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Does India need a new National Anthem?

In the season of pseudo-patriotism just gone by, we might have put our hands into our wallets at the sight of every starlet stripping in the name of the soldiers, and we might have pardoned every carnivorous corporate tearing to the carcasses coming in from Kargil for a few rupees more. And we might even have contributed a day's salary.

But, beat it, beyond mouthing hypocritical hyperboles -- of doing our bit for the heroic jawans who laid down their lives so that we may live ours -- and beyond indulging in tiresome and convenient tokenism, pray, what does all the national breast-beating amount to if we can't even remember our 'Jana Gana Mana'?

For four months now, I have posed a simple question to those shedding tears for Kargil while contentedly rubbing their beer bellies over the sacrifices made by our magnificent men. OK, I said, you did well to dip into your wallet to show that you're with the families. OK, you donated blood. OK, you joined the uniform rant against Pakistan's treachery. OK, you wrote indignant letters to the editor. OK, you took part in the mother of unscientific polls: the Internet polls.

But show me something more -- show me how you sing the National Anthem. No, don't hum the tune; sing me the entire number as penned by Shri Rabindranath Tagore, metre and verse, without a glitch.

And that includes you, my friend: Go ahead, do it, I'll wait, while we take a commercial break. And do ask those around you at home, at work, and at play to do likewise.

"anthem n. A song of praise or loyalty, as to a nation." (Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary)

Welcome back. You'll be surprised, or more likely you will not be surprised, that not one in ten -- not 15 of the 160 or so people I have asked in three cities -- has passed NAT: the National Anthem Test. Can I include you, too? About the only person who sang it without a single pause was my mother. Then again, perhaps even you would if you sang it for 32 years as she did as a government school teacher.

The super-flops were the super-patriots, the kind who go around wearing their patriotism on their grease-painted faces, 'I love India' T-shirts and 'Garv se bolo' bumper-stickers. The kind who send chain e-mails in the world wide web of pop-patriotism that insecure Indians have spun to cushion their insularity.

The less-conspicuously patriotic said sorry shortly after reaching 'Punjaba Sindhu Gujarata Maratha'; the rest, however, wouldn't accept failure so easily. "OK, I can't," they would admit while they tripped over 'Uchchala' and 'Utkala'. But, almost in unison, they would find common escape-clauses: The national anthem is not to be sung this way; there's a time and a place. And, they would add, not being able to sing the anthem doesn't make us any less national than those who can.

Point conceded. But if we -- the Net-surfing, mobile-toting, pub-hopping, body-building, figure-hugging jeans-wearing educated, outward-looking minority -- if we can't send our children to fight for the country, if we can't stay away from foreign labels, if we cannot stay on in this country and make something out of it, by what single attribute -- apart from the colour of our skin, apart from the passport provided by the Government of India and the PAN number allotted by the income-tax department -- by what single attribute can we establish to ourselves and to others that we are Indian?

Where is the need to do so, you might ask. If you did, you may exit at this point. But if you didn't, I submit that an ability to sing the national anthem or at least to learn to sing it, and to insist that other Indians, in India and elsewhere do, too, is the least we can do. If for nothing else, at least to prove that there is more to the patriotism we so valiantly displayed in the face of adversity, than mere lip service.

I understand that we are stepping on dangerous territory here, given the predelictions of the leader of the caretaker-coalition and its expertise in securing pride of place for 'Vande Mataram' by whipping up a specious debate over the National Anthem vs the National Song. Those who think Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's number should lead the album may exit now.

Those who think the national anthem should have as much currency as the national song must square up to this slower one: Given the almost total non-recall of 'Jana Gana Mana' among the educated masses except among those of the old school like my mother, do we need a new national anthem, or do we need a zippier 'Jana Gana Mana' that catches the fancy of generation next?

There is nothing sacrosanct about the national anthem -- ours or anybody else's -- that it cannot be ditched in favour of one which gains wider currency. The BJP would hate to be reminded this, but when not one member of a European football team could sing their country's 400-year-old national anthem at a prize distribution ceremony four years ago, the government swiftly had a new anthem in place.

Which country? Which government? Italy and Italian, respectively.

The point is not how many would pass the National Anthem Test if it were conducted on the Indian cricket team, but what a shame it would be if the 11 most sought after men in the country -- doing duty in the name of India, with the Indian tricolour on their caps, sleeves and god knows where else -- cannot remember an anthem that stands for all that their nation does.

And by extension, what a shame it would be if all the young men and women sought after by God's Own Country and its allies, can remember the Star-Spangled Banner and not 'Jana Gana Mana'. To paraphrase the dictionary meaning of anthem: how do establish your loyalty to this nation if you cannot even remember its anthem?

It is also my submission that if the younger generation cannot remember our national anthem within a year of exiting their schools and colleges, it's not merely because of their selective amnesia and the anthem's beautiful if complicated lyrics, as also for its soporific beat. So how do we get out of this logjam?

A supplementary question to my National Anthem Test was: "When you hear Vande Mataram, which tune comes to your mind?" To a man, the response was A R Rehman's. Now, here's a neat secular compromise in the times of whipped-up, hyped-up national hysteria.

National Anthem: 'Jana Gana Mana.'
Lyrics: Rabindranath Tagore.
Music: Allah Rakha Rehman, born Dilip Shekhar.
Orchestral support: Zubin Mehta, Ilayaraja.
Supporting cast (in descending alphabetical order): Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, L Subramaniam, U Srinivas, L Shankar, Sivamani, Shivkumar Sharma, Roy Venkataraman, Ranjit Barot, Hariprasad Chaursia, Anoushka Ravi Shankar.

Now there's a thought. What, say?

Five Questions:

I wonder...

* Would the popular response to the plight of the soldiers' families have been the same had the BJP-led coalition not been in power?

* Shouldn't the army release city by city contributions received so that we are reassured that we weren't gypped by pseudo-extortionists?

* Is "Shakti" the only Indian word MNCs know? There is "Rin Shakti", "Lizol Shakti", "Colgate Shakti" and "Kellog's Iron Shakti".

* So, you thought the Y2K problem was under control? Well then, how are we going to write dates in digits? 1-1-00? 10-8-00?

* Would Vinod Kambi have sneaked into the national team if Sachin Tendulkar wasn't captain, and Ajit Wadekar wasn't coach?

Krishna Prasad