For many Indians, Vande Mataram is not just a song, it is the collective consciousness of India.
It was a song that became a clarion call of freedom fighters during the struggle for independence.
Celebrated singer Padma Shri Hariharan’s rendition of The Anthem: Vande Mataram sets all six stanzas of the iconic song to music, including the later stanzas that were dropped from public gatherings after 1937.
Written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, it was first published in 1875.
Hariharan, who has sung the song across multiple languages, says, “In any language which I sing, the words are very important, and there is a way to sing your notes.”
The singer, who heard it first when he was 17, adds, “Words are embedded in notes you sing.
When you sing the notes right way, the energy of the word comes alive.”
The singer even presented President Droupadi Murmu with a special vinyl edition of The Anthem: Vande Mataram alongside a bespoke turntable.
Power Of Music
Akhilesh Jha, founder, CeGrAMS, who approached Hariharan with the idea to record all six stanzas in multiple languages, says, “If you have followed Gandhi carefully, he was the first politician in modern times who understood the power of music.
Every public gathering of his started with it because holding a crowd of two or three lakh people without music was difficult.”
History Of National Song
– Vande Mataram was adopted as the national song of India in 1950.
– Written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, it was first published in 1875.
– In 1896, Rabindranath Tagore set it to music and sang it at a Congress session in Calcutta.
– In 1937, the Congress, on the suggestion of Gandhi and Tagore, settled on using only the opening parts of the song at public gatherings.
– In 2026, the Government of India directed the complete rendering of the song at formal events.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
