Amit Shah saying Congress censoring Vande Mataram caused Partition is trivialising the tragedy
It is difficult to decide what is more dangerous – that Shah is actually this unaware of history, or is happy to politicise even this tragedy.
In another instance of WhatsApp history being broadcast from official fora, BJP president Amit Shah on June 28 claimed that the partition of India was caused by the “Congress censoring Vande Mataram”.
Speaking at the Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay memorial lecture in Kolkata, Shah said: “Historians sometimes blame the Khilafat movement, sometimes the divide-and-rule policy of the British and at times, the two-nation theory of the Muslim League. But I will say that the Congress’ decision to take up only two stanzas of Vande Mataram by surrendering before its appeasement policies had led to the division of India.”
The BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has frequently taken creative liberties with history, conveniently distorting facts to suit the narrative of the day. But making inaccurate claims about the Partition — the biggest tragedy in India’s history — to score a petty point over your political opponent is a new low.
Millions of people were killed, raped, displaced during the Partition. Its bitter legacy continues to haunt Indian politics. Making such statements about it now trivialises the tragedy.
It is difficult to decide what is more dangerous — that Shah is actually this unaware of history's realities, or that he is happy to twist facts about modern India’s greatest trauma.
Facts first
Written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1870, Vande Mataram has a controversial history. The song appeared as part of Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandamath in 1882. The book, though a very important piece of literature, has long attracted charges of demonising Muslims, and holding the Muslim nawab of Bengal responsible for the terrible famines that wrecked the state in the 1770s.
The first two stanzas of Vande Mataram praise the motherland as a beautiful and bountiful land. The next three – which Shah accused the Congress of censoring – equate the motherland to Hindu goddesses Durga and Sarwaswti. Thus, some Muslims object to singing it, as Islam is against idol worship.
The Congress did not censor the song — censoring would have meant banning it from appearing in the novel. In fact, the Congress contributed to popularising the song, by singing it at party sessions. What it did was take a decision to sing only the first two paras.
In 1950, when the Constituent Assembly of the country, which had members from all political parties, was deciding the National Anthem, both Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana were considered.
While the latter was adopted as the Anthem and included in the Constitution, Vande Mataram was not neglected. On January 24, 1950, President Dr Rajendra Prasad made this statement in the Constituent Assembly: “The composition consisting of the words and music known as Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations in the words as the Government may authorise as occasion arises; and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it."
The song is not the point
Arguing over Anandamath or Vande Mataram — both products of a historical period and context — is unnecessary, and misleads public discourse.
In a country as diverse as India, no single song can be equally acceptable to every community. Also, the singing of, or the refusal to, sing one song — which few can memorise and fewer understand, thanks to its heavily Sanskritised Bengali — cannot be a proof of patriotism.
But Shah’s statement is more dangerous than that. By citing “appeasement” as the cause of partition, he is trying to pin all the blame for it not just on the Congress, which supposedly did the appeasing, but also the Muslim community, that demanded it.
History, of course, has recorded that VD Savarkar formulated the two-nation theory in 1923, 16 years before Mohammad Ali Jinnah did.
Historical wrongs cannot be corrected, they are the nation’s shared tragedy. But raking them up and twisting them to create fresh victims appears like malice.
Also, if any party can be accused of politicising the Vande Mataram, it is the BJP itself, which has time and again sought to make the song compulsory at various levels, so it can use the Muslims’ reported refusal to sing it as 'proof' of 'their' alleged anti-national feelings.
Of course, on various occasions, BJP leaders — from party spokesperson Naveen Kumar Singh to Uttar Pradesh’s minorities welfare MoS Baldev Singh Aulakh to Colaba MLA Raj Purohit — have been unable to recite the song themselves.
The event Shah was speaking at on June 28 was meant to commemorate Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. But by making his song the subject of bitter controversy yet again, the event became about politics — and Bankim was forgotten.