A discussion meant to commemorate 150 years of Vande Mataram in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Monday quickly transformed into a sharp political confrontation, with history, nationalism, and ideology colliding on the House floor.
Addressing the Assembly, Yogi Adityanath argued that the controversy surrounding Vande Mataram was not rooted in religious doctrine but in what he described as “political appeasement” by the Congress and the deliberate politicisation of the song by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
According to the Chief Minister, these political choices widened cultural fault lines and ultimately weakened national unity in the run-up to Partition.
Yogi Adityanath claimed that Vande Mataram enjoyed wide acceptance and reverence across the political spectrum for decades.
He pointed out that the song was sung at Congress sessions from 1896 to 1922 and was supported by prominent national leaders, including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
Objections, he said, surfaced only after Jinnah left the Congress and raised the issue within the Muslim League, giving the song a communal interpretation for political leverage.
The Chief Minister described the Congress’s decision to limit the singing of Vande Mataram as the party’s “first major ideological retreat,” arguing that such compromises emboldened separatist tendencies.
Referring to developments in 1937, he said opposition to the song intensified during the Congress-led government, particularly in Lucknow, and cited historical correspondence involving Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose to suggest efforts were made to accommodate dissenting voices.
By that period, Yogi Adityanath noted, the Congress had confined Vande Mataram to only two verses and even made their recitation optional—moves he described as a dilution of national sentiment.
He also recalled objections raised earlier by Mohammad Ali Jauhar during the Khilafat movement, which he characterised as politically motivated.
According to the Chief Minister, the version of Vande Mataram adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1950 carried the imprint of these earlier political decisions.
Emphasising the song’s central role in India’s freedom struggle, he cited its influence on protests, satyagrahas, and revolutionary movements, recalling tributes paid to it by Rabindranath Tagore and Aurobindo Ghosh, and its association with the 1905 anti-Partition movement in Bengal.
Calling Vande Mataram an expression of India’s collective soul, Yogi Adityanath urged citizens to re-examine historical compromises and reconnect with Anand Math, the work by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee from which the song originates.
Political Sparring Intensifies
The debate soon escalated. Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak openly challenged Samajwadi Party (SP) legislators to recite Vande Mataram in the Assembly, accusing one of their leaders of making derogatory remarks about Bharat Mata in the past.
He dismissed SP leaders as “fake socialists,” alleging that their politics revolved around dynastic interests rather than ideology.
Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya reinforced the attack, questioning why SP leaders hesitated to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and Vande Mataram.
He accused the SP of undermining national sentiment during its tenure from 2012 to 2017, alleging that cases against Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists were withdrawn during that period.
Maurya also countered the SP’s PDA (picchda, Dalit, alpsankhyak) slogan by asserting that Narendra Modi himself represented true PDA politics as a leader from the most backward community.
He further questioned why SP leaders objected when the government proposed the recitation of Vande Mataram in madrasas.
Opposition Pushback
Responding sharply, senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav rejected the BJP’s framing of nationalism.
He argued that branding non-recitation of Vande Mataram as anti-nationalism was misleading and said the real threat to democracy came from failure to protect women and from exploiting the poor for electoral gains. “Our nationalism is inclusive,” he asserted.
Congress MLA Aradhna Mishra also intervened, stating that the Congress did not need to prove its patriotism.
She reminded the House of the party’s sacrifices during the freedom movement and cautioned against turning nationalism into a tool of political confrontation.
What began as a commemorative discussion thus ended as a fierce ideological contest—revealing how Vande Mataram, even after a century and a half, continues to evoke sharply divergent interpretations of nationalism, history, and identity in Indian politics.
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