KOLKATA: A controversy has erupted over the national anthem once again and many Bengalis are bristling with rage over what they hold is a slight to Rabindranath Tagore and an attempt to distort history. At the centre of this storm is a mention in the India government’s official portal that “the national anthem of India Jana-gana-mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on 24 January, 1950” (Two young men from Kolkata have filed separate applications under the RTI with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) seeking clarifications. “I wanted to know in my application about the identity of the person who wrote the Hindi version,” said techie Anirban Saha. Agnivo Lahiri, who filed another RTI on Tuesday, has requested for documentary evidence of the song written by Tagore being translated into Hindi.
“Tagore wrote this song or hymn in Sanskritised Bengali and its first paragraph was adopted as the national anthem. The lyrics remain the same as they are. So where is the question of translation?” asked Lahiri, who is the editorial head of the digital team of a knowledge management company. The trigger for the two RTIs and the controversy is an article in a news portal on a forthcoming film by Srijit Mukherji. The film has the last four stanzas of Jana-gana-mana (the first stanza is the national anthem) written by Tagore in 1911 as its soundscape and sound track.
Personified India as a Goddess was offensive to the monothestic Muslim population and led to Jana-gana-mana's adoption as the national anthem. 'Jana Gana Mana' is the national anthem of India. Originally written in Bengali, it is the first of five stanzas of a poem written and later set to notations by Rabindranath Tagore. It was first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress on December 27, 1911.
![Who wrote jana gana mana in hindi Who wrote jana gana mana in hindi](http://chronicleofindia.com/images/gallery/national-anthem-hindi.jpg)
The article in a news portal is actually about the film’s promotional video titled ‘Bharato Bhagya Bidhata’. The article lists the “official Hindi version” of the national anthem and goes on to mention the ‘complete Bengali lyrics’ (the five stanzas). The article has an embedded link to the government web portal. Tagore scholars assert that the national anthem is what Tagore wrote and there is no question of there being a Hindi version. “The song was written in Bengali but with many Tatsama (Sanskrit) words.
This original version was what was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the national anthem. The use of Sanskrit words by Tagore makes it sound like a Hindi song or hymn. To say it was translated into Hindi or the national anthem is the Hindi version of the original song is pure rubbish,” said Tagore expert Sankha Ghosh.
Filmmaker Srijit Mukherjee on Tuesday re-tweeted a comment by Agnivo Lahiri that there is no Bengali or Hindi version of Tagore’s song, but just the original version. “I agree our national anthem is not the ‘Hindi version’ of what Tagore wrote.
It is the original version as written by Tagore. But the first stanza transforms itself very well into Hindi and the Constitution makers, in their wisdom, must have thus adopted the first stanza as the national anthem.
The remaining four stanzas have many typical Bengali words which would not have transformed themselves into Hindi at all,” he said.