What is the meaning of all this effort to circulate
the National Anthem in India ? A public meeting was held. on Thursday week at the Mansion House to raise funds for trans- lating the Anthem into all the dialects of India, and set the translations to a tune acceptable to the native peoples. The Hon. E. Stanhope presided. A sum of 23,000 at least is to be raised, and English and Native composers are to be employed to "rearrange the notation" of the melody, till Indians enjoy it. Granting that this is possible, which we doubt, without a radical modification of the tune—which lacks the characteristic, long-drawn sounds of Indian popular songs—what do the gentle- men concerned expect to gain from their effort? The spontaneous adoption of a hymn to the Queen would, in India, have a meaning, and an important one ; but loyalty cannot be forced, like a stick of celery, by heaping rich mould about it. If the promoters do not take care, they will wake up the true genius of the Indian peoples, which is satirical rather than worshipping, and have every bazaar in India ringing with parodies on the English Anthem, fitted to the most laughable of words. An Indian Victor Hugo is by no means a contemptible person.
Previous page
