FORAY | Sunday, November 8, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Amma Tujhe Salaam!
Chandan Mitra
The most intriguing aspect of the revival of the Vande Mataram controversy is its timing and choice of venue. That a section of the Muslim religious intelligentsia has been opposed to this robust, patriotic poem dedicated to Mother India is well known. But the dispute was happily buried when the Congress struck a compromise by agreeing to drop all stanzas beyond the first two.
An Islamic theologian of the stature of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad appraised its contents from a scholastic point to ascertain if the poem contained anything that was offensive to the faith. Since the first two stanzas have no reference to any Hindu God, and is purely an ode to the Motherland, he found nothing objectionable from a religious standpoint.
The Congress adopted the abridged version as its rallying cry and eventually it was bestowed the status of India’s National Song when the Constituent Assembly selected Jana Gana Mana as the National Anthem.
It is necessary to delve into the background of the artificially generated controversy to understand why a certain Muslim group has sought to exhume the debate, that too, at the Darul Uloom in Deoband, a seminary that enjoys near-sacrosanct status in the Muslim theological world spanning the entire ummah. In the 1940s, soon after Muslim League adopted its Pakistan Resolution, MA Jinnah launched a fierce battle for supremacy among his co-religionists. As a latecomer to Muslim politics, Jinnah’s goal was formidable. There were powerful provincial satraps like Sikandar Hayat Khan in Punjab and Fazlul Haq in Bengal, apart from an assortment of Rajas and taluqdars in UP, who had little patience with the Scotch-sipping, cigar-smoking, Westernised Oriental Gentleman breathing communal frenzy, thereby challenging the Old Guard’s relatively secular approach.
Jinnah had to outflank them by taking an uncompromising posture, force them to fall in line and them substantiate his claim to be “sole spokesman” of Indian Muslims while dealing with both the British and the “Hindu” Congress.
Therefore, Jinnah needed to emphasise that as a “separate nation” Muslims shared little with Hindus, and could definitely not coexist or collaborate with idol-worshipping infidels. It is in this context that he chose to denounce Vande Mataram as an unacceptable, majoritarian imposition. The poem not only equated nation to mother but also used idolatrous phraseology the Muslim League asserted citing instances like:
Bahoo te tumi Maa shakti
Hridaye tumi Maa bhakti,
Tomari pratima godi mandire, mandire…
Twam hi Durga dashapraha-ranadharini, Vani vidyadayini…
Once Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru reached an accord to excise these stanzas while singing the poem at Congress gatherings (despite severe opposition of most Congressmen, including Sardar Patel), Jinnah had little argument left. But by then, he had drilled it into the heads of a section of the ulema that Muslims must refrain from participating in events where Vande Mataram was sung.
Police reports from UP and Bihar in the early 40s are replete with references to clashes between Hindu and Muslim students over the recitation of Vande Mataram in school functions. In other words, the mantra of Indian nationalism at least since 1905 was suddenly dubbed communal. To the Congress’s credit, it refused to abandon Bankim Chandra’s immeasurable contribution to the making of India as a nation. But the party’s position then and now remains duplicitous.
Readers will recall that a few years ago, on the 150th anniversary of the song, the Union Government decided to observe September 7 as Vande Mataram Day when the first two stanzas were to be sung in all Government schools and colleges. Predictably, then HRD Minister Arjun Singh panicked that his Muslim “constituency” might desert. As the day approached the authorities watered down the original idea so much that nothing of consequence happened on a nationwide scale. When The Pioneer ran a series on the making of Vande Mataram on its front page, our Kochi edition, (which has since ceased publication) refused to carry them citing “sensitivities”! I was incensed when this was brought to my notice and eventually forced them to carry the last two parts of the series.
The purpose of pointing all this out is that a vicious strand of communal thinking was injected into the mind of a small section of Muslim clergy and intelligentsia during the struggle for Pakistan. Well, now that Pakistan is a reality and the overwhelming majority of Indians (non-Hindus included) adore the fervent patriotic zeal reflected in Vande Mataram, why must the controversy persist? Particularly, Maulana Asad Madni of the fractious Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind must answer why he provocatively raised this issue completely out of context? By emphasising the separateness of Muslims from other Indians, whose interest is he trying to serve? And why are the breast-beating secularists, usually found inhabiting TV studios, silent now? Why did India’s Home Minister dubiously duck the subject when he spoke at Deoband the day after Jamiat endorsed the call to boycott singing of Vande Mataram? This is what I mean when I refer to the Congress’ hypocrisy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound.
The Jamiat’s purpose in reviving the issue is all the more diabolical considering none can be physically forced to sing Vande Mataram, Jana Gana Mana, or Star Spangled Banner or God Save the Queen for that matter. Even if somebody has a serious objection to singing any anthem, why broadcast that from rooftops? By doing this, Maulana Madni has only succeeded in reinforcing the extremist Hindu view that a section of the Muslim community is intrinsically disloyal to India, that they hoist Pakistani flags during cricket matches and, therefore, the jarring slogan “Hindustan mein rehna hoga, toh Vande Mataram kehna hoga” is fully justified.
I find such stereotyping repugnant and objectionable, but shouldn’t Muslim theologians and political leaders ask themselves if men like Maulana Mandi are rehnuma (protector) or dushman (enemy) of the community? I believe the timing of the controversy’s revival was deliberate. Over the last few years, Hindu-Muslim relations have been improving across the board, minor clashes in small towns notwithstanding. Clearly, this is not to the liking of some powerbrokers in the Muslim community. They fear loss of influence if Muslims become better informed, more liberal and increasingly integrate with the mainstream by fully utilising educational and economic opportunities. So Muslims must be kept in ghettos, stay ignorant, reject modern education; even refuse polio drops. Only then will the modern-day Caliphs of Indian Islam continue to prosper. Their greatest dread is the emergence of a Kemal Ataturk who will storm fortresses of medievalism and closed minds. Thus, the Madnis have to constantly aggravate Hindu public opinion, ensure that the stereotyped vision of the illiberal Muslim remains as firm as ever. If the Hindu mind stays closed, the Muslim mind has no chance of opening up. So Muslims must be told ‘Mother’ and ‘Motherland’ cannot be saluted, anybody who does so is apostate.
I am waiting for them to ex-communicate the man who brought goose pimples of pride and tears to every Indian’s eyes by his rendition of Amma Tujhe Salaam…Vande Mataram!
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