15

Dec

Vande Mataram: What's in a song?

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Poonam  Kaushish

A person with dark hair wearing a scarf AI-generated content may be incorrect.

New Delhi | Monday | 15 December 2025

Much ado about nothing! That is the total of a debate in Lok Sabha yesterday to celebrate 150 years of our iconic national song, Vande Mataram, after it was first penned. Facetiously, it is part of the government’s ongoing year-long commemoration of the patriotic poem written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875, aimed at bringing forth important and lesser-known facets related to it. “To fill our present with self-confidence and give us courage to believe that there is no goal that Indians cannot achieve.” Sic.

 

Questionably, why now in Parliament? The answer is shaped by nuanced politics, cultural nationalism and their respective benefits for the ruling dispensation by showcasing “Nehru’s real stance of divisive approach and unnecessarily accommodating and reflective of a long pattern of Muslim appeasement.”

 

It stems from a point of ideological contention between BJP and Congress with Prime Minister Modi’s charge that Congress in 1937 “brazenly pandered to its communal agenda under erstwhile Prime Minister Nehru who agreed with Jinnah’s views of “cutting down Vande Mataram as it could irritate Muslims and removed two important stanzas …its soul and a powerful war cry from a tune of hope in times of slavery” thereby “sowing the seeds of partition. Today’s generation needs to know why this injustice was committed with this ‘maha mantra’ of nation-building, energy, dreams, and a solemn resolve. This divisive mindset is still a challenge for the country.”

 

Article at a Glance
The Lok Sabha debate marking 150 years of Vande Mataram exposed how a national symbol is being drawn into contemporary political contestation. While the government projected the discussion as a celebration of patriotic heritage, the Opposition accused it of politicising culture to distract from pressing national issues and electoral considerations, particularly in West Bengal.
The BJP linked past Congress decisions under Nehru to appeasement politics, while Congress leaders countered that limiting the song to its first two stanzas in 1937 was meant to preserve unity, following Rabindranath Tagore’s advice. The article traces the historical, religious and political sensitivities surrounding Vande Mataram, its role in the freedom struggle, and its equal stature with Jana Gana Mana.
It concludes that national symbols should unite, not divide, and urges leaders to move beyond symbolic controversies toward real governance challenges.

 

Countering, Congress Priyanka Gandhi, who squarely accused the government of committing a “big sin” by weaponising a cultural symbol to distract from present-day challenges. Highlighting the Vande Mataram debate was being selectively used to score political points, evading “real issues and selectively quoting Nehru, given the song is alive in every part of the country.”  More. Primarily, it aims to raise the ante on the forthcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, March-April 2026, along with showcasing the RSS’s limited role in the freedom struggle.

 

Citing the chronology of events, she added that in 1937 the Congress Working Committee under Nehru’s presidency adopted a resolution, whereby only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram would be sung, acting on Rabindra NathTagore’s advice to keep the national movement united, not divided. Alongside, organisers had freedom to sing any song of unobjectionable character, in addition to, or in the place of Vande Mataram.

She might have a point. After tasting dust in the Assembly polls 2021 BJP seems to be using Vande Mataram to keep the election pot boiling by positioning itself as the defender of Bengali cultural pride, allowing it to put Mamata’s TMC on the defensive. The Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly is busy accusing TMC of closing a Kolkata park where “the soul of Bengal Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s” statue is without a garland.

 

 “TMC is not a patriotic Party; it wants Tagore’s song compulsory sung in schools across the State but not the national song.” To counter this, the Hindutva Brigade is organising celebrations in over 1500 places in the State. Combating this, Mamata indicted the BJP as “a Party of divisions trying to create division between two great Bengalis, Chattopadhyay, who wrote Vande Mataram and Rabindranath Tagore, who composed the national anthem Jana Gana Mana.

 

But many Opposition leaders assert that the national song is just another prop to celebrate the nation-state and undue importance mustn’t be given to it, lambasting the BJP for attempting to “claim ownership” of national symbols and heritage. Not a few, averred singing Vande Mataram must neither be made a test case of patriotism nor should people be obstinate about not singing it. Though it is compulsorily played at the end of every Parliament session.

Either way, no matter what its source was, and how and when it was composed, it had become a most powerful battle cry among Hindus and Muslims of Bengal during the Partition days. It was an anti-imperialist cry. The Congress formally adopted it as the national song at its Varanasi Session on 7 September 1905.

But, in October 1937, some Muslim leaders objected to Vande Mataram because it contained verses that were in direct conflict with Islam and amounted to worshipping the motherland. This went against the concept of tawheed (oneness of God), according to which a Muslim cannot supplicate to anyone except Allah. Alongside, they were offended by India’s depiction as Goddess Ma Durga --- equating the nation with the Hindu concept of Shakti. Also objectionable was that it was part of Anandamatha, a novel with an anti-Muslim message and an irritant to the minority community.

Nehru understood Muslims' religious predicament even as he accentuated the hymn’s national importance in the freedom struggle. The Congress Working Committee then adopted a resolution, whereby only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram would be sung. Alongside, organisers had freedom to sing any song of unobjectionable character, in addition to, or in the place of Vande Mataram.

Interestingly, while Vande Mataram was treated as India’s national anthem for long, Jana Gana Mana was chosen as the national anthem on 24 January 1950, even as the Constituent Assembly accorded the nationalistic song the same stature as Jana Gana Mana.

Clearly, be it Vande Mataram or Jana Gana Mana, both are beautiful and melodious and have their sanctity and stand on equal footing. Both ignited patriotism, galvanised Indians to gang up against the British, threw out the firangis and won India its freedom. It is high time our leaders stop playing petty politics.

The patriotic song stands at the intersection of history, identity and contemporary politics. Whether it becomes an opportunity to reflect on how national symbols can unite a diverse country or merely another battleground for partisan sparring will depend on how leaders choose to engage with it.

As India marks 150 years of Vande Mataram, the challenge ahead is to acknowledge its layered legacy while ensuring that conversations around it strengthen, rather than strain, the shared idea of nationhood.

In the ultimate, we need to realise that India’s multi-pluralistic character, pulsating democracy and civil society are neither rigid nor frozen in time. It is constantly evolving. True, two songs cannot make or mar the future of a nation or its people, even as we respect Vande Mataram as our national song and symbol of national pride, on par with Jana Gana Mana. High time this frivolous and needless controversy is put to rest once and for all. There are more pressing issues which need our leaders' and the judiciary’s attention. What do you say? ( Poonam Kaushish is  Executive Editor and Political Columnist at INFA, the news features agency.)

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