A new political row has erupted in West Bengal over the Centre’s directive on the protocols for singing or playing the national song Vande Mataram, penned by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Several political parties in Bengal, including the ruling Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), have slammed the BJP-led Central government’s move, alleging that it was an insult to Rabindranath Tagore, the author of the national anthem Jana Gana Mana, which is now to be played after Vande Mataram if they are played together.
In a directive dated January 28, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notified the first set of protocols for singing Vande Mataram, directing that all six stanzas of it should be sung at official functions – a departure from the two-stanza convention set by the Congress leadership in 1937 that was later adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1950.
But in Bengal, the directive that Vande Mataram should precede Jana Gana Mana has sparked furore.
TMC leader and state education minister Bratya Basu, addressing a press conference Thursday, claimed that Hindutva outfits including the RSS were against Nobel laureate Tagore.
“RSS and other Hindutva outfits never liked the open-mindedness of Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore is still taught in several countries. Now making Vande Mataram compulsory before Jana Gana Mana is a push towards hierarchy,” said Basu, adding that “in the process, Tagore has been insulted”.
Basu also linked the timing of the Centre’s order to the forthcoming Bengal Assembly elections, claiming it would be forgotten “once Mamata Banerjee becomes Chief Minister for the fourth time”.
State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for referring to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as “Bankim da” in Parliament during the Winter Session, which had drawn sharp criticism from the TMC MPs. Bhattacharya asked if the notification was meant to serve as a “balm on that wound”.
During the Lok Sabha discussion on the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram in December last year, Modi had slammed Jawaharlal Nehru for coming under pressure from Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League for “truncating” Vande Mataram, claiming this “betrayal” sowed the seeds of Partition of India.
A senior functionary of the TMC dispensation said, “In 1937, the Congress, heeding the advice of Rabindranath Tagore, had adopted the two stanzas of Vande Mataram so as to affirm the nation’s secular ethos.”
The CPI(M) also criticised the Centre’s directive, with party Central Committee member Sujan Chakraborty saying, “The BJP is now trying to create a division and hierarchy between Bengal’s icons. Earlier, they changed Kolkata Port’s name from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Now, they are dictating that Bankim Chandra is higher than Rabindranath Tagore. Does Amit Shah know who is Rabindranath Tagore and who is Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay?”
“In the pre-Independence period, the RSS never gave the slogan Vande Mataram. They never gave respect to the Tricolour either. How would they understand who are Netaji, Tagore and Bankim Chandra,” Chakraborty added.
The Congress, too, echoed these charges, saying the move was aimed at “scoring political points” ahead of the Assembly elections, with former state party president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury terming it a “strategy of division”.
However, state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said the party’s position was “consistent” and not election-driven. “In every BJP convention, the full Vande Mataram is sung. This is not new. The 150th year of the song’s composition is a milestone. The attempt is to restore it to its full dignity,” he said, dismissing allegations of diminishing Tagore as “childish”.
Originally penned in 1875 by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, and later added to his novel Anandmath in 1882, Vande Mataram’s two-stanza version was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1950. The Congress leadership had decided not to include Vande Mataram’s other stanzas following objections raised by sections of the Muslim community and the Muslim League to references to Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati in it.
The directive has, however, given the TMC more ammunition to take on the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
Having already targeted the BJP over the Bengali language and alleged attacks against Bengali speakers in BJP-ruled states to paint the party as an “outsider” in Bengal, a senior TMC leader said, “We got another weapon against the BJP that it is basically anti-Bengali and an outsiders to Bengal.”
“The BJP doesn’t know the history of the national song and national anthem. They basically, without knowing anything, hit the sentiments of Bengalis, which we will use in the forthcoming Assembly election against the saffron camp,” the leader added.
But a senior BJP leader dismissed the TMC’s broader “anti-Bengali charge”, claiming it would not impact the elections. “Our main target is to consolidate the Hindu vote bank. This order will help us if the TMC opposes it.”