Jana Gana Mana:
The song ‘Jana-Gana-Mana’, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on Tuesday, 24th January 1950. Rabindranath Tagore wrote it at the request of his intimate friend Ashutosh Chaudhari, a judge of the Kolkata High Court, for singing at the 26th session of the Indian National Congress on 27th December 1911 at the Kolkata Session of the Indian National Congress, which was also attended by King George V. The song is a verse adaptation of an essay “My interpretation of history”, written by Tagore in the early 1900s.
Jana Gana Mana was first published under the title “Bharat Vidhata” in January 1912 in the ‘Tatvabodhini Patrika’, monthly magazine of ‘Tattva-bodhini Sabha’ started by Debendranath Tagore. The song was sub-titled ‘Brahmo-Sangeet’. However, the English translation of the original in Bengali was published earlier, on December 28, 1911, in the ‘Bengalee’. The same song was translated into English by Tagore in 1919 under the title “Morning Song of India”. Much later, it was included in Tagore’s ‘Dharma Sangeet’, a collection of religious hymns.
The complete song consists of five stanzas. The playing time of the full version of the National Anthem is approximately 52 seconds. A short version consisting of the first and last lines of the National Anthem (playing time approximately 20 seconds) is also played on certain occasions.
The National Anthem was first played as an orchestral arrangement in the United Nations at New York in 1947.
Jana-gana-mana-adhinayaka, jaya he
Bharata-bhagya-vidhata
Panjaba-Sindhu-Gujarata-Maratha
Dravida-Utkala-Banga
Vindhya-Himachala-Yamuna-Ganga
uchchala-jaladhi-taranga
Tava subha name jage, tave
subha asisa mage,
Gahe tava jaya-gatha.
Jana-gana-mangala-dayaka jaya he
Bharata-bhagya-vidhata.
Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he,
Jaya jaya jaya, jaya he!
The following is Tagore’s English rendering of the anthem:
Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India’s destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sind,
Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida and Utkala (Odisha) and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India’s destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee.