Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar’s welcome statement that Delhi University’s Dayal Singh College (Evening) will not be renamed as Vande Mataram College has, for the moment, put an end to the unseemly controversy over removing the name of a great Sikh social reformer and entrepreneur of the 19th Century. But one doubts that the controversy over Vande Mataram, recognised by the Constitution as the national song, will end any time soon as it pertains to two different ways of looking at the nature of Indian nationalism. Also related to this is the controversy about the country’s national anthem Jana Gana Mana that refuses to die down even after more than six decades. Only a little over two years ago, veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh and retired Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju had criticised it alleging that Rabindranath Tagore had composed it in praise of British Emperor George V.
The votaries of Hindutva have always been placing great emphasis on Vande Mataram, making its singing as a veritable touch stone of patriotism, especially those of the minority communities. In the past six decades, there was hardly a village or town in the Hindi belt that did not witness this slogan painted on its walls: “Yadi Bharat mein rahna hoga, Vande Mataram kahna hoga” (Those who wish to live in India will have to recite Vande Mataram). Mindlessly obdurate stand of many Muslim leaders and organisations to oppose singing of the song did not help matters. And, the controversy remains very much alive.
Eminent historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya has clarified the issue in full in a book titled Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song , published by Penguin Books India in 2003, giving a comprehensive overview of the entire controversy. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya wrote this song in 1875. It begins with a poetic description of the motherland’s natural beauty and changes its course by transforming the motherland into the weapon-wielding goddess Durga and later into her destructive, demon-slaying form of Kali. The song ends with describing the motherland once again as “sweetly smiling, jewelled and adorned, the holder of wealth, the lady of plenty”. Linguistically too, the song changes its course as it begins with Sanskrit, lapses into Bengali, and concludes again with Sanskrit.
Here, it must be mentioned that the motherland here was not India but Bengal. Therefore, originally, the song gave expression to Bengali nationalism, not to Indian nationalism.
In 1882, Bankim wrote his celebrated novel Anandmath and included the song in it. The great famine of 1770 formed the backdrop of the novel that was centred on the revolt led by Dashnami Naga Sanyasins (called Santan) in the novel, against the puppet Muslim Nawab supported by the British.
There is an unmistakable undercurrent of anti-Muslim sentiment in the novel that describes the post-revolt anarchy in these words: “Somebody would catch hold of householders and those going on the road, saying, “Chant Vande Mataram, otherwise I will kill you”. Just in one night, there was a great turmoil in village after village, town after town. Santan would say, “The Muslims have got defeated. The country has once again come back to the Hindus.””
Bengal’s break-up
When Bengal was divided in 1905, the song acquired unprecedented popularity among nationalist patriots of all hues with Vande Mataram becoming a war cry against the British colonial rulers. However, after over two decades, Muslim League and some other Muslim leaders began to raise objections to the recitation of the song as it turned the motherland into a deity and it amounted to idol worship. In 1937, Congress Working Committee resolved that only the first two stanzas of the song would be sung at “nationalist gatherings”.
On January 24, 1950, the last act of the Constituent Assembly was to unanimously accept without any discussion or debate a resolution moved by the President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, that Jana Gana Mana would be the national anthem of free India while the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram would enjoy the status of our national song at par with the national anthem.
Simmering storm
The votaries of Hindutva ideology have not been able to stomach this and their efforts to impose Vande Mataram while maligning Jana Gana Mana continue. However, as great Hindi scholar Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, who founded the Hindi Department at Shantiniketan in 1940 and had close association with Tagore, has clarified in his article with ample evidence, Tagore did not write the song to praise the British emperor. Dwivedi’s article can be found in a collection of his writings titled Bhasha, Sahitya aur Desh (Language, Literature and Country), published by Bharatiya Jnanpith.
(The writer is a senior literary critic)
