Date:09/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/09/stories/2009010955570500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Lack of seriousness on Nada Geethe

K.N. Venkatasubba Rao

Bangalore: The Nada Geethe (State song) issue has become sensitive on three counts. The first is the non-implementation of the G.S. Shivarudrappa Committee report on the style of rendering the song, the second is Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s recent rejection of the request to shorten it, and the third is the statement of Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri that either the Nada Geethe or ‘Vande Mataram’ would be made compulsory in schools.

While the first two reflect the State Government’s lack of seriousness on the issue, making it compulsory reflects the Bharatiya Janata Party Government’s ideology.

A high-powered committee, headed by the then Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, first deliberated the details of the “Vishwamanava Varsha” in honour of the late poet K.V. Puttappa (Kuvempu). Mr. Krishna constituted a sub-committee to go into norms for adopting Kuvempu’s poem as Nada Geethe, including its tune and time taken to render it.

The poet’s 44-line “Jaya Bharatha Jananiya Tanujaathe”, which was being sung in different tunes, gained the status of the State song on December 29, 2003, the birth centenary of Kuvempu.

Scholars, however, objected to the many ways in which the Nada Geethe was sung.The Dharam Singh government in 2004 constituted a committee to select a befitting tune for rendering the Nada Geethe.

It recommended to the Government that the music composed by the late Mysore Ananthaswamy was apt. The report is yet to be implemented.