New Delhi, Nov 7 (PTI) Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said his party has been the proud flagbearer of ‘Vande Mataram’, which awakened the collective soul of the nation and became the rallying cry for freedom.
On the 150th anniversary of India’s national song, Kharge said in a statement that ‘Vande Mataram’, composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, embodies the spirit of Bharat Mata and celebrates the unity and diversity of India.
“The Indian National Congress has been the proud flagbearer of Vande Mataram. It was during the 1896 session of the Congress in Calcutta, under the leadership of the then Congress President Rahmatullah Sayani that Vande Mataram was sung publicly for the first time by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.
“That moment infused new life into the freedom struggle. The Congress understood that the British Empire’s policy of divide and rule, manipulating religious, caste and regional identities, was designed to break India’s unity. Against this, Vande Mataram rose as a song of unflinching strength, uniting all Indians in devotion to Bharat Mata,” he said.
From the Partition of Bengal in 1905 to the last breaths of the country’s brave revolutionaries, ‘Vande Mataram’ echoed through the land, the Congress president said.
It was the title of Lala Lajpat Rai’s publication, inscribed on Bhikaji Cama’s flag raised in Germany, and found in Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil’s Kranti Gitanjali, he noted.
“Terrified by its popularity, the British banned it, for it had become the heartbeat of India’s freedom struggle,” Kharge said.
In 1915, he said, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that ‘Vande Mataram’ had become the “most powerful battle cry among Hindus and Musalmans of Bengal during the Partition days. It was an anti-imperialist cry”.
The Congress chief said Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, said in 1938 that “for more than 30 years now, the song is related directly to Indian nationalism. Such ‘songs of people’ are not tailor-made neither can they be imposed on the minds of people. They attain the heights by themselves.” Kharge claimed that in 1937, the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly started reciting ‘Vande Mataram’ when Purshottam Das Tandon was the speaker.
In the same year, the Indian National Congress formally recognised ‘Vande Mataram’ as the national song, reaffirming its position as a symbol of India’s unity in diversity, he noted.
“However, it is deeply ironic that those who today claim to be the self-proclaimed guardians of nationalism — the RSS and the BJP — have never sung ‘Vande Mataram’ or our national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, in their shakhas or offices.
“Instead, they continue to sing ‘Namaste Sada Vatsale’, a song glorifying their organisations, not the nation. Since its founding in 1925, the RSS has avoided ‘Vande Mataram’ despite its universal reverence. Not once in its texts or literature does the song find mention,” he alleged.
Kharge alleged that “the RSS and Sangh Parivar supported the British against Indians in the national movement, did not raise the national flag for 52 years, abused the Constitution of India, burnt effigies of Bapu and Babasaheb Ambedkar, and in the words of Sardar Patel, were involved in Gandhiji’s assassination.” The Congress, on the other hand, takes immense pride in both ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jana Gana Mana’, he said, adding that both songs are sung with reverence at every party gathering and event, symbolising India’s unity and pride.
From 1896 to the present day, ‘Vande Mataram’ has been sung with pride and patriotism as a tribute to the people of India at every Congress meeting, from small to big, he added.
“The Congress party reaffirms its unshakable faith in Vande Mataram, the eternal song of our motherland, the clarion call of our unity, and the voice of India’s undying spirit,” Kharge said.
In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in 2003, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, one of India’s most distinguished historians, published a definitive biography of ‘Vande Mataram’.
“Rabindranath Tagore had first sung Vande Mataram in the Dec 1896 session of the Indian National Congress in Kolkata.
“Subsequently, he was to play the most crucial role in determining the place of Vande Mataram in our public life as reflected in the Congress Working Committee resolution of October 29, 1937,” Ramesh said. PTI SKC DIV DIV
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