Vande Mataram: A Question of History, Conviction and Political Appeasement
The scene created by Mrs Sonia Gandhi at the Congress Headquarters on 15th August, while Vande Mataram was being sung, was deplorable. The conduct of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader, and Mallikarjun Kharge was equally condemnable. But what Mrs Sonia Gandhi did was particularly inexcusable.
The historical record
surrounding Vande Mataram makes the episode even more significant. Gurudev
Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram at the Calcutta Session of the
Indian National Congress in 1896. The song subsequently became deeply
associated with India's national movement and was adopted for all-India
occasions at the Banaras session of the Congress in 1905.
In 1923, at the Kakinada
Session of the Congress, when Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sang Vande
Mataram. Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, who was presiding over the session,
objected to the singing and walked out in protest.
The controversy took a
further institutional turn in 1937. The Congress Working Committee decided
that, at national gatherings, only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram
would be sung. The decision was taken after deliberations involving several
prominent Congress leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas
Chandra Bose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Rabindranath Tagore, Rajendra Prasad and
others. Thus, it is historically inaccurate to portray the 1937 decision as the
personal decision of Jawaharlal Nehru alone.
The stated concern was
that the later portions of the song contained religious imagery that could
offend sections of the Muslim community. Consequently, the first two stanzas
were considered suitable for use at national gatherings.
In 1950, Vande
Mataram was accorded the status of India's National Song, while Jana
Gana Mana was adopted as the National Anthem. The two therefore occupy
distinct but constitutionally recognised places in India's national tradition.
This history inevitably
raises a difficult question.
If restricting Vande
Mataram to its first two stanzas was intended, at least in part, to
address the objections of sections of the Muslim community, did that
accommodation actually resolve the underlying political disagreement? If it did
not, then what was the justification for asking the overwhelming majority of
Indians to accept restrictions upon a song that had become a powerful symbol of
the freedom struggle?
And if the accommodation
was insufficient to satisfy the Muslim League and other communal forces, why
did the Congress nevertheless choose to modify the manner in which Vande
Mataram was sung?
More fundamentally, one
may ask whether the Congress leadership, in its pursuit of communal harmony,
sometimes went too far in accommodating communal objections at the cost of the
sentiments of millions of Indians who regarded Vande Mataram as a
symbol of national pride and sacrifice. These questions become even more
significant when viewed against the events that followed. India was ultimately
partitioned in 1947 on communal lines. In that historical context, the decision
to restrict the national use of Vande Mataram inevitably invites
debate over whether such compromises genuinely promoted national unity or
merely encouraged further demands for political accommodation.
The issue, therefore, is
not simply about a song. It is about a larger question: How far should a national movement, and later a
national political party, go in accommodating religious objections to symbols
that have become deeply embedded in the country's struggle for freedom and
national identity?
These questions become
even more significant when viewed against the events that followed. India was
ultimately partitioned in 1947 on communal lines. That is a question which
deserves to be examined through history rather than partisan politics.
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