Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused Jawaharlal Nehru for partition and echoing Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Attacking independent India’s first prime minister, PM Modi said, “Instead of firmly countering the baseless statements of the Muslim League and condemning them, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Congress president, did not reaffirm his and the Congress party’s commitment to Vande Mataram, but began questioning Vande Mataram itself… Under the pressure of appeasement politics, the Congress bent and agreed to break Vande Mataram to pieces. Therefore one day, it had to bend for the Partition of India,” he said.
The PM was speaking at a Parliament debate on the 150th anniversary of Vande Matram.
Initiating the debate, the PM highlighted how Vande Mataram inspired the nation, energised the freedom struggle and became a symbol of national resolve which prompted Mahatma Gandhi to liken it to the national anthem. The PM said Muslim League leader Jinnah first stepped up his opposition to Vande Mataram on October 15, 1937, from Lucknow. Nehru wrote to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose five days later, sharing Jinnah’s sentiments and observing that Vande Mataram’s Anandmath background had the potential to “irritate the Muslims”, PM Modi said.
The PM said it was ironic that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram underwent a review of its worth in his home State of Bengal at the Kolkata session of the Congress Working Committee in 1937, leaving the country in a state of shock and prompting patriots to take out processions against the decision of the Congress.
As members of the Trinamool Congress protested the PM addressing Chatterjee as Bankim da, the PM took a dig at the party saying that the Congress outsourced its decision-making process. He asserted that the policies of the Congress and its allies have remained unchanged and they continued to resort to politics of appeasement and have attempted to create controversies around Vande Mataram.
The prime minister recalled that Mahatma Gandhi wrote in 1905 that Vande Mataram has become so popular that it has emerged as national anthem and wondered why injustice was meted out to it.
“If Vande Mataram was so popular, why was injustice meted out to it, why was it betrayed in the last century. What were those forces that were so powerful to overrule the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi on Vande Mataram,” he said.
PM Modi lamented that the Constitution was “throttled” and the nation chained by the Emergency when the national song Vande Mataram completed 100 years. The prime minister also noted that Vande Mataram stood like a rock and inspired unity despite British oppression.
The prime minister noted that the mantra of the national song gave power and inspiration to the entire country during the freedom struggle. Modi recalled that the British were forced to ban Vande Mataram as they brought in laws to prevent printing and propagation of the poem.
“Through Vande Mataram, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay responded to this challenge with great strength and resolve. The British divided Bengal in 1905, but Vande Mataram stood like a rock and inspired unity,” he said.
