‘Efforts being made to replace Jana Gana Mana’

Efforts are being made to change the country’s national anthem and replace Jana Gana Mana, written by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Vande Mataram as has been demanded by the right-wing groups, historian Tanika Sarkar has said.

Vande Mataram, a poem in Sanskrit and Bengali, was part of the novel Anandamath by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. The song, which is considered to have strong Hindu overtones, has been rejected by Sikhs and Muslims.

“The right-wing groups have been demanding since long to make Vande Mataram the national anthem. So, don’t be sure that Jana Gana Mana will remain national anthem forever,” Prof. Sarkar, a former JNU faculty, said while addressing students at the university.

Prof. Sarkar was fifth lecturer in the series of the open-air lectures on nationalism, organised at the varsity to protest against the branding of the university as “anti-national” in wake of an event against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Professors from various universities, including the JNU, are conducting the nationalism lectures in the JNU.

The professor, who retired from JNU’s Centre for Historical Studies, where both Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya are enrolled as students, made the remarks during a lecture, titled Gandhi’s Nation. Mr Khalid and Mr Bhattacharya, besides JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, have been arrested on charges of sedition.

Member of Parliament and former education minister of Kerala E.T. Mohammed Basheer, said the agitation in JNU was not just about the particular university, but about the nation. “The government wants to attack the entire country by attacking autonomy of institutions, This agitation is not just for JNU, but for the entire nation,” he said.