Shillong: The Assam government has issued an order making it mandatory to sing the state anthem in all schools across the state and on all occasions.
“This is to inform you that, the state anthem ‘O Mur Apunar Desh‘, needs to be performed whenever there is an occasion, meeting etc in the school, other than in morning assembly,” stated a letter issued by the Axom Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission.
The letter, dated 14 September, was addressed to the district elementary education officer, the district mission co-ordinator of the Axom Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission and inspectors of schools in all districts.
The Axom Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission has been implementing the Centre’s flagship programme ‘Sarba Siksha Abhiyan’ to universalise elementary education.
Samujjal Bhattacharjee, adviser, All Assam Students’ Union, told ThePrint, “The state anthem is sung in most of the schools. It is sung before classes in Assam Jatiya Bidyalays (vernacular medium schools in the state)…the anthem is to invoke patriotism for the motherland (Assam).”
He added, “We respect the national anthem, and singing this (the state anthem) doesn’t exempt that. The state anthem is important as well.”
About the song
The letter added that the directive had the approval of Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu. ThePrint reached Pegu, but he was unable to comment on the matter.
According to Dr Om Prakash, mission director of Sarba Siksha Abhiyan, the letter had been forwarded by Dr Bijoya Choudhury, secretary in the Department of Elementary Education.
Written by Assamese poet and novelist Lakshminath Bezbarua, the song ‘O Mur Apunar Desh’ (Oh my country) was adopted as the state song in 1927. The first paragraph of the song translates to ‘O my endearing country/ O my speckless country/ So euphonious, so bounteous/ So near and dear a country” (where Assam is denoted as country).
Last month, the Karnataka government had made it mandatory for schools to make students sing the national anthem regularly.
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