December 27th 1911 :: Over 110 Years and That Building, where “ VANDE MAATRAM, SUJHALAM , SHUFALAAM ” was " FIRST " Sung and the Indian TRI-COLOUR was FURLED




Pic :: That Building Of Kolkatta/Calcutta, where the FIRST National Song Was sung 

There again and there had been one building at Kolkatta now and Calcutta then when on December 27th 1911 or December 31st 1911 when, as one would like to ask ,  the NATIONAL SONG of India was sung

It becomes HISTORICALLY important to display or furnish the picture of that Building where that historical event had taken place. 



Pic :: Rabindranath Tagore 

December 27th 1911 :: It Is Over 110 Years That  “VANDE MAATRAM, SUJHALAM , SHUFALAAM ” was Sung and the Indian TRI-COLOUR was FURLED

 

This is a real story and ONE which should make the entire INDIANS world over to be very proud of their ancestor’s and their MOTHERLAND – MOTHER INDIA>  the land that carries us and gives us the place to survive .

This entire article will reflect how ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TEN-YEARS ago, the Indians first raised their national flag exactly on December 27th 1911 as many of the HISTORIANS say and some believe it to be December 31sr 1911 , though there are many evidence  of the fact that the ACTUAL and the REAL date was December 27th 1911 but for a few it was also December 31st 1911 and to remove the barracde I place the article on December 31st because on December 30th 1943 Mr Subash Chandra Bose also had raised the Indian flag at Anadaman and Nocobar and had ANNOUNCED that it was the NATION INDIA whose flag he was raising at Andaman and Nicobar Island.

The colour of the flag was the TRI-COLOUR but the EMBLEMS changed from time to time and I shall write and explain all about the same here in my write up.

 

The year was 1911. India, particularly Bengal, had just come out of the political crisis of Partition. Bengal TWICE was divided, first in 1905 which is FAMOULSY known as GREAT PARTITION OF BENGAL , and again in 1947 when the OPAAR BAANGLA as the Bengali’s would call it, was CHRISTENED as EAST-PAKISTAN and was handed over to Pakistan. The rot and the wrought of the partition and the aftermath of the same,  and  thereafter the shape of the things to come, was coming to terms with the British decision to shift the Capital from Calcutta to Delhi. Amidst all-round protests against the Partition, people of the country were recharged once again to fight for ‘freedom.'

 Thereafter first then the SONG- VANDE MAATRAM first, and then, quietly, another song penned by the GREAT KAVIGURU, Mr Rabindranath Tagore, JANA-GANA-MANA-ADHINAYAKA the NATIONAL ANTHEM in shape of the  song took birth at a corner of Calcutta, and everybody knows that  Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya Hey, penned by Rabindranath Tagore.

The purely indigenous song, first penned by Rabindranath Tagore in 1911 while writing his BOOK- “” GEETANJALI ”” , which was translated into English by an Englishman , and handed over to Mr Tagore, and which was re-corrected again by Mr Tagore was first sung on December 11th 1991 by Mr Tagore himself,  and  which has enchanted and has been saluted by billions of people for the last 110 years, was first sung on the second day of the annual conference of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta on December 27, 1911.

It was the song VANDE MAATRAM which till then till December 27th 1911 used to be the SONG on everybody’s lips who would go all out to fight the British and when HANGED would chant this one from the Bankim Chandra Chottopadhya’s book, “ ANANDMUTT ” and would lay his life for Mother India.

However thereafter it was Madam  Sarala Devi Chowdhurani — Tagore's niece — intoned the song, along with a few schoolstudents, in front of the gathering of the then INC president Bishan Narayan Dar and other leaders such as Bupendra Nath Bose and Ambika Charan Mazumder.

Soon after the Congress conference, in January 1912, the song first appeared before the public under the title Bharata- Bhagya- Vidhata, which means INDIA WILL BE THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD WHICH IS THE GOD OF THE EARTH ,  in Tottvobodhini Patrika (official organ of the Brahma Samaj), of which Tagore was editor. Later that month, in a Maghotsava ceremony, it was sung again at the Bard’s Jorasanko residence.

Controversy

. Nothing that does not surmount any kind of an controversy at India and there were plenty that and those wee surfacing and surfing during the British rule and it’s rein at India. A controversy surrounding the song — that it was a paean to the British monarch — refused to die down even as it faced strong comparison with another eloquent patriotic song, Vande Mataram, composed by renowned Bengali author and reformist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In keeping with the surging patriotic emotions of the time, Vande Mataram soon became the mantra for freedom fighters. The one’s to do it were the Britishers.It did that so that the people in themselves keep on the fight to themselves rather than fighting the Britishers and that would set the things at esae and at esae ie say at REST for the Britishers .

In 1917, the Congress conference was held again in Calcutta under the presidentship of  Madam, Annie Besant, founder of the Theosophical Society of India, and Tagore was invited to address the gathering. On the second day, Jana Gana Mana was rendered by Sarala Devi — introducing the song's spirit as the life-force of freedom fighters — which was in aid of instrumental music by the Mahraja Bahadur of Nattore.

Historic session

In 1919, Tagore travelled to Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh and spent five days at the Theosophical College with Irish poet James H. Cousins, who was the principal.

On the evening of February 28, 1919, the poet, for the first time, sang the inspiring devotional song and enthralled the college authorities, who selected it as the prayer song.

Tagore subsequently translated the lyrics into English and with the help of Cousins' wife, Margaret, who was an expert in western music, set down the notation which is being followed till today.

This opened the window for the song to reach national and international audiences.

At the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, the historic session of the Indian Constituent Assembly opened with Vande Mataram and closed with Jana Gana Mana.

In a letter, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru mentioned that during the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 1947, when the Indian delegation was asked to produce the country's national anthem, the members gave a recording of Jana Gana Mana, which was played by the orchestra in front of the world gathering and it received applause for its distinctive and dignified tune.

A 47 second of the NATIONAL ANTHEM ::

The entire song JANA-GANA-MANA is of ONLY 47 seconds but the WORDS, JAYE HEY, JAYA HEY, JAYA, JAYA , JAYA, JAYA HE , and OUTSTRETCHED sound or the throw at the last of the song and the music that it provides while rendering the rendition stretches the music at time a bit long to make it an affair of 52 SECONDS. That is why it is said that the INDIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM spans out a TIME of 47 seconds to 52 seconds.

Selection committee

Which of the two song, the VANDE MATRAM or the JANA-GANA –MANA would be the NATIONAL anthem and who would decide the same as TWO songs cannot be the national anthem of a single country.

It was a task that appeared to be herculeam and definitely IT was . Hence it was decided to select one with a BRILLIANT Brain to do that.

Finally, a committee was formed by the Constituent Assembly to select the National Anthem .

On January 24th , 1950, when the Assembly met to sign the Constitution of India, President Rajendra Prasad officially declared Jana Gana Mana the……. “ National Anthem ” and “ Vande Mataram ” the national song.

At the closing of the ceremony, the President, on the request of the first Deputy Speaker, Madabhushi Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, asked all members to sing the national anthem in chorus. The song was led by  Madam Purnima Banerji and sung in chorus for the first time after its adoption as our national anthem.

Assisting the long journey of the Brahma Sangeet was not smooth for Tagore. But that could never dent his philosophical approach to eternal human cry. He has engraved his deep sense of patriotism in a manner of devotion. That is why the great poet could anticipate the time and write…

“ Year 1400 ” …………

 “ A hundred years from today

who are you, sitting, reading a poem of mine,

under curiosity's sway -

a hundred years from today?

Not the least portion

of this young spring's morning bliss,

neither blossom nor birdsong,

nor any of its scarlet splashes

can I drench in passion

and despatch to your hands

a hundred years hence !”

The Raising Of The Indian Tri-colour and the change of the EMBLEM of the Flag

It is all known to us that Mr Pingalli, a philanthropist from the state of Madras Presidency then and now Andhra Pradesh which again has been broken into Telengana and Andhra Pradesh , first made the National Flag which we call it the TRI-COLOUR .He was the one who produced the idea and made the National Indian Flag also selecting it’s colour with all the reasins advocated to select the colour of the flag.

Then it was the GANDHI CHAKRA which was the EMBLEM in the MIDST of the flag. It was because Mahatma Gandhi had advocated to use the KHADI as the MAIN OUTFIT and ATTIRE for the same ie for wearing it to raise a feeling of WADESHI and instill the spirit of INDIANISM to fight the Britishers and in those days the CHAKRA which spun the  cotton to get it’s thread for weaving the clothes , was adopted as the EMBLEM of the flag.



Pic :: Mr Bankim Chandra Chhottopadhya

However it was Netaji Subash Chandra Bose who, after capturing the Andaman and the Nicobar island from the Britishers on December 30th 1943 , raised a NEW Flag which DID contain the TRI-COLOUR  but it did carry  the ASHOKA PILLARS of the STUPA OF SANCHI as the EMBLEM signifying to the WORLD that though BULLETS were pumped to win the FREEDOM by his Army, the IDEALS of INDIA was NON-VIOLENCE and it TRULY believed in the PRINCIPLES of the NON-VIOLENCE as PREACHED by Gautam Buddha who renounced the WORLD to EMBRACE “ PEACE ” through his teaching of BUDDHISM which MAINLY was that PEACE IS THE ONLY SOLUTION to all the problem that the world would face and facing.

It also may be mentioned here that Netaji Subash Chandra Bose SANG both the song, VANDE MATRAM and JANA -GANA-MANA on that occasion while raising that flag at Andaman and Nicobar after HOOFING out the Britshers from that Island . 

It was on December 31st 1949 that the IDEA of putting the WHEEL of the ASHOKA CHAKRA , which carried 16 rpt , SIXTEEN SPIKES , was put and REPLACED as a PERMANENT EMBLEM of the FLAG of INDIA, ie the TRI-COLOUR Flag  and the reason was that when India secured her INDEPENDENCE , they were only 16 STATES that it had then and those 16 SPIKES meant that there were 16 states then with India . Now it is a summation of 30 states coupled with the Union territories.

December 27th 1911, December 30th 1943 and December 31st 1911 , whichever and whatever the dats might be and the CHANGE of the EMBLEM in the Tri Colour Flag of India , it is 110 years from that day that the FLAG OF INDIA ie the TRI-COLOUR was raised  for the FIRST time here at India and  THIS IS THE REASON THE DAYS BECOME AN COMMOMERATIVE DAY in the annals of the Indian HISTORY and this complete the ESSENCE of wiring this article.

Well , that is it and That sums it all.

Regards and Thanks

Pics



Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in    B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a      Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It  published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta  in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .






Signature Of Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

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