Kolkata: The standing committee on industry and infrastructure on Monday approved the formation of a committee to draft a plan for celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composition of India’s national song.
“The national song, ‘Vande Mataram’, was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and the national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, by Rabindranath Tagore. It is Bengal that has given the nation both,” state Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharjee told reporters at Nabanna.
“We will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the writing of the national song in a grand, festival-like manner. For this, the state Cabinet, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has approved the formation of a committee to prepare a detailed roadmap for the celebrations,” she added. Leena Gangopadhyay will be the chairperson of the celebration committee, Alapan Bandyopadhyay will be the vice-chairperson, and Sirsendu Mukhopadhyay will be the Chief Advisor.
The committee will have Abul Bashar, Srijato Bandyopadhay, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Dipak Adhikari (Dev), Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Shuvaprasanna, Satyam Roychowdhury, Debasish Bhattacharjee, Goutam Ghosh, Partha Bhowmik, Subodh Sarkar, Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee, and Biswa Majumdar. The national song was originally composed in Sanskrit and published in Chattopadhyay’s 1882 novel ‘Anandamath’. Adopted as the national song by the Congress in 1905 and officially recognised in 1950, its powerful verses inspired unity and resistance during movements like ‘Bengal’s Partition’ and Gandhi’s ‘Non-cooperation Movement’.