From coastal Andhra Pradesh to Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab, from bonfires in UP to midnight pledges in Chennai and Lahore, Vande Mataram was a war cry to galvanise people toward azaadi.
Idolatry is anti-science, was the private belief of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, who wrote the song whose idolatry became one of the most divisive issues during India’s national movement.
Muralidaran, 54, has also made news with his orders on NEET, cattle slaughter and farm loan waiver and beat the SC on the national song.
Apurva Vishwanath
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
A discussion becomes a debate when highly contentious points are made that cannot go unchallenged by the other side. In the case of this “discussion” , the PM did highlight the big role played by the song in inspiring the freedom fighters. But he took a negative track by trying to vilify the Congress for truncating the song. The references to Hindu deities in the latter part of the song would have made minorities like Jains, Muslims, CHristians, Buddhists uncomfortaable , since they have no such gods. Tagore and Nehru made this more acceptable as a national song by suggesting that only the first half be retained. The full song could aalways be sung in other contexts. Instead of understanding this, the PM stated that the Congress bent the knee to Muslims. In trying to score brownie points against the Congress , the PM unfortunately lost the fundamental purpose of the “discussion “. The importance of Vande Mataram was lost to the general public , who rely a lot on the PM’s words due to his popularity. For obvious reasons, Ms Lekhi has avoided mentioning this scooring of brownie points by the PM and has tried to dump the entire blame on the Congress for turning the discussion into a debate.
A discussion becomes a debate when highly contentious points are made that cannot go unchallenged by the other side. In the case of this “discussion” , the PM did highlight the big role played by the song in inspiring the freedom fighters. But he took a negative track by trying to vilify the Congress for truncating the song. The references to Hindu deities in the latter part of the song would have made minorities like Jains, Muslims, CHristians, Buddhists uncomfortaable , since they have no such gods. Tagore and Nehru made this more acceptable as a national song by suggesting that only the first half be retained. The full song could aalways be sung in other contexts. Instead of understanding this, the PM stated that the Congress bent the knee to Muslims. In trying to score brownie points against the Congress , the PM unfortunately lost the fundamental purpose of the “discussion “. The importance of Vande Mataram was lost to the general public , who rely a lot on the PM’s words due to his popularity. For obvious reasons, Ms Lekhi has avoided mentioning this scooring of brownie points by the PM and has tried to dump the entire blame on the Congress for turning the discussion into a debate.