The BJP has put the Congress on the spot over nationalism again. Or so goes the chatter in political circles. See how the principal opposition party has dug itself into a hole over Vande Mataram, our national song.
Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan did away with the national song at the official flag-hoisting ceremony on Independence Day. His counterparts—DK Shivakumar, Revanth Reddy and Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu—in three other Congress-ruled states chose to comply with Amit Shah-led Home Ministry’s order to sing all six stanzas of Vande Mataram.
At the Congress headquarters in New Delhi, as the singing went beyond the second stanza, there were red faces all around. Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were visibly dismayed. And, no, Sonia wasn’t asking for a chair for Kharge. Everybody saw what was happening. The Congress was at sixes and sevens about the six-stanza national song. The Gandhis should sack the general secretary (organisation), KC Venugopal, for making a joke of the party on such a sensitive issue.
The BJP loved it. When it comes to issues related to nationalism or religion, trust the Congress to dig a hole for itself. And here was a blend of both. When the Congress Working Committee (CWC) later decided to stick to the original two-stanza Vande Mataram, the BJP doubled down. It accused the Opposition party of minority appeasement because there are references to Hindu goddesses—Durga, Kamala (Lakshmi) and Vanee (Saraswati)—in the fifth stanza.
On Saturday, when newly appointed office-bearers met at the BJP headquarters, cameras were in place for the six-stanza national song. Most of the leaders were just lip-syncing. Questioning others’ nationalism is easier; memorising six stanzas requires true belief and commitment. I would also lip-sync if I were asked to sing all six stanzas without a teleprompter or a written text.
Having said that, the government and the BJP expending all their time and energy on Vande Mataram shows they have learnt the wrong lessons from the drubbing they got from ‘cockroaches’: that they need to double down on performative nationalism and communal binary in their politics. This approach is problematic on at least three counts.
A disconnect with India
First, it suggests their refusal to see the headwinds. As I was writing it on Sunday, I glanced at the headlines in the last two days’ newspapers strewn on the table. “Rashtrapati Bhawan announces, retracts Rahman visit statement,” read one headline. Basically, the President’s office virtually declared Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to India, only to withdraw it an hour later.
As we were discussing this flip-flop the previous evening in our newsroom, a colleague quipped, “basically, the left arm didn’t know what the right arm was doing”. This used to happen during the Manmohan Singh government, especially in its second term. When did this start happening in the Modi government? The Rashtrapati Bhavan blooper only drew attention to the fact that Dhaka was keeping New Delhi on tenterhooks. We invite their PM, and this is how they respond! Our Vishwaguru edifice can’t be crumbling like this!
I reached out for a Hindi paper. It had a screaming headline on the front page: “Skyrocketing sugar price before festivals: selling at Rs. 70 per kg, an increase of Rs.17 in one month.” I reached out to another Hindi paper to find another screaming headline: “Rahul sat on dharna at the police station for seven hours, only then FIR of youth injured with 200 pellets registered.”
So, a common man needs the opposition leader’s help to lodge an FIR even in the national capital. Think of the message it sent. Front pages could be a bit loud, I thought. I decided to flip through inside pages. On top of the business page was another headline: “Inflation reaches from travel to kitchen: rice, biscuit, car, tyre, paint costlier by 18 per cent.” Another front page headline was: “Reality of recruitments in the Central government: vacancies in the last one decade go from 4.2 lakhs to 8.24 lakhs.”
Where does the Vande Mataram headline fit on these pages? There appears to be a disconnect between what’s happening in ordinary people’s lives and how those in power view them. Do those running the government and the BJP really believe that four extra stanzas can answer all the questions people may have about 12 years of governance?
It would be delulu politics in Gen Z parlance. If those running the show know this, why are they so stuck on the national song issue, instead of trying to focus their energy on governance and address issues that are bringing the people to the streets for protest? There can be only two reasons—confidence or helplessness. Confident because they know how to win elections, and that’s the only thing that matters. Jo jita wahi Sikandar. Or helpless because they don’t know any other way.
The second problem with the BJP’s Vande Mataram politics is an implied suggestion that PM Modi and HM Shah are better than Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel put together. The freedom fighters, Nobel laureates, and composer of our national anthem had held extensive deliberations before they decided to go with only two stanzas of Vande Mataram as India’s national song. It was Sardar Patel who seconded the resolution on the two-stanza song at the 1937 CWC meeting.
In Modi-Shah’s rejection of the two-stanza version also lies the suggestion that they are bigger nationalists and patriots than Gandhi, Tagore, Bose, Patel and Nehru. It’s a flattering thought, for sure. Look at the level of confidence. The Constituent Assembly had adopted the two-stanza Vande Mataram as our national song. It has been changed to six stanzas simply by a Home Ministry order signed by a joint secretary. It amounts to belittling our Constitution-makers.
Also read: Indian politicians need to learn to take a joke
The Viksit Bharat question
The third problem with the BJP’s Vande Mataram politics is that it seems to be driven by immediate political objectives, not long-term interests of the country. Modi sang the same two-stanza song on every Independence Day for 24 years—first as Gujarat CM and then the Prime Minister—happily. What suddenly happened in the 26th year?
The bigger question is whether a government that promises to make India a developed country by 2047 can afford to embark on a polarising mission. Let me cite just one instance. The Home Ministry’s February order also said, “In all schools, the day’s work may begin with community singing of the National Song. School authorities should make adequate provision in their programmes for popularising the singing of the National Song….”
On the face of it, it sounds like an innocuous suggestion. Think of a zealous BJP CM making the singing of a six-stanza national song mandatory in “all schools”—government, private, madrasas, missionary schools, et al. It can potentially create trouble in every village, kasba and town.
There goes the dream of a Viksit Bharat.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)