Anthem · Sacred · 1911 · South & Southeast Asia

Jana Gana Mana

জনগণমন / Jana Gana Mana

India's national anthem, written in Bengali by the poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1911. A formal performance lasts about 52 seconds.

Words: Rabindranath Tagore
Music: Rabindranath Tagore (possibly with help from Dinendranath Tagore)
Culture: Bengalis; India
Language: Bengali (Sadhu Bhasha)
Place: Calcutta (Kolkata), India
Date: 11 December 1911
Type: Anthem · Sacred
The words: Public domain (words and music by Rabindranath Tagore (1911; he died in 1941))

The story

"Jana Gana Mana" is the first of five stanzas of a Bengali hymn, "Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata", which Rabindranath Tagore, India's first Nobel laureate, completed on 11 December 1911. He wrote it in Sadhu Bhasha, a Sanskritised literary register of Bengali, as a hymn for the monotheistic Brahmo Samaj, and set it himself in the raga Alhaiya Bilaval, possibly with help from his grand-nephew Dinendranath Tagore. It was first sung in public on 27 December 1911, the second day of the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta, and was published in January 1912 in the Tattwabodhini Patrika, the Brahmo Samaj journal Tagore then edited. For some years it was known mainly to that journal's readers.

The first performance led to a lasting controversy. Several British-Indian newspapers reported that Tagore had sung a song composed to welcome King George V. Many historians hold that these reports were mistaken: the nationalist press and the Congress's own report describe Tagore's song as a patriotic prayer, followed by a loyal resolution and by another song, "Badshah Humara" by Rambhuj Chaudhary, written in praise of the king. In letters of 10 November 1937 and 19 March 1939 Tagore wrote that the Lord of Destiny of his song could never be any King George. These statements came after George V's death in 1936; Tagore had renounced the knighthood the king gave him in 1915, in protest at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919.

On 28 February 1919 Tagore sang the song at the Besant Theosophical College in Madanapalle. Its vice-principal Margaret Cousins wrote the melody down in Western notation from his notes, and Tagore translated it into English there as "The Morning Song of India"; James Cousins described the evening in his autobiography We Two Together. The Doon School in Dehradun took it as its school song in 1935, and it was heard in the film Hamrahi in 1945. Subhas Chandra Bose chose it as the national anthem while he was in Germany, and on 11 September 1942 the Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra played it as India's anthem at the founding of the German-Indian Society.

At midnight on 14 August 1947 the Constituent Assembly's first session as a sovereign body closed with it, and that year the Indian delegation gave a recording of it to the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the national anthem. On 24 January 1950 the Constituent Assembly adopted the first stanza as the national anthem, with "Vande Mataram" honoured equally as the national song. A formal rendition lasts about 52 seconds; a short version of the first and last lines, about 20 seconds, is also played.

Its singing has come before the courts. On 11 August 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that students of the Jehovah's Witnesses expelled in Kerala for standing silently during the anthem had done nothing unlawful, since no law obliges anyone to sing it. On 30 November 2016 the Supreme Court ordered all cinemas to play the anthem before films; arrests and harassment of people who did not stand followed, and in January 2018 the order was lifted. The list of regions in the stanza has also been disputed: in 2005 the Supreme Court declined to replace "Sind", now in Pakistan, and in 2013 an Assam legislator asked for "Kamarup" to be restored. It holds a Guinness record for the most people singing a national anthem at once.

What it says

A hymn to the God of India's destiny, the "Bhagya Bidhata" of its original title, whom Tagore described as the guide of India through its rise and fall over the ages. The stanza sung as the anthem names India's regions, mountains and rivers and hails that guide's victory; the later stanzas of the full hymn turn to the country's many religions. The mood is solemn and joyful.

The words

জনগণমন-অধিনায়ক জয় হে ভারতভাগ্যবিধাতা!janagaṇamana-adhināẏaka jaẏa he bhāratabhāgyabidhātā!

পঞ্জাব সিন্ধু গুজরাট মরাঠা দ্রাবিড় উৎকল বঙ্গpañjāba sindhu gujarāṭa marāṭhā drābiṛa utkala baṅga

বিন্ধ্য হিমাচল যমুনা গঙ্গা উচ্ছলজলধিতরঙ্গbindhya himācala yamunā gaṅgā ucchalajaladhitaraṅga

তব শুভ নামে জাগে, তব শুভ আশিষ মাগে,taba śubha nāme jāge, taba śubha āśiṣa māge,

গাহে তব জয়গাথা।gāhe taba jaẏagāthā.

জনগণমঙ্গলদায়ক জয় হে ভারতভাগ্যবিধাতা!janagaṇamaṅgaladāẏaka jaẏa he bhāratabhāgyabidhātā!