*LONG READ* By: Sidharth Bhatia Published in: *The Wire* Date: February 17, 2026 Source: https://thewire.in/history/full-text-two-songs-two-visions-tm-krishna-on-why-india-chose-jana-gana-mana-over-vande-mataram
The Carnatic vocalist and public intellectual argues that India must defend its founding symbols and also reimagine their meaning for a changing time. India’s national symbols are everywhere – on currency notes, government letterheads, school stages and public buildings. But how were they chosen, and what ideas were they meant to carry? In this conversation with Sidharth Bhatia, founding editor of The Wire and host of The Wire Talks, Carnatic vocalist and author T.M. Krishna discusses his new book We the People of India: Decoding the Nation’s Symbols, which traces the histories of five foundational emblems: the motto, the anthem, the flag, the Ashoka Lions and the Preamble. He explains why “Jana Gana Mana” became the national anthem, why “Vande Mataram” could not, and why these symbols matter more than ever today. Below is a transcript of the conversation, done by Ritvi Jain, an editorial intern at The Wire. Sidharth Bhatia: Hello and welcome to The Wire Talks. I’m Sidharth Bhatia. Do we know what the national motto of India is? Are we aware of how the national anthem of the country was chosen? And what were the discussions around the tricolour? These are symbols we see and hear all around us, but little of their history is popularly known. Thodur Madabusi Krishna, or T.M. Krishna – one of the pre-eminent vocalists in the Carnatic tradition of Indian classical music – in his latest book, We the People of India: Decoding the Nation’s Symbols (Context, 2026), goes deep into the histories of five such symbols and unearths fascinating details about them. It is a deeply researched book that also examines popular myths, many of which circulate widely on WhatsApp. Krishna regularly speaks and writes on cultural and public issues. As a public intellectual, he has addressed concerns far beyond musical traditions. His first book, A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story, explored the socio-political dimensions of the tradition and won several awards. His next book, Sebastian & Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers, traced the story of mridangam makers and also received wide recognition. He has been part of several unique collaborations, including performances with the Jogappas, transgender devotional musicians, and with writer Perumal Murugan. T.M. Krishna, welcome to The Wire Talks. T.M. Krishna: Thank you for having me, Sidharth. Such a pleasure to be here. Sidharth Bhatia: T.M., you’ve written books in the past, but they were related to the arts and culture. Your earlier book Sebastian & Sons was a fascinating look at a family that makes and plays the mrdangam. Now you moved on. What made you choose to write on national symbols? T.M. Krishna: In a way, I see symbols as being connected to the idea of music or art, because making music is a kind of symbolism. We are offering tunes. We are offering rhythms. We are offering phrases, poetry, which symbolise things and make the receiver or the reader imagine in their own way. So for me, for example, the symbol that strikes me the most is the anthem – “Jana Gana Mana” – because I sing it. It’s a melodic expression. It’s as much a song as it is an anthem. And it began there, on what do Jana, Gana, Mana mean? Why am I moved by this song? What does it tell me about myself, my citizenry, my country or nation-state? All these were questions that were in my mind. And I remember at a talk some years ago, when I was first just looking at “Jana Gana Mana”, and I spoke about the anthem, I called it a protest song. And that statement that I made, in many ways, was a trigger for me, and I said, why was it a protest song? Why am I calling it that? Then I started thinking about these symbols, and soon then the canvas expands. It’s not just musical, it’s political. And like I say, music is politics. Paint is politics. Words are politics. Movement is politics. And therefore, this book expanded into areas that I had not written about before, but there was also a great amount of discovery for me as a citizen of this country. Sidharth Bhatia: You’re right. Your last statement leads me to what I wanted to know. These are symbols that, in some way, define my citizenship and your citizenship. They are around us. We take many of them for granted, but they move us. There is a sentence in your book where you say that when your plane is about to land at the airport in Chennai, you feel an emotional pull. T.M. Krishna: Yeah. Sidharth Bhatia: You’re back home. So these are things that are around us. But even today, for example, the national anthem never fails to move us. So hold that thought. We’ll probably pick up on those kind of ideas subsequently. But in your 450-page-long book – my God, that’s quite a long book – you write only about five subjects: the slogan Satyamev Jayate, national anthem “Jana Gana Mana”, the much-loved tricolour, the Ashoka Lions, and the Preamble to the Constitution collectively. What do they amount to? What do they represent? T.M. Krishna: I think: are these emblems or symbols of India? Do they mean anything? Is a question that we can all ask. Are they just decorative things? But I think they are far more than being decorative or something that the state just needs to have. They imbue within themselves a set of values or ideals that we hope to give ourselves, or grow towards, or become in some way. So they are idealistic in some way, but they also recognise what is around. For me, the flag is an incredible idea of multiple people, of different faiths, of different attires, of different languages. Like I said, 30-40 kilometres from where I live, there’s a language I don’t understand, but we still converse with each other. So what is that thing that binds us together? The flag, in some way, is that kind of representation. The capital, for me, is definitely an idea of justice, of the idea of righteousness, in which there is also the idea of equality. So these are values that we’re trying to convey to one another through these symbols, and it’s not just decorative. Satyamev Jayate – some people may wonder why say ‘truth wins’ when that seems the most idealistic thing, impractical, maybe, for some. But it’s important that we remind ourselves of the idea of truth, and today it becomes even more important in this age of untruth and WhatsApp truth and no truth and half-truth. And what is important is that the diverse set of people who engaged in these becoming our symbols – they were not people who agreed on everything. But they did come together with these symbols. To me, the Preamble is the most fascinating thing, and I write primarily about fraternity in the preamble, because maitri, as Ambedkar also used to talk about it, is one of the most precious ideas that we seem to be losing or have lost today. These symbols come together in one word, and that would be humanity. Sidharth Bhatia: Did you set out to achieve that goal, or did that come together as you moved along? T.M. Krishna: Completely together as I moved along. That’s the truth. Originally, my idea was to write five short essays. That’s all I had thought of writing. Just 5,000 word essays each was the original plan. And as I started reading and thinking, it just grew by itself. So for me, it was also important to connect these happenings of the past with what I am experiencing today and what I’m seeing today, whether it’s the loss, whether it is a misrepresentation, or whether it’s a need to recapture, re-imagine, even reinterpret some of these various meanings. So the present and the past – a discourse between this present and the past – was something that happened by itself. And like you suggested, the coming together of all these various streams of ideas happened completely organically. It was not planned. Sidharth Bhatia: The research, Krishna, I must tell you, as a journalist, as an author, is very, very impressive. It’s overwhelming. You have drawn from archives, newspapers, parliamentary debates. What it shows – and this is something that struck me over and over again in the book – what it shows is that there was a lot of thinking and discussing even minutes before any decision was taken. What does that tell us of that period, of those leaders, of that process? T.M. Krishna: Even as you ask me this question, Sidharth, I’m getting goosebumps, and the reason is we often think these little things don’t matter. And when I saw some of those exchanges between ministries, between the secretary of the prime minister, between the office of the president of India, on little things – for example, there was this entire question of the symbol, right – and it was finalised, and then within weeks, when it was published in the newspaper, they had put a little box around it. And there is this cabinet meeting where Nehru is complaining about the fact that you should not put a box around it. And you know what he also complains about? He complains about why, aesthetically, it will not work. Now I can’t imagine any other prime minister worried about the aesthetic of how the country should see itself. Then you have this argument between the home ministry and the prime minister’s office on the lions of the capital. How – is it a correct representation of Sarnath – is the discussion that is happening. Bureaucrats are arguing over it. Samples are being sent between ministries. You know what this really tells me? That it mattered – to everyone. Everybody was really invested in wanting to create the various symbols, in not just choosing them, in how they appeared, how they were designed, how they were written, what was the script like. Usually we think bureaucracy slowed things. No, I completely changed my opinion: they were invested in the imagination of India. I’m an artist and the imagination of India was really something that fascinated me. Oh, what about the public? It’s not just government. When Satyamev Jayate is announced as the motto of India, there is a series of letters that the prime minister’s office is getting on the Sanskrit, saying it should not be Satyamev Jayate, it should be Satyamev Jayati, and each one is writing reasons on why it should be so. And what does the prime minister do? He sends a lightning telegram and tells all the ministries, stop, don’t release it, don’t announce it immediately. We’ll hold on – consult scholars. And then the Government of India puts out a clarification saying, no, we’ve consulted scholars, it is Satyamev Jayate, and there is no grammatical problem with it. All this tells you so much about every one of those individuals involved in the making of India, that they really wanted it to – one, it is participatory, that’s very important – that everybody was contributing, everybody was writing in and discussing. Two is that they really wanted to take the best step forward. What is most upsetting for me about today’s discussions of the past is not that somebody disagrees with Nehru, or disagrees with Gandhi, or Ambedkar – that’s okay – but the intentions of the individuals are being completely misrepresented, vulgarised, corrupted and just lied about. There can be no question in my mind that the sheer integrity and honesty and the genuineness with which every one of these leaders of those times engaged with the concept and the creation of India is, to me, unquestionable – whether it’s Patel, whether it is Gandhi, whether it is Nehru, whether it’s Ambedkar – that is unquestionable. And this keeps coming back in every letter, in every argument, where Nehru is arguing with Jinnah. It’s clear in internal documents of Congress meetings. It is clear – Azad, every one of them. And so it’s sometimes, honestly, Sidharth, it hurts when I read the things that are said, because they are utterly wrong. They are lies. And we can’t just let it just go on and on and on and on like this and say, no, everybody can say what they want. No! The integrity of those people, for me, was unquestionable. I may disagree with them…. Sidharth Bhatia: No, but one – the central message of all that – is a word that has become somewhat tainted now, is true participatory democracy. T.M. Krishna: Absolutely. Sidharth Bhatia: And the fact that, at the prime minister’s level, with all his other preoccupations, at the level of Ambedkar, at the level of so many, at the president and so many others, the sheer willingness to listen to another point of view and the sheer willingness to get honest criticism. A very different experience from what we see, is that the citizen is just…lying somewhere and does not have to be told or has to be fed – ‘this is what it is’, and that’s [it]. T.M. Krishna: Absolutely. Sidharth Bhatia: So that vast journey, I think anyone who reads this book implicitly understands the fact of the democratic process. T.M. Krishna: I completely agree with you, and that’s what keeps coming back, that participatory democracy is not just about putting the vote in, isn’t it? It’s about these discussions, it’s about having these robust conversations, and it’s about participating on an everyday basis as a citizen, or as a part of the ministry, or Constituent Assembly, or in the judiciary, or anywhere, or media, for example. Even the media reporting of those times, or even the criticism that is published, or a member of parliament is upset by something, ten years later he’s still complaining, he’s still engaging, this entire back and forth, and also the willingness to respond to everybody. Sidharth Bhatia: Precisely. T.M. Krishna: So there’s an amount of respect. Today, we don’t respect the citizen at all. But there was respect for the citizen. Which is why the citizen felt comfortable enough to write to the highest powers, and he got a response, and those were filed, there were notings on them, even if it was some ordinary person, that was taken into account. That’s absolutely phenomenal and very, very touching. Sidharth Bhatia: But it lays the foundations of the country now. It’s not a matter of five symbols. It lays the foundation of the nation. T.M. Krishna: Absolutely. So true. Sidharth Bhatia: Right. But let me ask you about the flag. There were a lot of important things in it, a lot of fascinating things. But one thing just leapt out to me: that there was some suggestion that the Union Jack be included in some way. That’s something many citizens may not be aware of. I know that there was talk of India being a dominion, but this was the fact that… T.M. Krishna: Not in the final flag, no. Sidharth Bhatia: No, but at some stage that must have come up. It tells me that the number of iterations the flag went through…because Madame [Bhikaji] Cama’s flag, with its three colours, with the crescent, with the lotus, etc., which apparently she unfurled in some conference in 1907 or 1909 in Europe – from that to what emerged on 15 August 1947, the number of iterations, the number of translations it went through, is just amazing, and you’ve announced all of them. T.M. Krishna: Yes, I went through all of that, and for me the most interesting first discovery was – So, Pingali, from Andhra Pradesh, is credited with having finally designed the flag that evolved to our national flag. And I kind of disagree [with that] in this book, and I say it was Gandhi, not Pingali. And the reason I say that is I’ve seen Pingali’s own 28 designs in his book, and they are complex designs, representative of various faiths, and some languages, and the symbolisms are complex. And every one of them, by the way, had the Union Jack in the corner. The amazing thing about Gandhi is, when he goes to meet Pingali and says, I have this idea, can you make this design and bring it to me? There is no Union Jack in it. He’s clear that there’s no Union Jack. There’s a huge charkha, and three colours. That’s about it. And Gandhi keeps saying that he is pretty much the inventor of the flag, and we seem to have ignored that somehow. So I actually think that the flag that evolved finally to the national flag of India was Gandhi’s idea. I’m sticking my neck out when I say that, but I’m going to stick my neck out. The other thing we should remember – Cama’s flag is there, then you have the flag in Kolkata, which is very close in design to Cama’s flag. Then you also have the Home Rule League, Tilak’s league, and Annie Besant’s league, and everybody thought both had the same flag. No, they had different flags. They had different domains of even functioning. Their relationship seems to have been very interesting, as two leagues. They are two independent leagues which were collaborating. So they had independent flags. The other thing I want to say about the Union Jack is we forget that the notion of independence itself went through multiple iterations – from wanting freedom and wanting participation, justice and equality. We then went to wanting to be part of a dominion, and then we say Purna Swaraj, and we say we want nothing to do with the British. The various flags, in many ways, are also representative of the various ideas of freedom or swaraj that were evolving from different voices. The most interesting thing is that if there is one flag that never even imagined the Union Jack, it’s the one that Gandhi gave us finally. In many ways, it had no relationship to the Union Jack. Therefore, even the absence or the presence of the Union Jack in various flags has to be taken into the context of how freedom was being imagined. What were the symbolisms imagined…. For example, when Annie Besant is in Coimbatore and the flag is asked to be brought down for the first time –for caste reasons. The magistrate says that there is a non-Brahman conference and there’s a Brahman conference. Yours is more a Brahman conference, theirs’ is more a non-Brahman conference. We think that hoisting this flag will create a caste problem. I have never come across any other situation where the Home Rule flag, or any flag symbolising the nation at that time was going to create a caste issue. So it’s a fascinating look at various flags and their various situations. Sidharth Bhatia: There’s some flag that even Mrs Tyabji [Surayya Tyabji, whose husband was Badruddin Tyabji] designed. Is there any contribution in that? T.M. Krishna: What I understand from what has been written is that the first flag made and presented by Nehru on July 22, 1947, was the flag she made, physically. There’s also this thought that originally the chakra was in black, and apparently Gandhi was against it and it [was changed] to blue. But there is nothing in the records for me to confirm this. Because the chakra was already blue… Sidharth Bhatia: That’s [from] the Congress flag. T.M. Krishna: Yes, it was already blue, and that’s what later became the Ashokan chakra in the centre [of the Indian flag]. So I don’t have any, shall we say, substantiating document to assert that what is said [about the colour of the chakra is] true… Sidharth Bhatia: Now coming to a contemporary subject – the Ashoka Lion. I find it very interesting and fascinating that Emperor Ashoka has a hold on modern India. He is part of the Indian imagination even today, and in a benign way. And finally the lions became a kind of solid, substantial symbol. You see the base, the lions facing each side, and you think, yes, there is something there. Something solid. So tell me about how that particular model of the Ashoka Lions was finally designed. T.M. Krishna: So the first discussion about the Ashoka Lions being the probable symbol of India is in the committee meeting where they’re also discussing the flag of India. And they say it should be the Sarnath Capital. In the second meeting, they say we will decide this later. But I think Ashoka was central, without doubt, [and] Nehru has a huge role in Ashoka being central to the various symbolisms of India. It was also a decision of the times that they were living in. Partition had happened. There was communal disharmony. There was violence. So we were also looking for symbolisms that did not create more fissure, more conflict. And Ashoka seemed like the ideal person to look towards for two reasons. One is, you don’t get into this whole controversy of Hindu and Muslim, of course. But more than anything else, Ashoka is a very interesting personality – a person who adopted a violent monarchy kind of life, and then there is this transformation where he wants to create a society of dharma, equality, compassion. In some ways, that was also on the minds of the makers, situationally [that it was] something like India. You had a country that was going through colonial violence and then also religious violence, entering a new phase in life, so to speak, and hopefully a phase of compassion and love – which is why Ashoka symbolisms are so dominant in our initial imagination of India. Now, two questions emerge about this Ashokan pillar. One, we forget that on top of the lions was a huge dharma chakra, which even when the Ashokan Capital in Sarnath was found had already broken and [had fallen] on the ground. So when they initially wanted to adopt it, there was also this question of what about the Dharma Chakra? It obviously didn’t exist anymore. In fact, this is a question that keeps coming back even ten years after it’s adopted – should we put the dharma chakra back on the heads of the lions? But the fact is that these lions represented dharma and the rule of good, in a simplistic manner, in looking at all four directions. They also have Buddhist meaning. The idea is that these lions are looking over – these lions are not violent lions saying, “I rule over you.” These lions are symbolic of the Buddha himself, in some ways. They are the lions of compassion, of justice, of righteousness, of care, looking at all four directions of the land. It was an incredibly beautiful idea. The biggest question that was also being asked is: Should we have the inverted lotus below them as part of the symbol, or not? And finally, they decide that that need not be part of the symbol. But the most important thing I want to say here is – lions were not new to India. Please remember that the British monarchy has lions on its symbol. Please remember that the East India Company also had lions. The question then is: what was different about these lions? These lions were distinct in what they represented. They represented something far more generous, far more caring, and far more righteous than any of the lions that the Indian citizen had seen before that. So it was a conscious choice, but also a choice with a difference – a choice that really said something very different from the dominating world powers of those times, colonial powers of those times – completely different. Sidharth Bhatia: What would you say about these aggressive-looking lions used in the new parliament building? Do they represent a certain new India, which is aggressive and, if I may over-interpret, which is not about quietly being peaceful, or what Nehru tried to do later, non-aligned, say for example. No, we are here and we are going to be aggressive towards everybody. We are a fighter country. T.M. Krishna: It’s very important we address this, because there are two misconceptions and wrong interpretations – that compassion and righteousness and being good is weakness. First of all, I don’t know how we are convincing ourselves that being good, or being caring, is not a strong quality. Those are very powerful, strong, dignified qualities. They are not weak qualities. Now, these words – aggression, being in your face, or like I use in the book, the word “killer instinct” – these are not qualities we should be celebrating. I’m sorry. And the new lions do represent those qualities, and those are not qualities of strength. We are seeing this every day. We see, for example, people in power today speaking with gusto about how strong we are, and so on, and then one little thing has to happen in the international fora and we crumble, we are meek. So where does the strength lie? So these lions represent the present lions – let me put it that way – which are there in the parliament, actually representing weakness. They just represent bravado. They represent anger and all these false, superficial, presentational, almost performance acts that we are so used to seeing from the people in power today all over the country, played over every day. For example, the word “masterstroke” I almost see on Twitter every day. I don’t even know what it means. That represents the lions on the parliament [building] today – that everything is some masterstroke. No. This is weakness. This shows cowardice. This shows that you can’t stand your ground without screaming. The most important power is to be able to stand your ground without having to shout, without having to pull somebody down, without having to say ‘You’re an idiot’ or ‘You shouldn’t be speaking’, without allowing other people to speak. We are seeing that in parliament regularly. That’s not strength. That’s cowardice – that you’re not willing to listen, you’re not willing to take criticism. The present lions, yes, represent all of what I’ve said now. But the question is: Is that what we want to be? Now, if we choose that’s the India we want to be, then we’ve got the lions we have asked for. But if you’re going to say no, we want the lions that are stable, the lions that have grandeur, that have gravitas, that have dignity, that have patience, that will stand their ground for the truth, that will listen to truth when it’s told to them and will change course – if that’s the India we want, then we need to go back to the Capital that we gave ourselves in 1950, 1951. Those are the lions we need. Sometimes I think how shocking it is that we’ve even accepted these new lions. Because on one part, you have the same people talking about Indian civilisation, the Upanishads, about old treatises. I don’t know what they read, because if they had read any of that, they would know that what they are representing as India is an antithesis of the very texts they say represent India. So they are not well-read in their own scriptures. They also have no sense of self. They also don’t have the strength to withstand criticism. That’s how I see the present state. Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah. Well, that snarl, that killer-instinct is always a little bit of, as you said, bravado, but also the hallmark of bullies – where you want to appear to be tough, but really speaking are hollow inside. T.M. Krishna: Absolutely. Sidharth Bhatia: And finally, picking up from your book Jana Gana Mana –the national anthem, the epitome of citizenship, when we play it or hear it, we feel moved and connected – not just to a certain nation but to a certain idea. Your book goes into copious detail about Vande Mataram and why it was not chosen, and also you demolish this nasty rumour that Rabindranath Tagore wrote it in honour of King George V. Tell us a bit about both. T.M. Krishna: Okay. So, when I started this chapter, when I started writing, I realised quickly that I cannot – it’s impossible to write the story of “Jana Gana Mana” without writing the story of Vande Mataram. The two songs, not just because they have historical connections with Tagore, etc., but in many ways they represent two very different ideas of India. Very simply put, they do represent two different ideas of India, and it is important to have this discussion between the two. So, two things. First, that “Jana Gana Mana” was written in honour of King George, or that the “Adhinayak” in the song is King George – simply put, is utter rubbish. This has been said before by historians, and Tagore himself has said it quite colourfully in his own words – far more colourful than what I said now – and there’s absolutely no doubt about it. It is ridiculous that this rumour and this rumour-mongering has gone on for nearly now, what, 80-90 years? I don’t know how many years – it’s just going on and on. Yes, Tagore was asked to write a song in honour of King George. And in Tagore’s own words, paraphrasing in contemporary language, Tagore was pissed that anybody had the gall to even ask him that favour. And he writes a song – which is why I called it a protest song. He writes a song that’s just the antithesis of what is expected, celebrating that idea, that Adhinayak – that you want to call divine, call God, you want to call, you use the word you want. In my book, I play around with possibilities. And it takes us through a journey of this entire land. He takes us through the emotional landscape of this land. He talks about the present state of the emotions of the country, of the people. Beyond the paras that we use for the anthem, he’s talking about the land being in darkness. He’s saying there will be light that will rise from behind the eastern hills. So it’s almost prophetic in many ways. He’s almost predicting freedom. It’s an absolute – emotionally and structurally – stunning song, which is clearly not got to do anything with George. It was never sung on any occasion when King George came to India, whether it was in Delhi or when he was in Kolkata. It was not presented anywhere else. Tagore hands the same song, which he writes, to the Indian National Congress, when it is rendered in the Congress meeting. That’s the first time it’s rendered. The confusion also happens because of misrepresentations in the English press. There were two songs sung that morning of December, 1911. One was a Hindi song, one was a Bengali song. The Hindi song was in praise of King George. And please remember, why was it sung at that time? The partition of Bengal had been revoked, and it was like a ‘thank-you’ to King George, who had just come to India at that point of time. That was the Hindi song. The song in Bangla – Tagore’s song, “Jana Gana Mana” – was a song which was a celebration of the country. The lyrics of this song were also published saying it is a song about this country. Due to misrepresentation in some of the English press, there was also some confusion created. But all this is just detailing to state the fact that the song clearly celebrates the country, the nation, India – it is a song that celebrates the idea of the supreme, ‘the Adhinayak’. And, to me, what captures the entire magic of the song is the first three syllables: Jana, Gana, Mana – the people, the individuals, the hearts and minds. That’s it. And there he captures it. In fact, Sid, I really hope everyone learns the whole song, not just the anthem. Because in today’s India, the other verses become so much more important, where he talks about the Buddhists, the Muslims, the Jains, the Christians all coming together, living in this land. And I feel we need to sing that verse again and again and again in this country today. He talks about the uneven roads, or the pathways taken by the people. He talks about the Adhinayak. It is a spectacularly beautiful song that takes you through a large trajectory of emotional landscape. Vande Mataram, on the other side, is nothing like this, absolutely nothing. There’s no way that song could be the anthem of this country. I’m just saying it flat out. Sidharth Bhatia: It’s interesting that everything is nowadays blamed on Nehru, but many people, including Tagore, pointed out that the earlier part of “Vande Mataram” was different from the later part. You point out that the later verses are a misfit in many ways. They don’t have the cadence, the rhythm – and these leaders immediately spotted what was wrong with them. It’s very wonderful to think that their minds were operating at that level, to say, ‘Hello, we know what this song is trying to do, just let’s shut it down’. T.M. Krishna: Yeah, I was going to come to that. So, Vande Mataram is an interesting song to study, I’ll tell you that. Even as a musician, as an artist, it’s such a fascinating song to study. It’s almost like it is many parts that have been put together that don’t fit together. Okay, obviously, intentions change. Now, the first verse aesthetically, musically, also in terms of language, flows easily, beautifully. And if you think of it, the first verse – “Sujalam, Suphalam, Malayaja Sheetalam” – it’s just a description. Yes, there is the idea of the mother, but it’s still a descriptive landscape. In my opinion, though the first two verses were written together, even the second verse, for me, is a shift. Suddenly it’s talking about the population of a land. Something tactile is happening over there, which is not happening in the first verse. And after the second part, the third and fourth verses of this song – just as musical constructions, as poetry for music, just do not hold together. It is clear as day and night. You can listen to a number of musical tunes of all the four verses together. Any person listening to all the four verses together will notice that they just stutter … It doesn’t hold itself together. Metaphorically, it tells you something about that kind of an idea of India, doesn’t it? If I was to just take it from there, it tells you that there is a problem if you think of India in that manner; as a Hindu-dominant kind of an idea, where obviously others are to be accommodated within certain paradigms, or within certain attitudes, or with a sign of – with showing servitude of some sort. The collapsing of the song is also, for me, metaphorically, a collapsing of an idea that India could ever be that. That’s how I see that song. And like you said, what is fascinating is how the leaders of those times – they, I don’t know how much music they knew – we don’t know – but they picked up on this too, and not just that Anand Math is problematic. I want to say that anybody who tells me that Anand Math is just a political novel, where the target is mainly the Muslim leader, the king – not really. No. Please read it. I don’t know how you can say that, because it’s clear in it that it is a problematic text. And it is anti-Muslim, without a doubt. And I can understand why somebody would be disturbed with a song that plays such an important role in that text to be taken to be an anthem of any sort. This is obvious. But to also see that the song doesn’t hold for some reason – that something in it is missing – in an instinctive or intuitive manner, also tells you of the depth of the individuals who are making India for all of us. It really tells you something. Sidharth Bhatia: So, lastly, to the Preamble, which you have kept as the last chapter. You talk about why “secularism” wasn’t used, and secular and socialist were added in 1971. But the secularism idea was very much there in the minds of the founders, the Constitution writers. Tell us more about how that came together, because the Preamble, by the way, is something most people have read. And it has become quite popular also as a pop-culture item. People wear it on bags, T-shirts, keep it at home. What was the idea of the Preamble? T.M. Krishna: So, any legal expert will tell you that you can’t take the words in the Preamble to court – it’s non-justiciable. The Preamble is a symbol of the Constitution. It captures the spirit of all the laws and rights and structures we have given ourselves in the Constitution – whether it is the judicial structure, whether it’s the executive, whether it is citizens’ rights. All this is captured in that little paragraph that we have given ourselves, which is why it is important. It is a symbol of the Constitution. Now, to those words that have been added. For me, those words needn’t have been added, because anybody who reads the Fundamental Rights of the Indian Constitution knows that we did imagine ourselves to be secular. We did imagine ourselves to be equal. We did say that people who are minorities of various kinds, people who are marginalised, do have to be given priority – have to be given, not concessions, but if I may say, extra support and help – because we need to create a platform that, at some point of time, can be equal. And one word that we don’t use, but which is clear in our Fundamental Rights, is equity – not just equality, but equity. And the moment I say equity and use these words, it is the spirit of socialism. There cannot be any philosophical debate on that. And Indian secularism also is very clear. Please remember that there was also a huge debate in the Constituent Assembly on whether God should feature in the Constitution, in the Preamble – the word “God”. And it was put to a vote, by the way. It was actually put to a vote, and it was decided that no, God will not be there. Now, was that then a rejection of the fact that India is full of religions and multiple senses of religiosity? No. It was a clear recognition that these various ideas exist, and the rights of the people who celebrate these various ideas exist, and they have their own spaces. It was also recognised that various minorities are not equal. So the absence of God is not a rejection of religion in society. And also, the absence of the word secular does not mean the Constitution is not secular. Now, both those things have to be understood clearly, because everything – the Fundamental Rights – is secular. Because social rights and social equality – everything has to come within that. You practice whatever religion you want. You can have whatever practices you want. But is the citizen treated equally? Is there no discrimination as per caste or gender, etc.? Which is why I also talk about the whole case of the Ayyappan temple, of women not being allowed. And that there’s no way you can permit discrimination against women on the basis of saying something is a religious practice. You cannot. And to me, that’s the idea of having both the religious and the secular in the fabric of the country, but also realising that you don’t need to use that word literally in the Preamble to make it clear. To me, it is clear. And I actually think, by adding them into the Preamble, we have unnecessarily allowed for a bigoted perception of our Constitution – by saying we became secular only because we added the word in the Preamble, or that we were not socialist earlier and therefore became socialist later. Both these are false. Just utterly false. It’s important to say that socialism in an Indian democratic context is embedded in the Constitution. There’s no doubt about it. Sidharth Bhatia: Krishna, after this discussion, after reading this book, it strikes me as it perhaps your intention that all of these things that you have written about – everything is under contestation today. All of it. And we want to change the “Jana Gana Mana” to “Vande Mataram”; at least we keep bringing that up. The Ashoka Lions have been changed. There’s unhappiness not just with the Preamble, but also with the Constitution. We all are aware that, left to themselves, there will be changes. And the minorities and the Dalits have completely picked up on that quickly – that reservations might be touched. So everything is on. So basically what I’m trying to say is that the foundational principles of this nation in 1947 are under threat. Is that something that was in your mind when you began writing this book? T.M. Krishna: I kind of suggest that in the introduction. The fact is that I was disturbed, and I continue to be very upset. It saddens me sometimes beyond words. The truth is that – but I have the privilege of being upset and sad and still survive. And I’m not the person who’s getting beaten up because I am carrying beef in my vehicle. I’m not the person who’s getting attacked because I’m Muslim – but I see that [happen] every day. I see names of cities being changed because you want to target a community. Sometimes there are literal attacks, there are symbolic attacks. And there is this want to change the Constitution – change the anthem, and I don’t know what else. And this has really disturbed me. And the fact is, this is happening on an everyday basis for now 10-plus years. And in many ways, this book was a response to that. It was a response to these concerns of mine. It baffles me that we are willing to disregard even basic human decency today, even that. And the attack on every one of these symbols of India is an attack on human decency at a deep level for me. This really bothered me, and that’s when I started looking for meanings. This book is as much me trying to seek meanings out of these symbols and out of these discussions around these symbols, and place myself in the discussions that are happening today. Because I can respond from today – from the today I know. But now, having seen the past, to some extent in depth, I’m even more sure that we can’t afford – we just cannot afford – to lose these symbols and what they mean to us. Because losing that would mean losing the fundamentals of ourselves as India. And that really bothers me. I hope this book kind of carries that conversation. Like I said, disagreements are also fine, that is why this book came about. It came about from a very worried citizen, a bothered and perturbed citizen. Sidharth Bhatia: No, the citizen is exactly what I wanted to pick up. Is the Indian citizen fairly invested in these symbols and the ideas behind them, and will resist some of the changes? T.M. Krishna: Honestly, I’d like to be slightly more optimistic than I am. But I don’t see that. But one thing is clear. So the idea of symbolism is still there – which is why you see symbolism today all over the place! So symbolism is still something that every human being responds to, and every Indian does. So the question then before us, is: how are we going to communicate these symbols and their various meanings to our co-citizens? That’s probably the question that I’ll ask myself. Because are we doing enough? Much as is happening from the other end – violence – from our end, how much am I engaging with these symbols? How much am I taking them to schools, or to younger people? Are these conversations I’m willing to have with people? And maybe that’s where our job is. This is beyond who’s in power at some level, isn’t it? Governments will come and go. But if you’re going to change the whole texture of people, the nature of people thinking, the way people feel – if hatred becomes normal, and if it’s normal to attack somebody and take videos of that person being attacked and put it on social media and say, you know, “Jai Shri Ram” or something like that – if that’s the culture we’re going to cultivate, and we are not going to respond as cultural people and say No, but look at this culture we gave ourselves, this culture exists – if you’re not going to proactively do that on an everyday basis, then there’s no point in also complaining. Like I said, this is beyond government. Our work is cut out for two decades, maybe three, because we have to make generational changes. We have to address this at a very, very deep level, and also at a young age, in order to hope that we can probably capture some of the past and also take it forward. It’s also important that we don’t just stay in the past of these symbols. We have to also create new imaginations for these symbols in today’s India. That’s also important. Sidharth Bhatia: This may sound casually said. I have absolutely no research to back it up. But I do think that many young citizens, at least in the types of citizens that we may run into, are aware. Because take, for example, Dalits are very aware that the Constitution is not to be tampered with. More people know about – fooling around with the flag, for example, which is another contentious, contested issue as far as the present dispensation is concerned – you know the history of their relationship with the flag. T.M. Krishna: Of course. Sidharth Bhatia: So, suppose you say, let’s alter the flag. I don’t think that’s going to succeed. I’m being a little optimistic on this front. T.M. Krishna: I’m happy that you’re optimistic, because I would rather be on your side. Sidharth Bhatia: But more important than that, I think a book like yours, with its message – and maybe the message in many other forms – should go to schools and colleges and beyond. Because these things need to be said: that when these symbols were chosen, they were not chosen in a throwaway, casual manner, by diktat or by a signature. These are thinking processes that happened over months, years, and have given us the foundation of what India began as. So, thank you, T.M. Krishna, for writing this book. It must have taken a bit out of you, I’m sure, because – T.M. Krishna: Yes, it was five and a half years, but it was completely worth it. Sidharth Bhatia: Five and a half years of hard work, which has produced this marvellous piece of work, which should be read. That was T.M. Krishna, the well-known singer, public intellectual, commentator, and author – and now the author of a marvellous book on the five important symbols of India. We’ll be back once again next week with another guest. Till then, from me, Sidharth Bhatia, and the rest of the Wire Talks team, goodbye.
