Vande Mataram
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
The source of the first section
INDIA 2012
A REFERENCE ANNUAL
Compiled by
RESEARCH, REFERENCE AND TRAINING DIVISION
PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
NATIONAL SONG
The song Vande Mataram, composed in sanskrit by Bankimchandra Chatterji, was a source of inspiration to the people in their struggle for freedom. It has an equal status with Jana-gana-mana. The first political occasion when it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. The following is the text of its first stanza :
Vande Mataram!
Sujalam, suphalam, malayaja shitalam,
Shasyashyamalam, Mataram!
Shubhrajyotsna pulakitayaminim,
Phullakusumita drumadala shobhinim,
Suhasinim sumadhura bhashinim,
Sukhadam varadam, Mataram!
The English translation of the stanza rendered by Sri Aurobindo in prose1 is :
I bow to thee, Mother,
richly-watered, richly-fruited,
cool with the winds of the south,
dark with the crops of the harvests,
The Mother!
Her nights rejoicing in the glory of the moonlight,
her lands clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom,
sweet of laughter, sweet of speech,
The Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss.
The debate
Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’
On June 21, 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was then a minister in his Cabinet, that Vande Mataram is not feasible as a national anthem “chiefly because of its tune which does not suit orchestral or band rendering”.
Nehru told Mookerjee that “Jana Gana Mana, on the other hand, has already been greatly appreciated in foreign countries as well as in India and the music of it has a great appeal to people who hear it in India or abroad”.
“Vande Mataram is of course intimately connected with our entire national struggle and we are all emotionally attached to it and will continue to be so attached. It will, in any event, remain as a famous national song, but I personally think that a song which represents poignant longing for freedom is not necessarily a song which fits in with the achievement of freedom. Jana Gana Mana has an element of triumph and fulfilment about it. But the main consideration is the music,” he wrote.
Nehru was replying to Mookerjee’s letter that in view of strong feelings expressed in several quarters over the Cabinet’s provisional decision to adopt Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem, the government should issue a press statement.
Asserting that there was “no misunderstanding” on the matter, Nehru told Mookerjee, who later founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, that “Our decision was that Jana Gana Mana should be used officially as an anthem till such time as a final decision is made by the Constituent Assembly”.
This letter is among 77,000 pages and 35,000 documents made publicly and freely available online by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF) on The Nehru Archive, a 100-volume archive launched recently to mark the 136th birth anniversary of India’s first PM.
From his correspondence with his Indian and foreign contemporaries to his views on the Sino-Indian border war, ties to the United States, and a range of policy issues, the archive is a “final authoritative and authenticated resource” on Nehru.
On May 28, 1949, Nehru delivered an address to Indian soldiers 16 months after Pakistan invaded Kashmir with the intent to annex it. “Every nation has to pay the price of freedom by blood, sweat and tears. We have paid the price for our freedom in blood but now we have to build up the country with our sweat and tears. India is determined to defend Kashmir until the threat to the State’s peace and security is removed beyond its boundaries,” Nehru said, while praising the Indian Army, saying it had raised India’s prestige in the world.
On Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s 75th birthday on October 31, 1950, Nehru sent a message to Gujarat Congress president Kanhaylal Desai, saying, “I should like to pay my homage and affection to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the occasion of his completing his 75th year. Few persons can have such a long and notable record of service to their credit as Sardar Patel has had.”
Similarly, Nehru wrote to former Ireland president Sean T O’Kelly on February 8, 1963, regarding the 1962 Sino-Indian war, referring to “the shock caused to us by this invasion by a country we have tried to be friendly with”. “This betrayal has driven us to military conflict, which is distasteful to us, but you will no doubt fully appreciate that we had no choice. No country can submit to compulsion exercised through military force. We are, therefore, determined to face this situation,” Nehru said.
On November 24, 1958, Nehru wrote a letter to American children who had come to the Indian High Commission in the US to send him birthday wishes, saying: “I hope that when you grow up, you will not become rigid and stand-offish and will remember that people of all countries, even though they differ, are members of the same human family. It is, perhaps, good that they differ in many ways, because if everyone was alike, the world would become a very dull place.”
Nehru delivered a speech in Chicago on October 27, 1949, in which he said, “President (Harry) Truman had described my visit as a voyage of discovery. I wish it to be a discovery of a more intimate kind, an understanding more of the mind and spirit of America than merely of formal things. It is important that India should know America and in the reverse process that America should know India. My object is that there should be both understanding and cooperation between India and America.”
When the Congress’s then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kailas Nath Katju visited an R S S camp, Nehru wrote to him on February 21, 1963, to admonish him. “The general principle of Congressmen associating themselves with communal organisations like the Jana Sangh and other organisations which differed completely from the Congress was discussed. It was decided that no Congressman should associate himself with any function organised by these organisations. I have read the note sent by you. I think you were not right in attending the camp of the R S S.”
In a message to the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) on May 7,1963, Nehru spelt out his vision on education. “Unfortunately educational matters are often considered by politicians on the political plane. This makes them political issues and the educational aspect is not considered objectively and dispassionately. It is true that it is not always easy to separate them.
Nevertheless it is desirable and such questions should be considered by educational experts. In doing so, we have to keep the end in view,” Nehru said. “This is not merely training for the job, although that is often necessary, but rather training for life and also training for a particular kind of society that we aim at.”
The archive has been put in place by an organisation called OIJO, which runs The Indian History Collective, on a contract from the JNMF, a private entity whose chairperson is Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh was actively involved in the process.
Historian Madhavan Palat, who is JNMF secretary and The Nehru Archive editor, told The Indian Express, “This saves the labour of going to a library, locating the volumes required, and searching the indexes of the volumes. Each word is searchable in the archive. This phase has been about putting the Selected Works of Nehru in the archive. In the next phase, we will make it complete work to the extent possible. Every text will be as it is in the original, and will be digitised. We will also access photos, audio and video material, his books and also his Hindi writings from all sources possible.” Palat refrained from setting a date for the completion of the next phase.
Historian Aditya Mukherjee said the archive is a resource not just for the historian but also for journalists and citizens. “It is aimed not just at the academic researcher but also the journalist – you can check whenever there is a controversial claim about Nehru. The venom in the social media needed to be at least challenged by providing genuine material. Let the public decide,” he told The Indian Express.
While the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML), administered by the Centre, also has a Nehru Portal that was created to mark his 125th birth anniversary, what marks out The Nehru Archive, Mukherjee says, is the “finesse” with which it has done its work, making each document searchable and downloadable.
The coordination of the data entry work was done by two researchers who studied history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jahanvi Sodha and Pranav Pandey, over the course of a year beginning November 14, 2024.
“The ideation was going on from June 2024, and the announcement was made on November 14, 2024. From then onwards the actual work began… The idea was to separate each letter, each note, each press conference of Nehru. So we copy-pasted each document separately. We created meta data with tags – 30,000 tags were created, and then attached to the relevant speeches and documents,” Sodha told The Indian Express.
The JNMF had received government funding when the Congress was in power, the last of which came in 2013-14, when it received Rs 5 crore for Nehru’s selected volumes. The JNMF also built the planetarium at Teen Murti Marg in 1983, but gave it to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library – now the PMML – in 2004-05.
The JNMF’s office is also housed on the PMML premises. In 2018, the government sent it a notice regarding its occupation of the premises. The JNMF moved the courts, and the Delhi High Court stayed the eviction notice.
“The archive is a goldmine for foreign policy. Nehru’s visits abroad, his notes when he visited countries like the Soviet Union, China or the US, can be accessed in it. One can read about the first general elections and Partition. The thing has been designed after studying the best archives of this kind, like Wilson Archives and Churchill Archives. It would be superior, not less,” Aditya Mukherjee said.
The legal position
Supreme Court declines to issue judicial directives
See also National Anthem: India
The court referred to the The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights as it refused to take up up the plea regarding the national song
THE SUPREME Court on 17 Feb 2017 declined to entertain a plea for issuing judicial directives to play ‘Vande Mataram’, observing that laws did not recognise the concept of national song. “There is no concept of a national song,” a bench led by Justice Dipak Misra observed while hearing a PIL, which urged the court to issue guidelines on the lines of its directions on playing of the national anthem.
The court referred to the The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights as it refused to take up up the plea regarding the national song. “Article 51A only mentions the National Flag and the National Anthem. The Article does not refer to a national song…Therefore, we do not intend to enter into any debate as far as a national song is concerned,” the bench, also comprising Justices R Banumathi and Mohan M Shantanagoudar said.
The bench also refused to entertain for now PIL petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay’s request to make rendering of the national anthem compulsory in offices, courts, legislative houses and Parliament. However, it agreed to examine other prayers in the petition, including making the national anthem compulsory in schools. “Barring the singing of the national anthem on schools on every working day, other prayers stand rejected,” said the bench, while issuing a notice to the Centre on this aspect.
Madras HC: Complusory in TN schools, offices
R. Sivaraman, HC judge wants Vande Mataram sung in T.N., July 26, 2017: The Hindu
Schools, colleges, universities, factories to play and sing the song that ‘instilled confidence’ in people
A Madras High Court judge ordered Vande Mataram to be played and sung in a
HC: Vande Mataram does not need law to command respect
The song Vande Matram commands respect and love, and doesn't require any “crutches“, the high court has observed, dismissing a PIL that wanted official recognition to treat it on a par with the national anthem.
“It needs no elaboration that Vande Mataram is inseparably linked with the freedom struggle as is noted by the committee and the respondents as an eternal song... It is acknowledged that this song has become synonymous with valour, dedication and love for one's motherland,“ a bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar observed.
In the process, HC dimissed a petition that contented that the song Vande Mataram has been given an equal status as the national anthem Jana Gana Mana by the Constituent Assembly of India in January 1950.
Petitioner Gautam Morarka argued that even the Constituent Assembly acknowledged that the song Vande Mataram had played a historic part in the struggle for India's freedom movement and has to be honoured equally as the national anthem.
The PIL said it sought HC's intervention, saying no set of rules regarding its rendition as well as the protocols to be followed regarding its singing have been framed, for which directions are needed under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. The Act came into effect to prevent disrespect and insults to national symbols.
However, HC noted the findings of a committee set up in this regard which concluded that the song Vande Matram “does not require any crutches to hold its own in the heads and hearts of India's citizenry .“
Administrative orders
Meerut Nagar Nigam
Meerut mayor: Singing Vande Mataram must | Mar 30 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Meerut mayor Harikant Ahluwalia has passed a resolution that all Nagar Nigam board members will have to sing Vande Mataram or she will not be allowed to enter the board meeting room or participate in its proceedings, reports Sandeep Rai. The resolution will need the government's nod.
The announcement led to protests by a few Muslim board members, who quoted an SC order that says singing of Vande Mataram is not mandatory .
2017, Dec: BSP mayor revokes the order
Piyush Rai, December 6, 2017: The Times of India
One of the first decisions BSP's Sunita Verma has taken as Meerut's new mayor is to overturn her BJP predecessor's decision to make the singing of 'Vande Mataram' mandatory at municipal corporation board meetings.
The move provoked protest by some opposition members, but Verma was unfazed.
"The municipal board's constitution states the national anthem will be sung, not 'Vande Mataram'. There should be no controversy... only 'Jana Gana Mana' will be sung at the start of every board meeting," she said. BJP's city unit chief Karunesh Nandan Garg said the party would "fight the move inside the board and outside". "If the mayor tries to dictate terms... we will... find ways to make sure our corporators sing the national song on roads in protest," he added.
Sunita Verma’s oath-taking disrupted
Tearing down of Bahujan Samaj Party banners and chanting of Vande Mataram by BJP councillors set the tone for turbulent times ahead in Meerut municipal corporation during the oath-taking ceremony of BSP’s mayor Sunita Verma. BJP councillors ran amok and stood on their chairs, not allowing the divisional commissioner to administer the oath to the new mayor for some time.
To ensure that Verma toed the line of previous mayor from BJP Harikant Ahluwalia who had made the recital of the song mandatory after BJP came to power in UP this year, 36 elected BJP representatives in the house of 90 started singing Vande Mataram the moment she reached the dais. However, the mayor and non-BJP councillors kept sitting during the song. The BJP councillors also raised slogans of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.
Compulsory in BMC schools
Richa Pinto, `Vande' singing to be must in BMC schools, August 11, 2017: The Times of India
A BJP corporator's proposal making it compulsory for students of all civic schools here to sing `Vande Mataram' was passed at a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) general body meeting.
The proposal, which calls for `Vande Mataram' to be sung in schools at least twice a week, will now be sent to civic chief Ajoy Mehta for administrative approval.
“A song as such will only increase patriotism in the minds of children. Therefore, I strongly felt BMC should consider this proposal,“ said Sandeep Patel, BJP corporator from Goregaon.The proposal received a nod from the Shiv Sena, the ruling party in BMC.
The move was opposed in the BMC by Samajwadi Party -the move, it said, would amount to worship of the motherland, and added that Muslims didn't worship anyone but Allah.
SP's Rais Shaikh and six corporators demanded a poll over the issue but it was not considered.
See also
National Anthem, India: Jehovah’s Witnesses
Vande Mataram
