PM: Divisive mindset still a test for country

New Delhi: In an apparent attack at the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said important stanzas of the national song “Vande Mataram” were dropped in 1937 which sowed the seeds of partition and asserted that such a “divisive mindset” is still a challenge for the country. Modi made the comments after inaugurating the year-long commemoration of “Vande Mataram” to mark 150 years of the national song.

He also released a commemorative stamp and coin on the occasion at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium here. “Vande Mataram became the voice of India’s freedom struggle, it expressed the feelings of every Indian.

Unfortunately, in 1937, important stanzas of Vande Mataram..a part of its soul, were severed. The division of Vande Mataram also sowed the seeds of partition. Today’s generation needs to know why this injustice was done with this ‘maha mantra’ of nation building… this divisive mindset is still a challenge for the country,” he said.

Noting that “Vande Mataram” is relevant in every era, the prime minister, in an apparent reference to Operation Sindoor, said, when adversaries dared to attack India’s security and honour through terrorism, the world saw that while New India “embodies the spirit of ‘Kamala and Vimala’ in service to humanity, it also knows how to become Durga — the wielder of ten weapons — for the destruction of terror”.

On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly of India officially adopted “Vande Mataram” as the national song, giving it enduring significance. According to various accounts, a truncated version of “Vande Mataram”, keeping only the first two of the original six stanzas, was chosen as the national song in 1937 by the Congress after a committee consisting of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Acharya Narendra Deva, and Rabindranath Tagore recommended the adoption.

Earlier in the day, the BJP alleged that the Congress party “brazenly pandering to its communal agenda under the presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru”, adopted only a truncated “Vande Mataram” as the party’s national song in 1937.