Lucknow, December 22 Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, initiating a special discussion in the Assembly on the completion of 150 years of Vande Mataram, directly blamed the Congress and Mohammad Ali Jinnah for India’s cultural division and ultimately the partition of the country.
He said that the compromise reached on Vande Mataram was not a respect for any religious sentiment, but rather the first, biggest, and most dangerous experiment of Congress’s appeasement politics, which gave rise to separatism. As long as Mohammad Ali Jinnah was in the Congress, Vande Mataram was not a controversy. Upon leaving the Congress, Jinnah made the national anthem a tool of Muslim League politics and deliberately tried to give it a communal color. The song remained the same, but the agenda changed.
CM Yogi said that on October 15, 1937, Jinnah raised the slogan against Vande Mataram from Lucknow, while Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the Congress President at that time. Soon after, on October 20, 1937, Nehru wrote to Subhas Chandra Bose, stating that the issue was “alarming” Muslims, a clear admission of Congress appeasement. On October 26, 1937, Congress decided to remove portions of Vande Mataram, which was then called “harmony,” but in reality, it was a sacrifice of national consciousness. Patriots protested, and morning processions were organized, but the Congress leadership, instead of standing with the nation, sided with its vote bank.
The Chief Minister said that on March 17, 1938, Jinnah demanded that Vande Mataram be completely changed, but Congress did not retaliate. As a result, the Muslim League grew emboldened, separatism intensified, and the first compromises were made on cultural symbols, ultimately laying the foundation for India’s unfortunate partition. The opposition to Vande Mataram was neither religious nor faith-based; it was purely political. He recalled that Vande Mataram was sung at every Congress session from 1896 to 1922. There was no fatwa or religious controversy. Even during the Khilafat Movement, the song resonated from every platform. Leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad supported it. The problem was not religion, but the politics of some individuals.
The Chief Minister explained that in 1923, Mohammad Ali Johar first opposed Vande Mataram at the Congress session. This opposition was not religious, but motivated by Khilafat politics. When Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sang the entire song, Johar left the stage. Leaving the stage was his personal decision, but Congress’s surrender became its policy. Subsequently, instead of standing firmly in support of the national anthem, the Congress formed committees, and finally, in 1937, it was decided that only two verses would be sung, and even those would not be mandatory. He described this as national surrender.
The Chief Minister said that the fragmented Vande Mataram, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950, was also a result of this appeasement policy of the Congress. The nation embraced the song, but the Congress had already discarded it. Vande Mataram is not just a song, but the soul of India. From the Partition of Bengal movement of 1905 to the freedom struggle, it was the mantra of morning processions, satyagrahas, and revolutionaries until their last breath. Rabindranath Tagore called it the soul of India, and Aurobindo Ghosh called it the mantra. Vande Mataram was inscribed on the first foreign flag hoisted by Madame Bhikaji Cama; Madanlal Dhingra’s last words were also Vande Mataram.
The Chief Minister said that the compromise with Vande Mataram was not only an insult to the song but a brutal blow to India’s national direction. He warned that even today, some political forces are attempting to revive this same divisive thinking. The national anthem was targeted then, and today, attempts are being made to weaken the national spirit.
The Chief Minister said that Vande Mataram does not merely mean saluting the motherland, but also pledging to protect, prosper, and glorify it. Building a superior, self-reliant, and developed India is possible only by learning from the historical mistakes of appeasement. He urged the House to study Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s “Anand Math” to understand national consciousness and to embrace Vande Mataram’s 150th anniversary as a pledge for the future.
