New Delhi: Amid crisis-hit carrier IndiGo’s ongoing flight disruptions, rising air pollution in the national capital and other Indian cities, and the falling rupee, the Lok Sabha on Monday (December 8) devoted the entire day to conduct a special discussion to commemorate 150 years of the national song Vande Mataram with the treasury benches and the opposition trading charges on historical accounts for close to 12 hours.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the debate in the Lok Sabha and used the occasion to once again launch an attack on former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, accusing him and the Congress of fragmenting the song by bowing to the Muslim League. Opposition members, on the other hand, said that the special discussion was brought with an eye on the assembly elections in West Bengal next year, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of diverting from real issues. 

The debate also saw opposition benches, particularly the Trinamool Congress, erupting in protest after Modi referred to Bengali poet and author Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who wrote Vande Mataram, as “Bankim Da” (implying brother). 

Hours later, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said “Bankim Das Chatterjee” while RJD MP Abhay Kumar Sinha on the other hand said “Vande Bharat” instead of Vande Mataram.

‘Congress compromised on Vande Mataram’: Modi

In his hour-long speech, Modi said that the 50th year of Vande Mataram came when the country was under British rule, while its 100th anniversary came during the Emergency. While Modi began his speech saying the song had become the mantra of India’s freedom struggle, he soon moved to attack the Congress.

"Mohammed Ali Jinnah raised slogans against Vande Mataram in Lucknow in 1937. The then Congress chief Jawaharlal Nehru saw his chair at risk and instead of condemning Muslim League's statements and showing his own dedication towards Vande Mataram, he started investigating Vande Mataram. Just five days after Jinnah's opposition, Nehru wrote to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and agreed with Jinnah and said that the Ananda Math version of Vande Mataram might irritate Muslims,” Modi said. 

“He (Nehru) said that he read the background and thought that Muslims would get provoked. He added that they would examine the use of Vande Mataram, and that too in Bankim Chandra’s Bengal. The whole country was shocked, the song was sung across the country. Congress compromised on Vande Mataram and decided to fragment Vande Mataram. History is witness to Congress bowing to the Muslim League and came under its pressure. This was Congress' appeasement politics which made it bow to the pressure of fragmenting Vande Mataram and for this reason it had to one day bow to accepting India's partition,” he added

While the song was written in 1875, it was later incorporated by Chattopadhyay in his novel Ananda Math in 1882. The song in Ananda Math was a longer version including six stanzas which was woven into the story of a rich landlord affected by the 1770 Bengal famine in the backdrop of the Sanyasi Rebellion that had risen against the East India Company. It became a part of the freedom struggle following Lord Curzon's move to divide Bengal in 1905. 

It was Nobel laureate and Bengali literary luminary Rabindranath Tagore who gave a tune to the song and sang it for the first time at the 1896 annual convention of the Indian National Congress.

While the song and Chattopadhyay's Ananda Math have faced criticism for its anti-Muslim connotations, historical records show that it was on Tagore's advice to Nehru that the first two stanzas were kept as the national song. In 1951, the Constituent Assembly retained the two stanzas as the national song while Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was elevated as the national anthem, well after Tagore’s death.

Opposition hits back

The Congress hit back at Modi and the BJP with Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra suggesting that a special session be held to list out Nehru’s mistakes and then “close the chapter” once and for all.

"I want to give a suggestion to the Prime Minister, make a list of Nehru's mistakes, along with all the abuses you want to hurl and then let us take out a time like we have today for the Vande Mataram discussion and allot as many hours as necessary for all your complaints. But let us not use this house where we have come to serve the people anymore for this after that. Once and for all, let's close the chapter,” she said. 

“And after that let's discuss unemployment, inflation, women's issues and the speculation of a betting app being used inside the PMO in which a minister's name has come up.”

Congress MP and the party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi said Modi had attempted to rewrite history and that he had made a habit out of taking Nehru’s name every time he spoke in parliament.

"There were two objectives of Modi's speech. One, it seemed as if his political ancestors were fighting the British. This attempt to revise and rewrite history was heard in Modi's speech. The second objective was to give a political colour to this discussion,” said Gogoi. 

"Before this we heard Modi during the discussion on Operation Sindoor during which he took Nehru's name 14 times and that of the Congress 50 times. When there was a discussion on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution, Nehru's name was taken 10 times and that of the Congress 26 times. In 2022 when he was replying to the President's address, he took Nehru's name 15 times,” he said.

Samajwadi Party MP Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of trying to own Vande Mataram.

“Time and again it has been seen that those on the ruling side try to own iconic leaders who never belonged to them,” he said.

“Vande Mataram is not just for recitation but for abiding to it,” he said. “How will those who never took part in the freedom struggle understand its importance of Vande Mataram? They are not ‘rashtrawadi’ (nationalists) but ‘rashtravivadi’ (those who divide the nation),” he added.

Opposition members also accused the BJP of having the discussion with an eye on the West Bengal elections.

TMC MP Mahua Moitra said that the BJP decided to have the discussion because “playing the Vande Mataram card will give you an advantage in the 2026 Bengal elections. There is no other reason behind this discussion,” she said.

She also said that the irony is not lost on the circumstances in which the song was being discussed. “The irony is not lost on us on parliamentarians present here or the billion plus people we represent that we are living in real unemployment among youth is upwards of 20%, we are choking in a national capital where the AQI is above 800, where the centre is purposefully stopping MGNREGA and their water dues, where millions are being hurriedly disenfranchised, suddenly the government finds it so important to discuss the complexities of a song.”

While Modi had at the beginning of the winter session accused the opposition of using parliament as a warm up ground for elections, his party MP, Bansuri Swaraj said “Bihar toh jhanki hai, Bengal abhi baki hai” (Bihar was a trailer, Bengal is still left). 

Swaraj was responding to Gandhi’s speech in which she had said that the discussion on electoral reforms was kept after the discussion on Vande Mataram because of the upcoming Bengal elections.

“Bengal is the birthplace of Vande Mataram which gave rise to Swadeshi. But Bengal is in a worrisome condition today because the ruling dispensation in the state is strangling Vande Mataram. I want to tell this house and this country, that saffron is the colour of Ram and revolution. Very soon Bengal will be relieved of anarchy and saffron is coming to Bengal. Bihar toh jhanki hai, Bengal abhi baki hai,” Swaraj said.

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