When India was still under British occupation and the colonisers were having a time of their life looting our rich country, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore composed a song called ‘Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata’. The song was written in Bengali, but in a Sanskritized dialect called Sadhu Bhasha. Importantly, Tagore did not compose this song as a national anthem, since at that time, India was still under British rule. Tagore merely wanted to paint a beautiful picture of India’s physical boundaries, its rich cultural heritage. It was an ode to our great country. The Constituent Assembly of India adopted the first verse out of the five verses of the song ‘Jana Gana Mana’ as the National Anthem on 24th January 1950.
Here are all the regions that the National Anthem of India mentions – Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, the southern states speaking Dravidian languages, Odisha and Bengal. Tagore refers to features of physical geography as well: the Vindhya and Himalayan Mountain ranges and the Yamuna and Ganga rivers. So, all parts of India are roughly covered in the national anthem. In fact, one region which is not under Indian control also finds mention – and that is the region of Sindh.
But have you ever thought which region is painfully missing from India’s “national anthem”? It is Northeast India. There is not a single mention of Northeast India – a region so blessed with natural flora, fauna, and natural resources that it can practically become the driving engine of India if truly utilised in a sustainable manner.
Of course, when the song by Tagore was composed, the Northeast was by and large considered as a part of unified Bengal. East Bengal and Assam were once a single province – Sylhet. Manipur and Tripura, however, were princely states and Nagaland as an official entity or princely state did not even exist. Meghalaya too was a part of Assam back in the day, and as a consequence, a hilly region of East Bengal.
So, Tagore really left it by mentioning Bengal alone. For him, Bengal encompassed the Northeast as well. Today, we live in drastically different times. The Northeast is an inalienable and invaluable part of India. It is India’s gateway to the ASEAN region. Now, it is high time that India’s Northeast finds a mention in the national anthem. For over seventy years, Northeast India has been excluded from the national anthem. Yet, the region has not demanded its right to be mentioned in the anthem. This should not be misconstrued as the region’s indifference to the status of the national anthem.
Everyone in Northeast India wants their region to be mentioned in the anthem. It is high time that the anthem is edited to depict the present realities of India so that nobody feels left out.