institutions in 2006, on the occasion of its being the centenary year, as our nationalanthem. After all, a song is an aesthetic creation and should be left to the judgment of one’s finer faculties.Rabindranath Tagore composed ‘
Jana gana mano
…’ sometime in 1911 which wasofficially accepted as the national anthem of independent India. Since then, in an attemptto distinguish it from ‘
Vande Mataram’
, the latter is often referred to as ‘national song’while the former as the ‘national anthem’. However, this hardly affected the appeal of anyof these songs. It may be noted that in case of ‘
Jana gano mano’
also only the first twostanzas out of five have been accepted as our national anthem.Now, while ‘religion’ was the bone of contention in the anti- ‘
Vande Mataram’
tirade,the aim of invectives against
‘Jano gano mono’
was Tagore’s alleged sycophancy of KingGeorge V who had visited India in 1911, which happens to be the year of composition of the song too that provided scope for such calumny. However, Tagore himself denied suchallegation and I never could find any details as to who felicitated George V with thissong, if at all he was, and who were the organizers and if at all Tagore himself wasinvolved in it. Yet, it may be speculated if Tagore tried to entice the King to draw hissupport for some international accolade for him, say, the Nobel. There also, facts in noway involve the King. It was Rothenstein, a British scholar, who was a great admirer of Tagore’s nephew Abanindranath, a renowned artist. He came to ‘Thakurbari’, theancestral house of Tagore family, to meet the artist. In the gathering Rabindranath was present and his beaming personality attracted Rothenstein who learnt from Abanindranaththat Rabindranath was a poet. This took place around 1911. However, Rothensteingradually felt the pull of Rabindranath and talked highly about him to the British poets /scholars of that time. Now, I quote Tagore’s own words from Maitrayee Devi’s book ‘
Mangpute Rabindranath’
(=Rabindranath in Mangpu, near Darjeeling which was theworkplace of her husband), translated with the title ‘
Tagore By Fireside’
by the authoressherself. The poet said to her: “When I first started translating them (poems of
Gitanjali
, on which basis he wasawarded the Nobel) into English, I never thought they would be readable. Many haveinsinuated that Andrews was doing it for me. Poor Andrews felt sorry and ashamed.When Yeats arranged a meeting of distinguished people at Rothenstein’s house, I cannottell you how embarrassed I felt. Yeats would not listen to me. He was undaunted. Agalaxy of people came.
Gitanjali
was read. They never said a word. They listened insilence and in silence they left- no criticism, no approbation, no favourable remark, noencouraging comment. Blushing in shame and disgrace, I wished the Earth would haveopened and swallowed me. Why did I ever listen to Yeats? How could I write English,had I ever learnt it? I was filled with remorse, I could not raise my head. Next day lettersstarted coming, they flooded in, overwhelming with enthusiasm. Everyone wrote. Then Irealized they were so moved that evening that they dared not talk. English people arereserved, it is their nature. It was not possible for them to express their feelings at once.What a surprise it was, unexpected and unimaginable. Friend Yeats was pleased.”The event took place in 1912 on 30 June or in early July. It is this group of scholars / poets who had recommended Tagore’s name to the Nobel Committee in Sweden.However, I badly miss King George V in the entire episode!
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