- Debate on Vande Mataram's 150th anniversary has sparked political controversy in parliament
- Priyanka Gandhi has accused the government of politicising the issue ahead of Bengal elections
- PM Modi has alleged that the Congress had truncated the song under pressure from the Muslim League
The debate on the national song "Vande Mataram" on its 150th anniversary in parliament saw a spirited defence of the Congress from its senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who accused the government of highlighting the matter in view of the coming assembly election in Bengal and evading the real issues. She also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "selectively" quoting Jawaharlal Nehru, and suggested that the BJP list out the insults for Nehru, set aside a time to debate it, and close the chapter. "Let us use the precious time of this Parliament for the job people have elected us for," she said.
The Wayanad MP also questioned why parliament should have a debate on Vande Mataram. There is no scope for a debate on the issue, since the song is "alive in every part of the country," she asserted.
The government, she said, "wanted debate on Vande Mataram because the Bengal polls are coming soon... The government wants us to keep delving in past because it does not want to look at present and future".
What PM Modi said
The BJP has alleged that Vande Mataram was truncated and its crucial lines excised in the version adapted as national song by Jawaharlal Nehru under pressure from the Muslim League.
In his address in the Lok Sabha today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Congress "surrendered before the Muslim League and partitioned Vande Mataram". PM Modi said Nehru had followed Jinnah's stand in 1937, claiming the hymn could "irritate Muslims", and thereby compromised its legacy.
"Instead of condemning the slogans of the Muslim League and expressing loyalty towards Vande Mataram, he wrote to Netaji Subhas Bose, agreeing with Jinnah. He wrote that the context of Anandamath can irritate Muslims," PM Modi said.
"Nationalists across the country took out prabhat pheris against it when the Congress Working Committee decided to inspect Vande Mataram," but the Congress decision prevailed.
Calling it a part of the Grand Old Party's "appeasement politics", he said this was the mentality that led to the Partition.
The Chronology
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contended that PM Modi was misrepresenting the matter. Nehru -- her great-grandfather and India's first Prime Minister - had called the row over Vande Mataram "manufactured by communalists", she said.
In support of her argument, she read out the relevant passages from the letters by Nehru and Bose and the later correspondence between Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, saying it was important to "understand the chronology" of the events that led to the choice of Vande Mataram as the National song.
"Let me share an excerpt from the letter in which Gurudev (Rabindranath Tagore) says that the two stanzas that were always sung were so significant that he had no difficulty in separating them from the rest of the poem and the passages in the book... He said the same two stanzas were always sung during the freedom struggle and to honour the hundreds of martyrs who sacrificed their lives. While singing them, it would be appropriate to sing them as they were. He also said that the stanzas added later could be interpreted as communal and their use would be inappropriate in the atmosphere of that time. Subsequently, on 28 October 1937, the Congress Working Committee, in its resolution, declared Vande Mataram as the national anthem," she said.
Others in the Congress and some allies also alleged that the BJP was distorting Nehru's views. DMK's A Raja also agreed that Nehru had observed in his letter to Subhas Bose that the public outcry against Vande Mataram was "manufactured by communalists". But Nehru had also accepted that there was "some substance" in the grievances expressed by sections of people, he said.
The National Song
The 150th anniversary of India's National Song, Vande Mataram, which translates to "Mother, I Bow to Thee", was observed on November 7.
Composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, 'Vande Mataram' was first published in the literary journal Bangadarshan on November 7, 1875.
Later, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee incorporated the hymn into his immortal novel 'Anandamath', published in 1882. Set to music by Rabindranath Tagore, the words became a battle cry of nationalists during the freedom movement and later became an integral part of the nation's cultural consciousness.
