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Journalism of Courage
The ways of the Supreme Court, like that of God, are inscrutable. Instead of dismissing a petition 8212; seeking the deletion of 8216;8216;Sindh8217;8217; from the national anthem and substituting it with a word like 8216;8216;Kashmir8217;8217; 8212; as a waste of its precious time, the apex court has thought it fit to seek a response to it from the Centre.
The petitioners believe, of course, that theirs is a worthy cause. After all, Sindh is no longer a part of India, even while numerous regions in the country are glossed over in Rabindranath Tagore8217;s poetic celebration of his nation. Not only is Kashmir 8212; India8217;s crown 8212; missing in the song, the entire southern peninsula that houses four distinct states goes under the rubric of 8216;8216;Dravida8217;8217;. Then there is no mention of the heart of India, Madhya Pradesh, not to speak of new states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, even when Utkala and Banga, representing Orissa and West Bengal, are named. And Rajasthan? Where do the desert sands of Rajasthan figure in Tagore8217;s patriotic geography? But that8217;s just the point, isn8217;t it? Every song has its cultural and political context and Tagore8217;s reflected his times. It needs to be read figuratively in its representation of the nation. Reading the 8216;8216;Jana Gana Mana8217;8217; in too literal a fashion will destroy its spirit and intent. We need to regard the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas, the music of the Jamuna and the Ganga, as well as the waves of the Indian Ocean, as together embodying India that is Bharat 8212; from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Nagaland to Daman and Diu; for now and for all time. This is a literary work, for heaven8217;s sake, not a Survey of India documentation.
