Most countries have anthems, defined as “a song, as of praise, devotion, or patriotism”; most anthems are either marches or hymns in style. A hymn can become a country’s national anthem by a provision in the country’s constitution, by a law enacted by its legislature, or simply by tradition. A royal anthem is a patriotic song similar to a national anthem, but it specifically praises or prays for a monarch or royal dynasty. Such anthems are usually performed at public appearances by the monarch or during other events of royal importance. Some countries also use the royal anthem as its national anthem, such as the anthem of Jordan.
The oldest national anthem is the Dutch national anthem “Het Wilhelmus“, which was written between 1568 and 1572. Anthems became increasingly popular among European countries in the 18th century.For example, the British national anthem “God Save the Queen” was first performed under the title “God Save the King” in 1745.[6] The French anthem “La Marseillaise” was written half a century later in 1792, and adopted in 1795.
National anthems are usually written in the most common language of the country, whether de facto or official. For example, India’s anthem “Jana Gana Mana” is written in a Sanskritized version of Bengali, which are both official languages of India.[ Countries with multiple national languages may offer several versions of their anthem. For instance, Switzerland's national anthem has different lyrics for each of the country's four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansh. South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the eleven official languages are used in the same anthem, in which each language comprises a stanza. The multilingual country of Spain has no official lyrics for its anthem "La Marcha Real".
NATIONAL ANTHEM OF INDIA
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: भारत गणराज्य Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by geographical area, the second most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east, India has a coastline of 7,517 kilometers (4,671 mi).[13] It borders Pakistan to the west;[14] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Bangladesh and Burma to the east. India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Indonesia in the Indian Ocean.
Home to the Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.[15] Four major world religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated there, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region’s diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern nation state in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread nonviolent resistance.
India is a parliamentary republic consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. It has the world’s twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates and the fourth largest in purchasing power. Economic reforms have transformed it into the second fastest growing large economy;[16] however, it still suffers from high levels of poverty,[17] illiteracy, and malnutrition. A pluralistic, multilingual, and multiethnic society, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.
JANA GANA MANA written by RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Jana Gana Mana (Bengali: জন গণ মন Jôno Gôno Mono) is the national anthem of India. Written in highly Sanskritized Bengali, it is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn composed and scored by Nobel laureateRabindranath Tagore. It was first sung at the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress,on 27 December 1911. Jana Gana Mana was officially adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the Indian national anthem on January 24, 1950.[1][2][3] The music for the “current version” is said to be derived from a composition for the song by Ram Singh Thakur, although some dispute this.
A formal rendition of the national anthem takes about forty-eight to fifty-two seconds. A shortened version consisting of the first and last lines (and taking about 20 seconds to play) is also staged occasionally.
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, India into a wealthy Brahmin family. After a brief stay in England (1878) to attempt to study law, he returned to India, and instead pursued a career as a writer, playwright, songwriter, poet, philosopher and educator. During the first 51 years of his life he achieved some success in the Calcutta area of India where he was born and raised with his many stories, songs and plays. His short stories were published monthly in a friend’s magazine and he even played the lead role in a few of the public performances of his plays. Otherwise, he was little known outside of the Calcutta area, and not known at all outside of India.
This all suddenly changed in 1912. He then returned to England for the first time since his failed attempt at law school as a teenager. Now a man of 51, his was accompanied by his son. On the way over to England he began translating, for the first time, his latest selections of poems, Gitanjali, into English. Almost all of his work prior to that time had been written in his native tongue of Bengali. He decided to do this just to have something to do, with no expectation at all that his first time translation efforts would be any good. He made the handwritten translations in a little notebook he carried around with him and worked on during the long sea voyage from India. Upon arrival, his son left his father’s brief case with this notebook in the London subway. Fortunately, an honest person turned in the briefcase and it was recovered the next day. Tagore’s one friend in England, a famous artist he had met in India, Rothenstein, learned of the translation, and asked to see it. Reluctantly, with much persuasion, Tagore let him have the notebook. The painter could not believe his eyes. The poems were incredible. He called his friend, W.B. Yeats, and finally talked Yeats into looking at the hand scrawled notebook.
The rest, as they say, is history. Yeats was enthralled. He later wrote the introduction to Gitanjali when it was published in September 1912 in a limited edition by the India Society in London. Thereafter, both the poetry and the man were an instant sensation, first in London literary circles, and soon thereafter in the entire world. His spiritual presence was awesome. His words evoked great beauty. Nobody had ever read anything like it. A glimpse of the mysticism and sentimental beauty of Indian culture were revealed to the West for the first time. Less than a year later, in 1913, Rabindranath received the Nobel Prize for literature. He was the first non-westerner to be so honored. Overnight he was famous and began world lecture tours promoting inter-cultural harmony and understanding. In 1915 he was knighted by the British King George V. When not traveling he remained at his family home outside of Calcutta, where he remained very active as a literary, spiritual and social-political force.
In 1919, following the Amritsar massacre of 400 Indian demonstrators by British troops, Sir Tagore renounced his Knighthood. Although a good friend of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, most of the time Tagore stayed out of politics. He was opposed to nationalism and miltiarism as a matter of principle, and instead promoted spiritual values and the creation of a new world culture founded in multi-culturalism, diversity and tolerance. He served as a spiritual and creative beacon to his countrymen, and indeed, the whole world. He used the funds from his writing and lecturing to expand upon the school he had founded in 1901 now known as Visva Bharati . The alternative to the poor system of education imposed by the British, combined the best of traditional Hindu education with Western ideals. Tagore’s multi-cultural educational efforts were an inspiration to many, including his friend, Count Hermann Keyserling of Estonia. Count Keyserling founded his own school in 1920 patterned upon Tagore’s school, and the ancient universities which existed in Northern India under Buddhist rule over 2,000 years ago under the name School of Wisdom. Rabindranath Tagore led the opening program of the School of Wisdom in 1920, and participated in several of its programs thereafter.
Rabindranath Tagore’s creative output tells you a lot about this renaissance man. The variety, quality and quantity are unbelievable. As a writer, Tagore primarily worked in Bengali, but after his success with Gitanjali, he translated many of his other works into English. He wrote over one thousand poems; eight volumes of short stories; almost two dozen plays and play-lets; eight novels; and many books and essays on philosophy, religion, education and social topics. Aside from words and drama, his other great love was music, Bengali style. He composed more than two thousand songs, both the music and lyrics. Two of them became the national anthems of India and Bangladesh. In 1929 he even began painting. Many of his paintings can be found in museums today, especially in India, where he is considered the greatest literary figure of India of all times.
Tagore was not only a creative genius, he was a great man and friend to many. For instance, he was also a good friend from childhood to the great Indian Physicist, Bose. He was educated and quite knowledgeable of Western culture, especially Western poetry and Science. This made him a remarkable person, one of the first of our planet to combine East and West, and ancient and modern knowledge. Tagore had a good grasp of modern – post-Newtonian – physics, and was well able to hold his own in a debate with Einstein in 1930 on the newly emerging principles of quantum mechanics and chaos. His meetings and tape recorded conversations with his contemporaries such Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells, stand as cultural landmarks, and show the brilliance of this great man. Although Tagore is a superb representative of his country – India – the man who wrote its national anthem – his life and works go far beyond his country. He is truly a man of the whole Earth, a product of the best of both traditional Indian, and modern Western cultures. The School of Wisdom is proud to have him as part of its heritage. He exemplifies the ideals important to us of Goodness, Meaningful Work, and World Culture.
VANDE MATARAM WRITTEN BY Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
BANKIN CHANDRA CHATTERJEE
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, born on June 26, 1838, was educated at the Hoogly College and belonged to an orthodox family. He was offered the government post of Deputy Magistrate and Collector which he accepted and held until he retired 1891.
He did for Bengali fiction what Michael Madhusudan Dutt had done for Bengali poetry, that is, he brought in imagination. Chatterjee was more fortunate than Dutt as he did not have to set up his own diction from the very start. The prose style was already standardized; what Chatterjee did was to break its monotony, shear off its ponderous verbosity and give it a twist of informality and intimacy. Chatterjee’s own style grew up as he went on writing.
Chatterjee, following the discipline of Isvarchandra Gupta, began his literary career as a writer of verse. Fortunately he was not slow to feel that poetry was not his metier. He then turned to fiction. His first attempt was a novel in Bengali submitted for a declared prize. The prize did not come to him and the novelette was never published. His first fiction to appear in print was Rajmohan’s Wife. It was written in English and was probably a translation of the novelette submitted for the prize. Durgeshnandini, his first Bengali romance, was published in 1865. The next novel Kapalkundala(1866) is one of the best romances written by Chatterjee. The theme is lyrical and gripping and, in spite of the melodrama and the dual story, the execution is skillful. the heroine, named after the mendicant woman in Bhavabhuti’s Malatimadhava , is modelled partly after Kalidasa’s Sakuntala and partly after Shakespeare’s Miranda.
The next romance Mrinalini(1869) indicates an ameturishness and a definite falling off from the standard. It is a love romance against a historical background sadly neglected and confused. After this Chatterjee was not content to continue only as a writer of prose romances, but appeared also as a writer with the definite mission of simulating the intellect of the Bengali speaking people through literary campaign and of bringing about a cultural revival thereby. With this end in view he brought out monthly Bangadarshan in 1872. In the pages of this magazine all his writings except the very last two works first came out. These writings include novels, stories, humorous sketches, historical and miscellaneous essays, informative articles, religious discourses, literary criticisms and reviews. Vishbriksha (The poison Tree, 1873) was his first novel to appear serially in Bangadarshan.
Chandrasekhar (1877) suffers markedly from the impact of two parallel plots which have little common ground. The scene is once shifted back to eighteenth century. But the novel is not historical. The plot has suffered from the author’s weakness for the occult. The next novel Rajani(1877) followed the autobiographical technique of Wilkie Collins’ A Woman in White. The title role was modelled after Bulwar Lytton’s Nydia in Last Days of Pompeii. In this romance of a blind girl, Chatterjee is at his best as a literary artist. In Krishnakanter Uil (Krishnakanta’s Will, 1878) Chatterjee added some amount of feeling to imagination, and as a result it approaches nearest to the western novel. The plot is somewhat akin to that of Poison Tree.
URI JAGANATH
