Monday, Nov 11, 2002
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New Delhi
By Our Staff Reporter
No, it was not in the same vein as freedom fighters used the slogan more than half a century ago but had been appropriated innovatively to give out a "secular'' message. As the slogan goes: "Khaki nikkar phaad kar bolo Vande Matram, mandir masjid chhod kar bolo Vande Matram (Tear your khaki shorts and shout Vande Matram, leave the temples and mosques alone and shout Vande Matram)''. Like many other innovative slogans heard in JNU, this one too has a history. Back in 1996, the Right wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad had bagged three posts, barring that of the president, in the JNUSU elections. In the oath-taking ceremony that followed, the ABVP wanted union members to sing Vande Matram. The Left objected to this new addition. "If singing a patriotic song is important, then why not the National Anthem. We were against this Right wing breed of nationalism that lay behind the idea of singing Vande Matram at the ceremony,'' explained a senior SFI member. This hoopla over singing Vande Matram was picked by the ABVP in its subsequent campaigns against the Left. Slogans like this began to come out of the Parishad's think tank. ``Chao, Mao jo kahte ho, is desh mein phir kyon rehte ho. Is desh mein agar rahana hoga to Vande Matram kahna hoga. (If Chao and Mao is what you want to say, then why do you reside in this country? If you want to stay in this country, then you have to say Vande Matram).'' This slogan suddenly re-packaged the sentiment of nationalism. For a campus that had hardly thought on these lines, the ABVP rather successfully managed to rekindle a kind of "nationalistic'' ethos in JNU politics. "The idea of being an Indian instantaneously came to dominate JNU's political discourse,'' said a student. May be not exactly dominate, but definitely this slogan suddenly ushered in a new lexicon in JNU's political parlance. The Left was compelled to devise a strategy to counter this effort to dub them as anti-nationals. On Saturday, the wheel seemed to have turned a full circle in the past six years. And as shouts of Vande Matram came not from the ABVP but the Leftist camp, many senior Left student leaders sat quietly congratulating themselves for the turnaround while the slogan went on in the backdrop. "Kafan bechna chhod kar, bolo Vande Matram; Tel bechna chhod kar, bolo Vande Matram. (Stop selling coffins and say Vande Matram, Stop selling oil and say Vande Matram).''
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