SC reserves verdict on anthem, Jethmalani bats for 'Sindh'

Noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Wednesday made an impassioned plea before the Supreme Court against deleting 'Sindh' from the national anthem.

Appearing for the All India Sindhi Council before a Bench of Chief Justice R C Lahoti and Justice P K Balasubramanyan, Jethmalani, a Sindhi himself, gave vent to the hurt feelings of millions of Sindhis across the world.

He listened patiently when petitioner Sanjeev Bhatnagar argued for the deletion of the word 'Sindh' from the anthem saying it is the name of a province in Pakistan.
 
Bhatnagar said the over 100

crore population of India would be happy if 'Sindh' was substituted with 'Kashmir'.

Attorney General Milon Banerjee said the Constituent Assembly in 1950 had adopted the national anthem when Sindh was already a part of Pakistan but Tagore himself had clarified that the poem had no reference to any particular geographical area but the cultures in India.

He said "any tampering with the poetic language or the text would stir a hornet's nest encouraging demands for inclusion or deletion of words in the national anthem."