Ideally, a debate on the 150-year-old ‘Vande Mataram’ should have united all the parties in Parliament. The divine depiction of Mother India as a goddess to be worshiped and freed from bondage, the patriotic fervour that it evoked during the freedom struggle, and the spiritual aura about the lyrics truly elevated the song by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay to the status of Song Celestial.
Though written in the historical background of Bengal, the song acquired an exalted status independent of the novel Anandamath. It became a popular war cry for the lakhs who fought against the 1905 Partition of Bengal, which was annulled three years later. ‘Vande Mataram’ had by then achieved a divine status.
The latter part of the song’s lyrics truly elevates Mother India to a much higher stature, comparing the nation to Devi Durga, the embodiment of valour and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Though not written specifically as a national anthem, it is obvious, as Jawaharlal Nehru said, “great songs and anthems cannot be produced to order, they come when genius will it”.
National anthem controversy
Ironically, the same Jawaharlal Nehru, as Prime Minister on 21 June 1948, wrote to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, a minister in his Cabinet, that ‘Vande Mataram’ is not feasible as a national anthem. It was “chiefly because of its tune, which does not suit orchestral or band rendering”. Nehru told Mukherjee that “Jana Gana Mana, on the other hand, has already been greatly appreciated in foreign countries as well as in India, and the music of it has a great appeal to people who hear it in India or abroad”.
From Rabindranath Tagore, poet Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Dakhina Charan Sen, and MS Subbulakshmi—so many celebrated singers of India have performed the song. There have been several renditions of ‘Vande Mataram’ and all of them have achieved some level of popularity.
Clearly, music, tune, or orchestral rendering did not hinder the acceptance of ‘Vande Mataram’ as the national anthem. It was the massive opposition raised by the Muslim League and the Congress’s capitulation that brought the song under controversy. As the British strategy of ‘divide and rule’ had successfully created the twin narrative of ‘two-nation theory’ and ‘no Independence till Hindu and Muslim unity’, the Congress proposed an abridged version omitting references to the Hindu deities—but it was never accepted by the song’s opponents, leaving the issue caught in a classic stalemate.
Muslim League leaders, particularly Muhammad Ali Jinnah, spared no opportunity to attack the Congress as a ‘Hindu party’ and MK Gandhi as a ‘caste Hindu’ and a ‘totalitarian dictator’. The Muslim League’s resolution to oppose the Quit India movement went to the extent of saying, “the Congress policy is to cajole or coerce the British Government into surrendering power to Congress—a Hindu body with microscopic following of other communities in utter suppression of one hundred million of Mussalmans.”
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Lack of consensus
Seven decades after Independence, the “Hindu Congress” is accusing the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on the same lines as the Muslim League had done. Ideally, Congress should have initiated a debate on ‘Vande Mataram’ and forced the government to accept the full version of the song as the national song instead of the truncated one. This would have made a huge course correction and set the record straight. Sadly, even on an emotive issue like this, which catapulted the Congress to the status of a political party and then to uninterrupted power for over five decades, there was a total lack of clarity in the approach. The party preferred to play the same appeasement card that led to Partition. Neither the ruling party nor the Congress and other opposition parties have conducted themselves in a manner that calls for sanity.
The ‘Vande Mataram’ debate has highlighted several strengths and weaknesses of the parliamentary system and the way its foundational debates are conducted. It is strange that there was no consensus on discussing a song that brought together various hues of freedom fighters, from the revolutionaries to the peaceful satyagrahis, from those who found merit in violent confrontation to those who meekly but valiantly offered the other cheek to British brutality.
‘Vande Mataram’ has the innate potential to ignite patriotic fervour in the present generation just as it did one and a half centuries ago. Unfortunately, the way the debate went in the House only goes to prove that all the political parties, guided by narrow political considerations, could not jettison the historical baggage.
Seshadri Chari is the former editor of ‘Organiser’. He tweets @seshadrichari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
This appeasement bugbear has been raised by the Indian right wing a number of times. More often than not, it has labeled even outreach programs as appeasement. It shows their antipathy towards the non-Hindus who live in India. Today BJP appeases several castes and performs some superficial gestures towards Muslims (Modi ki saugat). All for winning elections. It would be nice if Mr. Chari had a few things to say about it.
When one thinks about Vande Mataram, what comes to mind is our nation, not some religious symbol. It was approprite therefore to remove the stanzas that depict Hindu dieties given the context where they were invoked to fight Muslims thus portraying Muslims as an enemy. One can imagine that this would lead to inate resentment in both parties.
The Congress at that time did the right thing as it did this time. A national song or a national anthem should bring people together, irrespective of their background.
More importantly , what boggles the mind is that our law makers wasted 10+ hours of their valuable time discussing the national song as if it was a crisis, which it was not. There are so many pressing matters of the state. It lends credence to the theory that this was done for the upcoming West Bengal elections. Hope this is not true. If it is then BJP needs to find its moral compass and not wate the parliaments time promoting its ideology to win elections. Its positive actions to better our living conditions should speak for themselves. Right now they dont.
Mr Chari has himself asserted that the latter part of Vande Mataram equates the nation with goddess Durga or Lakshmi and invokes their worship. It is difficult to see how Indians who are non Hindus like muslims, Jains or Christians would feel comfortable with such verses. The practical solution to such an issue was to retain the first half as the National song.
This part refers only to the motherland ” mataram ” and pays homage to it via ” Vande “.
This should be explained to all minorities who seem to still have unfounded objections to this version . No need to have debates and waste our MP ‘s time on this.