Union Home Minister Amit Shah made a pitch in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, framing Vande Mataram as a product of resistance. He said its origins could not be separated from India’s historical experience of invasions and foreign rule.
“Vande Mataram ki rachna ki pristhabhomi hum sab ne zaroor yaad karni chahiye. Uski prishthabhumi mein sadiyon tak Islamic aakraman ko jhelkar is desh ki sanskriti and is desh ka itihas jhanjhorne ka, chhinn bhhinn karne ka kam hua tha. Uske baad angrezon ne apne shaasan ke kaal mein Bharat ke ghulami ke kaal mein ek nayi sabhyata, ek nayi sanskriti hum pe thopne ka prayaas kiya tha aur us waqt Vande Mataram ki rachna Bankim babu ne ki, aur is rachna ke andar bahut baareeki se hamari mool sabhyata thi. Hamara sanskritik rashtrawad tha (We must remember the background of Vande Mataram. Centuries of Islamic invasions and the destruction of culture and history of our country were the background. Then the British, in their reign sought to inflict a new civilisation and a new culture upon us and it was during this period that Bankim Babu wrote Vande Mataram; it consisted, in the most minute detail, of our very essence culture. It held within it our cultural nationalism.),” Shah said.
His comments came just weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the legacy of Macaulay and his stated desire to create Indians who were “Indians by appearance but British at heart.”
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Amit Shah blames Congress for dividing Vande Mataram
Shah said Bankim envisioned the nation as a mother, and despite the colonial state banning the song, “it touched the hearts and souls of the country.” Neither the British, nor those who adopted their “civilisation”, he asserted, could stop its spread.
“When Vande Mataram turned 50, the country was not independent. By the time turned 50, Pandit [Jawaharlal] Nehru divided it into two. That appeasement led to the Partition of the country. I believe Partition would not have happened if Vande Mataram had not been divided into two,” the Home Minister said, placing blame on the Congress’s concessions.
He added that during the Emergency, those who recited Vande Mataram were jailed, and during its 150th year, both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were absent from Parliament. Shah also referred to Priyanka Gandhi’s criticism in the Lok Sabha that there was no need to discuss Vande Mataram today.
Pushing back, Shah said the discussion was not about elections, not even Bengal’s. Instead, he argued it was about memory and identity “necessary now, and in 2047,” when India would become “Mahaan Bharat”.
Shah described India as a “unique nation.” He cited Lord Ram, Lord Shiva and Chanakya as early references to the motherland, and said Sri Aurobindo saw Vande Mataram as a symbol of spiritual strength. Many freedom fighters, he said, “had Vande Mataram on their lips” at the gallows.
He reminded the House that the Constituent Assembly granted it status equal to the national anthem, and that L.K. Advani had pushed for its recitation in Parliament in 1992.
