The recent debate in Parliament on Vande Mataram, held as part of its 150th anniversary, deserves to be welcomed, despite the fact that a few lawmakers from the Opposition parties linked it to the forthcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal. Several participants from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, and Trinamool Congress cited historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s book, Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song, as a key source. Not surprisingly, the debate has been accompanied by distortions. After all, politicians’ history is often more about politics than about scientific truth. This is why scholars need to engage with such debates, mainly to rescue facts from ideologically motivated interpretations.
For secularists, the debate appeared to be more an exercise in Nehru-bashing than anything else. Given that the Congress is almost non-existent in West Bengal, one wonders what electoral profit the BJP might derive from this exercise. The key issue that has prominently re-emerged is whether Vande Mataram should be sung in its entirety or only in part, as is the case since Independence, in its avatar as India’s national song.
According to Professor Bhattacharya, the song was probably written by Bankimchandra Chatterjee between 1872 and 1875, but it entered the public sphere through his novel Anandamath, published in 1881. The novel first appeared serially in Bangadarshan, a monthly journal founded by Bankimchandra. The first instalment of Anandamath was published in the 12th issue of the journal’s seventh year (Bengali circa 1287), and the final instalment appeared in the Jyaistha issue of Bengali circa 1289. According to Julius Lipner, Professor of Hinduism at the University of Cambridge, Bankimchandra had a deep knowledge of Sanskrit learning and regularly reviewed Sanskrit publications in Bangadarshan. He referred to Sanskrit passages, texts, and expressions in his writings. Aurobindo Ghose considered Bankim “the rishi of Indian nationalism.”
The song played a vital role during the Swadeshi movement. However, around the 1930s, prominent leaders of major political organisations such as the Congress, Hindu Mahasabha, and Muslim League engaged in discussions over it, rendering it politically controversial. Some Muslim leaders objected to certain parts of it, viewing them as idolatrous. According to puritan interpretations of Islam, Muslims are to worship only Allah, the Creator of all, including Mother Earth and the motherland itself. They are not permitted to worship anyone else, not even Islam’s only messenger, Prophet Muhammad. It is said that the Prophet was very particular during his lifetime not to leave any image or portrait of himself, as he feared that followers might begin to worship his likeness over time.
Among prominent leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore understood how the extended version of the song might affect Muslim sensibilities. As a consequence, only the first two stanzas were adopted as the national song. Tagore said, “I freely concede that the whole of Bankim’s Vande Mataram poem, read together with its context, is liable to be interpreted in ways that might wound Muslim susceptibilities.”
Even Mahatma Gandhi, who was initially enthusiastic about the song, later reconsidered his position. In July 1939, Gandhi wrote in Harijan: “It had never occurred to me that it was a Hindu song or meant only for Hindus. Unfortunately, now we have fallen on evil days.” Gandhi reportedly advised local boards and Legislative Assemblies not to sing the song. Notably, Prof. Bhattacharya titled the first chapter of his book as ‘A Communal War Cry’.
In the recent parliamentary debate, this historical context explains why some Muslim MPs such as Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) and Aga Syed Ruhullah (National Conference) invoked Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees every citizen the freedom to practise their faith. This constitutionally protected right, in the context of singing Vande Mataram, has not been adequately addressed by the Hindu Right. Instead, its leaders tend to dismiss such concerns as mere “appeasement politics” by Nehru and others. However, as is now well established, any issue involving Muslims tends to be coloured by baseless accusations of appeasement, which only renders such arguments hollow and xenophobic.
A litmus test
It appears that the desire to sing Vande Mataram in full has been turned into a litmus test of Indian nationalism. Yet Indian nationalism is far older and far more robust. It lived in the minds and hearts of Indians long before Vande Mataram was composed. Even V.D. Savarkar, the most prominent Hindu Right thinker, recognised this when he celebrated Hindu-Muslim unity in the 1857 resistance against British rule in his book, The Indian War of Independence of 1857.
The most curious aspect of this controversy is that, while some Muslims and secularists consider Vande Mataram idolatrous, Bankimchandra himself was known to oppose idolatry. In an 1874 essay on the worship of deities in Bengal, he argued that idolatry was “anti-science,” inimical to the growth of the human self, and a constraint on the human mind.
Nonetheless, the tone and tenor of the debate in Parliament show that the last word on this issue has not yet been spoken — and that the ensuing discussions will have implications for Indian secularism and Hindu-Muslim relations.
Shaikh Mujibur Rehman, author of Shikwa-e- Hind: The Political Future of Indian Muslims. Views are personal
Published – December 24, 2025 01:28 am IST
