by Mridula Nath Chakraborty

Come January, Australia Day loometh and along with it, urgent deliberations about the Invasion of this land that has been held in custodianship by Indigenous Elders and First Peoples for eons. At the start of this new decade, the questions have become even more pronounced as Australia burns, and we, with the world, watch the devastation of this land brought about by resource extraction through savage capitalism and colonisation. The fires raging across this land are a salutary reminder of the deeply knowledgeable and respectful processes by which Indigenous Peoples managed this land through ‘cool fires’ and mitigated the risk of such scorching summer infernos. At this time, questions also arise about the exclusionary lyrics of the Australian national anthem and what they signify for this modern nation-state.

Eight thousand kilometres away, on the other shores of the Indian Ocean, as another nation burns due to political reasons, we are witnessing the astonishing reclaiming of a national anthem, not for the nationalistic purposes of a resurgent nation-state, but by those seeking the essence of what a ‘nation’ means. This is the reconceptualising of the nation as ‘we the people’ as enshrined in the Constitution of India, and protesting against the divisive mechanisms sought to be brought in by the current ruling government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and its proposed concomitant handmaiden, the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Since the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Bill into law on 11 December 2019, a series of public protests have rocked the Indian nation for its discriminatory treatment of Muslims, and its connection to a proposed National Register for Citizens that will impact India’s marginalised the most: the poor, the indigent and the minorities, i.e. those whose access to documentation is most precarious. Widespread opposition to, and peaceful protests against, the unconstitutional nature of the Act, have incited brutal attacks by the government against its own citizens, leading to condemnation from all quarters of the world. Some of the most poignant protests have been staged by the women of Shaheen Bagh, whose entry into public space is an unalloyed claim to citizenship. As they peacefully sit-in in solidarity with the students of India who have borne the brunt of draconian state power, they also attest to India’s soul and its encounter with its democratic destiny in the twentieth-first century.

As always during times of crisis, culture and creativity have come to the fore, with highly inventive and intelligent posters, songs and slogans reclaiming democracy against the government’s spirit-breaking intentions. Resistance itself has been honed into an art form by citizens from all walks of life, as India ground to a halt, with a fifth of its population protesting against the government’s raft of “anti-people” policies on 8th January. Students, the future of any country, have been at the forefront of the spontaneous anti-CAA and anti-NRC movement, not just from the left-leaning institutions that usually lead them, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Milia Islamia University (JMI), Jadavpur University (JU), Delhi University (DU), but also the somewhat more reticent engineering and management institutions like IITs and IIMs. This time, they too are with us. Supporting them are students from all over the world, including ivy league colleges in the USA who have wrested back cultural festivals from the strangle-hold of Hindutva, as they plan a Holi Against Hindutva campaign.

One such protest by T M Krishna, the iconoclastic Carnatic musician, inspires this missive. On 26th December 2019, Krishna concluded his kutcheri during the Chennai concert season by singing two parts of the five-stanza poem by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, “Jana Gana Mana”, only the first part of which was adopted as the new nation’s anthem, when India achieved independence in 1947 against two-hundred years of British colonial rule. While standing to attention during “Jana Gana Mana” has been made mandatory in Indian cinema halls in some states, Krishna clarified that his audiences could keep sitting during his performance as he was not singing the national anthem, but Tagore’s song. The stanzas that he sang can be translated as follows:

Your call is announced continuously, we heed your gracious call
The Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Muslims and Christians,
The east and the west come, to your throne
And weave the garland of love…

Oh! You who bring in the unity of the people!
Victory be to you, dispenser of the destiny of India!

During the bleakest of nights, when the whole country was sick and in swoon
Wakeful remained Your incessant blessings, through your lowered but winkless eyes
Through nightmares and fears, you protected us on Your lap. Oh loving mother

Oh! You who have removed the misery of the people…
Victory be to you, dispenser of the destiny of India!
Victory to you, victory to you, victory to you…

By including the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Muslims and Christians in the collectivity that marks the nation-state that is called India today, Krishna brought the national anthem squarely into the arena of public statement and protest, gestures that are being echoed all over India today as all these community members stand up and claim themselves as Indian citizens, ringing in the new year with heartfelt renditions of the song. Krishna also alludes to those dark times of colonial oppression which are in danger of being repeated in India today, by Indian’s own postcolonial rulers: he calls for these nightmares and fears to be banished through the power of art and music. This is the true meaning of azaadi (independence) and citizenship: we the people.

Call to Action:

Come 26th January 2020, on the Republic Day of India, and in solidarity with the activism planned for Invasion Day, some of us will be joining our voices together to sing all the five stanzas of this astonishing poem by Tagore, that early critic of nationalism, who understood that the only thing that keeps a people together are the people themselves. That a nation is only so when all the people in it feel themselves to be citizens of the nation. We will be making this artistic statement, in solidarity with protesters in India and across the world, at public platforms in Australia, but other forms of supporting us are also possible. Here is the proposed plan of action:

1. If you decide to hold such solidarity statements at a public platform in your city, please do make sure to inform the relevant authorities, e.g. The City of Melbourne and relevant Councils: let them know about your plan, in writing, in advance. There are online forms available that tell you what you need to do.

2. In the lead-up to the public statement, please pratice singing all the five stanzas at home, using this handy video, but without the voice-over narration or classical raga modalities, so that you know the words and that there is some semblance of harmony on the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5onJA8WuI
Translations of the lyrics are available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8iikaxiSgk
You may also practice in groups together at convenient venues, with one collective dress rehearsal on 25th January if possible. The entire song should be sung without interruptions.

3. On the day, please congregate peacefully at the venue wearing all-white clothes if possible. You may carry flags of India and photographs of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution of India, and of any other luminaries you may want to (Mahatma Gandhi, Jyotiba Phule, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad). This event is an assertion and celebration of the Constitution of India on a day that recognises the nation as a secular republic, so we leave this to your discretion to carry any other placards that proclaim India as a democracy.

4. Assign someone to record the entire proceedings, so that it may be shared on social media later that day. If you cannot or do not want to participate in the singing, please come and support us with your physical presence.

5. At the appointed hour, please start the proceedings by acknowledging that we are meeting on Indigenous land and paying respect to Elders past, present and emerging. Tell the gathering that the statement is in solidarity with anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests. Proceed with reading out the Preamble and Section II of the Constitution on Citizenship: https://www.india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf and then the full song.

6. Please make sure that everyone involved understands that these is a pacific demonstration, without any slogans or heated sentiments. There may be hecklers or interruptions from onlookers and passers-by. Please greet them with a smile but do not respond in any provocative or violent way. At the end of a couple of renditions of all 5 stanzas (and more speeches and songs if singers are interested), thank everyone gathered and disperse quietly.

7. For those who are interested in adding their voice to this public statement, but are unable to make it to the actual venue, please feel free to record yourself at home reading out the Constitution and/or singing all 5 stanzas of the song. Once the video recording of the public event is shared on social media, you can add your recordings too.

Thank you,
Mridula Nath Chakraborty
On behalf of Southern Crossings

Photo credit: PC from Mumbai, India