind continuing to bask in his fame, I must confess, for the fear of him getting blame for an error of mine, that he and I are two different people.
E-mail: anand@journalist.com
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