TWO essential components of any song are its tune and its words. Most Indians can’t sing the lines of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 19th-century nationalist song Vande Mataram in tune; and an equal number, or possibly even more, would struggle to divine the meaning of its heavily Sanskrit verses. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi still staged a 10-hour debate on the 19th-century song in parliament, wasting time and treasure to the tune of Rs250,000 per minute needed to run a House in session.

It can’t be too different with Pakistan’s predominantly Turko-Persian national anthem, which may be beyond the ken of the country’s ordinary Balochi, Sindhi, Punjabi or Pashto-speaking people. It is said that the only purely Urdu word in Pakistan’s anthem is ‘ka’, meaning ‘of’. All other words are of Persian or Turkic origin. A Bangladeshi or a Sri Lankan is less likely to not know what their national songs mean.

National songs or anthems are often imposed from above, in which case they tend to exclude the diversity of the masses they purport to represent. On the flip side, the songs can be constructed to celebrate the cornucopia of plurality that faithfully describes a people. South Africa’s post-liberation anthem is composed and sung in five languages to reflect the nation’s alluring cultural mix. For another example, take New Zealand. Its national anthem God Defend New Zealand is sung in both Maori and English, typically with the first verse in native Maori followed by the same verse in English, acknowledging the nation’s bicultural heritage.

Rabindranath Tagore first selected Vande........

© Dawn