"The order to make the singing of 'Vande Mataram' compulsory ... clearly violates Article 28 (1) and (3) of the Constitution." ... The Supreme Court's ruling that the singing of the National Anthem cannot be made obligatory applies both to Vande Mataram and Saraswati Vandana with yet greater force ... More royalist than the BJP king, the Samata Party said on November 23: "Vande Mataram has no religious connotation". This is utterly false.
Else, in 1937 the Congress Working Committee would not have said: "The Committee recognise the validity of the objection raised by Muslim friends to certain parts of the song." It declared that "only the first two stanzas should be sung". A poem which needs surgical operation cannot command universal acceptance.
The song 'Vande Mataram' occurs in Bankimchandra Chatterjee's novel Anand Math published in 1882. In his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Nirad C. Chaudhuri has aptly described the atmosphere of the times in which the song was written. "The historical romances of Bankim Chatterjee and Ramesh Chandra Dutt glorified Hindu rebellion against Muslim rule and showed the Muslims in a correspondingly poor light. Chatterjee was positively and fiercely anti-Muslim. We were eager readers of these romances and we readily absorbed their spirit."
R.C. Majumdar, the historian, has written an objective account of it. "During the long and arduous struggle for freedom from 1905 to 1947 'Bande Mataram' was the rallying cry of the patriotic sons of India, and thousands of them succumbed to the lathi blow of the British police or mounted the scaffold with 'Bande Mataram' on their lips. The central plot moves round a band of sanyasis, called santanas or children, who left their hearth and home and dedicated their lives to the cause of their motherland. They worshipped their motherland as the Goddess Kali ... This aspect of the Ananda Math and the imagery of Goddess Kali leave no doubt that Bankimchandra's nationalism was Hindu rather than Indian. This is made crystal clear from his other writings which contain passionate outbursts against the subjugation of India by the Muslims. From that day set the sun of our glory - that is the refrain of his essays and novels which not unoften contain adverse, and sometimes even irreverent, remarks against the Muslims" (emphasis added). As Majumdar pithily puts it, "Bankimchandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism."
... The use of the song 'Vande Mataram' in the novel is not adventitious, and it is not only communal-minded Muslims who resent it because of its context and content. M.R.A. Baig's analysis of the novel and the song deserve attention. "Written as a story set in the period of the dissolution of the Moghul Empire, the hero of the novel, Bhavananda, is planning an armed rising against the Muslims of Bengal. While busy recruiting, he meets Mahendra and sings the song 'Bande Mataram' or 'Hail Mother'. The latter asks him the meaning of the words and Bhavananda, making a spirited answer, concludes with' Our religion is gone, our caste is gone, our honour is gone. Can the Hindus preserve their Hinduism unless these drunken Nereys (a term of contempt for Muslims) are driven away?' ... Mahendra, however, not convinced, expresses reluctance to join the rebellion. He is, therefore, taken to the temple of Ananda Math and shown a huge image of four-armed Vishnu, with two decapitated and bloody heads in front, "Do you know who she is?" asks the priest in charge, pointing to an image on the lap of Vishnu, "She is the Mother. We are her children Say 'Bande Mataram' He is taken to the image of Kali and then to that of Durga. On each occasion he is asked to recite 'Bande Mataram'. In another scene in the novel some people shouted 'kill, kill the Nereys'. Others shouted 'Bande Mataram'. 'Will the day come when we shall break mosques and build temples on their sites?"
The song has five stanzas. Of these only the first two are the "approved ones". Jawaharlal Nehru was 'opposed to the last two stanzas' ....
It is essentially a religious homage to the country conce.ved as a deity; 'a form of worship' as Majumdar aptly called it. The motherland is "conceived as the God iess Kali, the source of all power and glory."
This, in the song itself. The context makes it worse. "The land of Bengal, and by extension all of India, became identified with the female aspect of Hindu deity, and the result was a concept of divine Motherland". How secular is such a song? The objection was not confined to mere bowing and it was voiced early in the day.
In his presidential address at the Second Session of the All-India Muslim League held in Amritsar on December 30, 1908, Syed Ali Imam said: "I cannot say what you think, but when I find the most advanced province of India put forward the sectarian cry of 'Bande Mataram' as the national cry, and the sectarian Rakhibandhan as a national observance, my heart is filled with despair and disappointment; and the suspicion that under the cloak of nationalism Hindu nationalism is preached in India becomes a conviction. Has the experiment tried by Akbar and Aurangzeb failed again?
Has 50 years of the peaceful spread of English education given the country only a revival of denominationalism? Gentlemen do not misunderstand me. I believe that the establishment of conferences, associations and corporate bodies in different communities on denominational lines is necessary to give expression to denominational views, so that the builders of a truly national life in the country may have before them the crystallised need and aspirations of all sects".
"Regard for the feelings and sentiments, needs and requirements of all is the key-note to true Indian nationalism. It is more imperative where the susceptibilities of the two great communities, Hindus and * Musalmans, are involved. Unreconciled, one will be as great a drag on the wheel of national progress as the other. I ask the architects of Indian nationalism, both in Calcutta and Poona, do they expect the Musalmans of India to accept 'Bande Mataram' and the Shivaji celebration? The Mohammedans may be weak in anything you please, but they are not weak in cherishing their traditions of their glorious past. I pray the Congress leaders to put before the country such a programme of political advancement as does not demand the sacrifice of the feelings of the Hindu or the Mohammedan, the Parsee or the Christian."
The Congress Working Committee, which met in Calcutta on October 26, 1937, under the presidentship of Nehru, adopted a long statement on the subject. It asked that the song should "be considered apart from the book."
"Taking all things into consideration, therefore, the Committee recommend that, wherever Bande Mataram is sung at national gatherings, only the first two stanzas should be sung, with perfect freedom to the organisers to sing any other song of an unobjectionable character, in addition to, or in the place of, the Bande Mataram song."
Gandhi advised Muslims to appreciate its historic association but counselled against any
imposition. "No doubt, every act ... must bę purely voluntary on the part of either partner," he said at Alipore on August 23, 1947.
The Government of India's stand was defined in a statement by Prime Minister Nehru to the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) on August 25, 1948: Nehru said:
The "ana Gana Mana' tune, slightly varied, had been adopted as a national anthem by the Indian National Army in South-East Asia, and had subsequently attained a degree of popularity in India also ... I wrote to all the provincial Governors and asked their views about our adopting 'Jana Gana Mana' or any other song as the national anthem. I asked them to consult their Premiers before replying ... Every one of these Governors, except one (the Governor of the Central Provinces), signified their approval of Jana Gana Mana'. Thereupon the Cabinet considered the matter and came to the decision that provisionally 'Jana Gana Mana' should be used as the tune for the national anthem, till such time as the Constituent Assembly came to a final decision. .
A more definitive statement was made by the President of the Constituent Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, on January 24, 1950. ... The composition consisting of the words and music known as 'Jana Gana Mana' is the national anthem of India, subject to such alterations in the words as the Government may authorise as occasion arises; and the song 'Vande Mataram', which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it ...
Mutual understanding will lead to the Gandhian formula - respect for the song but no imposition. But even more than that, if the problem were understood in depth, what would emerge is a far better appreciation of the reasons why the Muslims and the Congress drifted away from each other. Those reasons have many a lesson for us today as we build a secular India. Attempts at imposition reflect a conscious decision to break with the national secular ideal. (Source: The Frontline, 15 January, 1999)
P.S. Sridhara Murthy On Vande Mataram
If "patriotism" means commitment to the ideal that India should always be ruled by Indians, that a sense of unity, equality and secularism should be promoted, the continued playing of Vande Mataram song should be stopped in TV and Radio.
Even those who are carried away by the rhythm and melody of this song will resent if they learn about the context of the song and how it was made popular. We can easily know the mind of those who continue to appreciate his song even after know its context and its purport. Iqbal's true Patriotic Song. When the British partitioned Bengal (1905), East Bengal which included Assam and turned out to be a Muslim- majority state ... In meetings and gatherings criticising this Bengal partition, upper caste leaders encouraged the singing of Vande Mataram, despite opposition from Muslims. Deliberate indifference of upper caste leaders including those in the Congress to Muslims and Muslim League's caution (Resolution of 1937) against this song became an irritant in Hindu-Muslim relations. Dr. Iqbal's historic song "Sare, Jahan se Achcha Hindustan Hamara" reflects true patriotism while the Vande Mataram promotes violence and destroys country's unity and integrity.
