There is no compelling reason that Jana Gana Mana should be replaced with any other national song. But it seems that BJP Leader Subramanian Swamy doesn’t echo the same sentiments.
The BJP leader, Subramanian Swamy has appealed to Narendra Modi to make changes in the National Anthem.
Swamy, being one of the top lawyers of the country, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister impelling him to make the changes in the National Anthem. He requested him to retain the tune of Jana Gana Mana but replace the wordings with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA song.
Here’s the tweet:
Dr @Swamy39 writes to our honourable PM @narendramodi for a slight change in national anthem. @jagdishshetty pic.twitter.com/LUPPJdi7TC
— harsh yadav (@harshyadav0012) December 21, 2015
Reason?
The Netaji’s proposed wording replaces the explicit and implicit references to British monarchy with Sanskrit words. And by doing this, it will be a befitting reply to the nationalist freedom fighters.
Here’s what the letter reads.
As you may know, which should be our national anthem, Jana Gana Mana or Vande Mataram, was debated thoroughly in the Constituent Assembly and the opinion had become quite polarised. Therefore in the last day on the 26th November 1949, the President of the constituent Assembly, DR Rajendra Prasad took sense of the house instead of vote, that Jana Gana tune may be accepted that a future Parliament can change the wording of the anthem. This consensus had to be brought because a large number of members had expressed in the debate that the fact that the song was as originally worded, sung in the Kolkata session of the Congress in 1912 to welcome the British King. Dr Prasad recognising the sentiments, therefore put off for another day the replacement of the world to a future Parliament.
Netaji’s proposed wording is therefore 95 percent the same wording and said that remaining five percent replaces the above said references. Therefore, it will be a befitting reply to all our nationalists freedom fighters and the great patriot Subhas Chandra Bose, by accepting in Parliament his version of Jana Gana Mana wording.
Earlier, in 2005, there was a petition that asked for the removal of the word Sindh in the anthem and addition of the word Kashmir. To which, Supreme Court had replied: the National Anthem is “a hymn or song expressing patriotic sentiments or feelings” and “not a chronicle which defines the territory of the nation.”
What do you think about this?
News Source: Zee News