Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people...

As Jawaharlal Nehru said, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.” When India sang her national anthem for the first time, nothing else mattered except for the fact that “Jab mile sur mera tumhaara, toh bane sur humaara.”

The art and the artist; the song and the composer; Image Source: Get Bengal

“You might be living abroad or in a small village of India- but whenever the national anthem is played, you leave all your work and stand up with a proud smile on your face and happiness in your heart to show your respect and love for Jana Gana Mana.”, said Subroto. “Baba, why is our national anthem given so much importance? What is the history behind this 52-second song that makes us all bow to its lyrics and tune?” asked the 13-year old Rahul.

The national anthem of India was originally composed by India's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali. The original Bengali song Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata is originally a Brahmo hymn that has five verses in total. However, the song was pretty complicated and long, due to which only its first verse has been adopted as the National Anthem. If the meaning of the national anthem is to be understood briefly, then we could say that it depicts the concept of ‘Unity in Diversity', which is the core concept of India's cultural heritage.

“Baba, how was the song adopted by our Constituent Assembly? Was there some kind of competition to decide the best song lyrics that would be apt for the national anthem?”, asked Rahul.

Though the journey of Jana Gana Mana was not that easy, it came into the public limelight for the first time in 1911. On December 27, 1911, the melody "Jana Gana Mana" was first heard on the public stage in the Calcutta (presently Kolkata) meeting of the Indian National Congress, before pioneers like then Congress President Bishan Narayan Dar, Ambika Charan Mazumdar, and Bhupendra Nath Bose.

The very next year in 1912, an annual event was held at Adi Brahmo Samaj wherein the song was again sung. But this event was unknown to most people except for those who read the Adi Brahmo Samaj journal named Tattwabodhini Patrika. The national anthem was published in the form of a poem in this very journal, with Tagore as the editor. In the very same year, Rabindranath's niece, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani performed this song with a group of school students in front of some prominent Congress members.

Outside of Calcutta, the melody was first sung by the troubadour himself at a meeting in Besant Theosophical College in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh on 28 February 1919 when Tagore visited the school and sang the tune. The tune captivated the students while Margaret Cousins, then, at that point, VP of the school (additionally a specialist in European music and spouse of Irish writer James Cousins), both mentioned Tagore to make an English interpretation of the melody and put down the melodic documentation to the public hymn, which is followed just when the tune is sung in the first lethargic version style.

Tagore interpreted the work into English while at the school on 28 February 1919, named The Morning Song of India. The school took on Tagore's interpretation of the melody as their supplication tune which is sung till today.

The melody was chosen as the public hymn by Subhas Chandra Bose while he was in Germany. On the event of the establishing meeting of the German-Indian Society on 11 September 1942 in the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg, Jana Gana Mana was played interestingly by the Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra as the public hymn of an autonomous India.

Before it formally turned into the public hymn of India in 1950, "Jana Gana Mana" was heard in the 1945 film Hamrahi. It was additionally taken on as a school melody of The Doon School, Dehradun in 1935.

In the event of India achieving opportunity, the Indian Constituent Assembly gathered interestingly as a sovereign body on 14 August 1947, at noon, and the meeting shut with a consistent exhibition of Jana Gana Mana.

The individuals from the Indian Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations held in New York in 1947 gave a recording of Jana Gana Mana as the country's public hymn. The tune was played by the house ensemble before a social occasion comprising of agents from everywhere in the world.

Notation of Indian National Anthem approved by the Constituent Assembly of India in 1950; Image Source: Wikimedia