The context of the genesis of Rabindranath Tagore’s song, “Amar shonar Bangla”, was undoubtedly political. In 1905, Lord Curzon had attempted to partition the then undivided Bengal — British India’s largest administrative province — along religious lines into a Muslim-dominated East Bengal and a Hindu-dominated West Bengal. Tagore composed this song to protest against this stratagem of wicked polarisation amidst a huge public uproar. Over a century later, the same song, also Bangladesh’s national anthem, has created a political stir in Assam where the chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, has asked the police to press charges of treason against leaders of the Sribhumi District Congress Committee after two lines of the song were sung at a Seva Dal meeting. The incident, the chief minister alleged, was a testament to the Congress’s pandering to alleged territorial designs by segments of Bangladesh’s leadership on India’s Northeast. The charge is absurd but expected. This is because with the assembly election on the horizon, it is time for Mr Sarma and the Bharatiya Janata Party to unleash its vicious but trusted polarisation card to paint its principal political opponent as an apologist for an Islamic nation. This endorsement of explicit sectarianism by an elected leader actually goes to underline the potency of Tagore’s song and vision. The ugly spectre of religious division had raised its head in colonial India, forcing one of India’s tallest figures to confront it with stirring melody. The same contagion haunts independent — New — India. It must be fought with equal vigour by conscientious Indians mindful of their Constitution’s inclusive vision.
Mr Sarma hopes that his party would gain electorally through this orchestrated controversy. How the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley responds to Mr Sarma’s prejudice remains to be seen. But what can be predicted is a backlash elsewhere — in neighbouring Bengal. The BJP has been eyeing the state for years now. The unleashing of the charges of sedition for the singing of one of Gurudev’s songs will certainly be objected to in poll-bound Bengal. As it is, the BJP’s central leaders are in the habit of scoring self-goals by demonstrating their ignorance of — irreverence for? — Bengal’s cultural icons and sensibilities. Mr Sarma’s remark will help the Trinamool Congress corner the BJP in this state. The public discourse must not lose sight of a larger, relevant question in this maelstrom of petty politics: should not a song, or an anthem, defy geographical borders and be claimed by one and all?