Rashtrakavi Kuvempu effortlessly put Karnataka’s opulence, peace and prosperity in a nutshell, when he penned the poem - ‘Jaya Bharatha Jananiya Tanujathe’. The poem was adopted as the State Anthem in 2004. But till date, the State is struggling to make its rendition both uniform and shorter.
The formal rendition of the Indian National Anthem written by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore takes 52 seconds and a shorter version just about 20 seconds. But many debates and years later, the State government has now called for constitution of a committee of Kannada litterateurs to shorten the ‘lengthy’ Anthem, as the many variants run into a minutes. As legendary lexicographer Prof G Venkatasubbaiah said, “The State Anthem is too long and it proves to be a very tiring task to remain standing for so long. I would appreciate a shorter version of the Anthem, by omitting the repetitive lines.”
Last week, Kannada Development Authority chairman Mukhyamantri Chandru urged Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar to make the rendition of Anthem uniform. Shettar immediately directed the KDA chief to form a committee to work on the shorter version. Said Mr Chandru, “As directed by the chief minister we will soon form a committee of experts comprising Kannada poets, writers and composers to work on the rendition. Our effort is to make the rendition uniform by fixing the duration, but without compromising on the original script. Instead of omitting stanzas, we want to try out simple recitation without repeating any lines.” It may be recalled that a Committee headed by renowned poet Prof G.S. Shivarudrappa in 2006, (during the Dharam Singh government) was constituted to standardise the rendition. The Committee had recommended that the music composition by late Mysore Ananthaswamy was best suited for the Anthem, which is compulsorily sung at all public functions. However, the report is yet to be implemented.