New Delhi: BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy Tuesday suggested replacing the national anthem written by Rabindranath Tagore with the version adopted by Subhash Chandra Bose’ Indian National Army (INA) in 1943.
In a letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Swamy said words in Tagore’s national anthem, such as “Sindh”, raise “unnecessary doubts” and was “inappropriate for post-1947 independent India”.
My letter to PM Modi on Jana Gana Mana pic.twitter.com/qc1KnLDb2g
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) December 1, 2020
Calling it a “demand of an overwhelming majority of the youths of India”, Swamy hoped that the government would carry out the necessary changes by 26 January 2021.
The MP also referred to the concluding remarks by former president Rajendra Prasad on 26 November 1949, in which he had said that words in the national anthem may be amended or replaced in future.
The INA anthem
In his letter, Swamy also said that the anthem was adopted by Bose on 21 October 1943 after the British imperialist troops were evicted by the INA from Manipur.
The INA anthem, which is said to be the Hindustani version of the Bangla poem written by Tagore, is called ‘Subh Sukh Chain’. Bose, along with two of his generals Mumtaz Hussain and Colonel Abid Hasan Safrani, had translated Tagore’s poem and created the ‘Subh Sukh Chain‘ and Captain Ram Singh Thakur had given its tune. The 55-second-long anthem was also known as the ‘Qaumi Tarana’.
While Tagore’s version has five stanzas, the one adapted by Bose contains three. The first stanza of ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is used as the national anthem and should ideally be sung in 52 seconds. However, the first stanza of the INA anthem takes about 55 seconds to sing.
The Hindi version of the song is, however, not very different from the Bangla one and also has the word ‘Sindh’ in it.
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