VANDE MATARAM The Biography of a Song Sabyasachi Bhattacharya 0) PENGUIN BOOKSPenguin Books Led, 80 Stand, London WC2R ORL, UK Penguin Group ln, 375 Hudson Set, New Penguin Books Australia Lad, 250 Camberwel Victoria 3124, Australia | . Penguin Books Canada Led, 10 Aleoen Avenve, Suite 300, Toronto, To my grandchildren ‘Ontario, M4V 382, Cana a Anirban and Ayan who may read it some years from now Rosebank 2196, South Africa First published by Penguin Books India 2003 Copyright © Sabyasachi Bhattacharya 2003 1098765432 ‘Typeset in Sabon by S.R. Enterprises, New Delhi Printed at Chaman Ofer Printers, New Delhi condition including this condition being imposed ‘on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved abore, no part publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval syst transmited in any form or by any means (electronic, mec photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned book. 4ContentsLIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PREFACE AICC Files: All-India Congress Committee Files, Nebru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. BR: Bankim Rachanavalee, vols. 1, (ed. J.C. Bagal, Calcutta, 1959). CWMG: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Publications Division, GOL, New Delhi Home Poll.: Home Department, Pol Government of Inc ‘This book began to take shape in 1994 when a number "of conferences were held in India to mark the centenary "Year of the death of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Some f these were held in Bengal and I was drawn into "Participating in them since I happened to be working at 3 time in Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. My notes, mulated over time, took a certain structure when I lelivered the Bankim Chandra Centenary Lecture at the itya Akademi in New Delhi. The song Vande lataram emerged as a focal point of interest since the ical appropriation or rejection of that one cultural figures prominently in the public discourse in ical Branch, ional Archives of India. NAL National Archives of India, New Delhi. NMML: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (references are to the archives of private pape PP. Documents: The Paradoxes of Partition: Collection of Documents (ed. S.A.1. Tirmizi, New Delhi, 1998). RR: Rabindra Rachanavalee, vols. I-XXVI,(Visva- Bharati, Calcutta, 1986). T.B. Documents: Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents on Terrorist Activities, 1905-1939, vo I-VI (ed. A. K Samanta, Government of West Bengal, Calcutta, 1995), ince my return to the Centre for Historical Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, discussions with my colleagues helped a great deal in putting this book gether. Dr Y. Chinna Rao helped in collecting some ormation on south India and some ofthe data for the ‘on personalities’ at the end of the book. Such notes, ught, might be useful to readers who are not familiarx Vande Mataram with the historical background. Iwould also like to thank: Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri of Penguin Books India for his meticulous copy-editing, Above all, book I have once again drawn upon indulgence and patience of my wife, Malabikea, INTRODUCTION Ithas often been said that there are some writings which ‘remain within the pages of a book, and then there are some exceptional writings which come out of the pages and enter our life. The song Vande Mataram has been for a long time a piece of writing of that exceptional kind. It was, on the one hand, popularly acclaimed as India’s national song and, on the othe to intense contestation on account of objections rai con the ground ofits imagery and rhetoric and an implicit idolatry. Written sometime in the early 1870s, the original version, a lytical vandana, or hymn, remained unpublished for some years. In 1881, it was included in the novel Anandamath, and in an expanded version the poem was endowed wit int Hindu accoutrement in the context of the novel. Thus Bankim Chandra Chatterjee created a new icon, the motherland. From 1905, the Swadeshi agitation in Bengal converted Vande Mataram into a political slogan. Rabindranath Tagore sang it while leading nationalist protest processions and Aurobindo Ghose hailed Bankimxii Vande Mararam as the rishi’ of nationalism, By the 1920s, the song, widely translated into many Indian languages by Subrahmanya Bharati and others, was acquiring the status of a national anthem. However, inthe 1930s this status was contested ‘because many in India began to object to it on the ground that it was idolatrous. M.A. Jinnah was one of the most vociferous critis ofthe song, In 1937, the Indian National Congress, guided by a committee led by Jawaharlal Nehru, expurgated the parts prominently displaying that characteristic and adopted a part of the text as national song. This was the version adopted by the Constituent Assembly at the instance of Rajendra Prasad in 1951 as the national song, along with Jana gana mana which was designated the national anthem. Through the 1930s and 1940s the Mustim League persisted in their opposition to the song while the Hindu communal enthusiasm in its favour increased proportionately. From 1947, Vande Mataram became a communal war ery in the perception of some Indians while some others perceived it as a legitimate symbol of national cultural identity, thereby leading to conflicts on the status of the song. ‘Thus the political appropriation of Vande Mataram transformed instrumental of making nai scription of different meanings at time, the differences between what instance, Aurobindo’s generation, and to Jawaharlal ime and again. The mn of a piece of literature in the process and communal identities, the points of meant to, for Introduction xii Nehru or M.A. Jinnah or V.D. Savarkar’s generation— these are some of the issues which emerge from the palimpsest of the many meanings inscribed on this cultural artifact, a song, Perhaps one of these issues specially ‘merits attention: the pos the creative author’s autonomy by the political appropriation of his work and the role politicians play in such infringement. Much later than Bankim Chandra, an author who confronted this question was Rabindranath “Tagore. His answer tothe question was a against the violation of authorial autonomy freedom. In a famous essay, ‘The Call strongly articulated the importance ofa refusal to ‘surrender the dignity of intellect into the keeping of others’ for India cannot attain true freedom unless itis recognized that ‘its foundation is in the mind which, with its diverse powers and its confidence in those powers, goes on all the time creating swaraj for itselP. Bankim never faced this question because the political struggle over the song, he created occurred long after his death, Thave cast the story in a retrospective mode. A series of stories were often chronicled in the classical Sanskeit tradition (e.g. in the Kathasaritsagara) whereby a story ‘opens the door into another and a chain of narratives is thus recalled. One ofthe reasons for doing so isto address the reader who is interested in the here and now in the first instance. The past opens its pages when you ask what brought about the situation here and now. Thusxiv Vande Mataram ‘we can interrogate history, not asa given set of facts but from the vantage point of a present that sitself receding, time horizon opening up possibilities of perceiving different perspectives and different memories of the past. Thus our story takes us back step by step to the time when ‘the song was written about 130 years ago. We begin the story by recalling some of the conflicts on communal lines which occurred in the recent past centring around the song (Chapter One). Then we go back to the pre- independence decades to see how the song acquired the status of a national song in the perception of many in India and how, atthe same time, that status was denied by others (Chapter Two). Next we go further back to the carly twentieth century when Vande Mataram became a slogan, a rallying cry, a vow of fealty tothe nationalist ‘cause (Chapter Three). And finally we look at the moment ‘of origin of the poem and try and understand what the poem might have meant in the context of the 1870s and 1880s (Chapter Four). To go back thus to the moment of creation in this manner does not necessarily privilege the meanings read into it in the last decades of the nineteenth century. No such attempt to establish a canonical meaning will be free of cultural assumptions which are likely to be contested from the perspective of a different time horizon or historical conjuncture. That is not to say that everything dissolves into a welter of different possible readings of Vande Mataram. The interesting aspect of + Introduction x¥ the story liesin the continuity and change inthe dialogue between a text and the readers in different times and contexts. My attempt has been to historicize that dialogue. This is worthwhile because Vande Mataram, the poemlsong/slogan/war cry or a anthem, has been a part of popular culture to this day. ‘Whether one considers its various incarnations in the hands of composers ranging from Rabindranath Tagore (in the 1880s) to A.R. Rahman (1997), or one recalls its reported nomination among the two most popular songs in India by 25,000 listeners of the BBC World Service (2002), the song written 130 years ago remains mainstream ccultural property in India. I have tried to answer why and how this happened. ed nationalOne THE COMMUNAL WAR CRY 1n1915, MrM.K. Gandhi, not yet known as the Mahatma, spoke at a meeting in Madras which began ‘Vande Mataram. Addressing the gathering, Gan ‘You have sung that beautiful national song, on hearing for you and me to make good 1 poet has advanced on behalf of his Motherland. About thirty years later, Mahatma Gandhi was ious cry. It was a purely political ery. should never be a chant to insult or offend the Muslims. The change came about largely because by the 1940s the slogan and the song did offend many Muslims—it ‘was indeed used asa rallying cry by Hindus in communal In fact, the slogan had been transformed in the intervening years between 1915 and 1947 into a2 Vande Mataram ‘communal war cry. Gandhi compared that slogan with cry Allah-o-Akbar to which Hindus had objected’. This cry, Gandhi said in his speech ata prayer meeting in Calcutta in 1947, had in India a questionable Ikoften eerified the Hindus because sometimes lims come out of the mosques in anger with that cry on thei ips to belabour the Hindus’. Gandhi of course held that ‘the original (the cry Allah-o-Akbar) had no such association’ and it was ‘a cry than which a greater ‘one had not been produced in the world’ But Gandhi did recognize that the ery was commonly perceived in 1947 in a communat light as much as Vande Mataram was. “The memories of that past continue to constitute our present. For example, on 25 April 1998, the government of Uttar Pradesh issued an order entitled ‘Kalp Yojana’ containing a list of directives to government-aided schools. One ofthe directives required the daily recitation cof Vande Mataramin such schools. Amidst public protests from various quarters, incensed Muslim parents began to withdraw their wards from those schools, reportedly as advised by the Muslim Law Board. The furore in the “Muslim community was brought to the attention of Prime ter A.B. Vajpayee during his visit ro Utear Pradesh in November 1998. He declared that according to his knowledge no such order existed. Around the midnight of 3-4 December, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh reportedly chaired a high-level meeting at which it was decided to withdraw the directives in respect of Vande The Communal War Cry 3 “Mataram, among other matters. He also announced the dismissal ofthe minister of state for basic education on the ground that he had kept the UP C: the dark about the Vande Mataram issue. On 5 December 1998, national newspapers carried the statement of the sacked minister to the effect that there was a factual in the claim that the chief minister and the Cabinet had not been keptinformed.’ A New Delhi that the ‘retractory clarification’ by the government was a damage control exerci ken well after a lot of damage had been done’ Of all the damage that had been caused, it was said, the greatest ‘was to Vande Mataram itself. A song that served as a clarion call to patriots and freedom fighters in the pre- cera had been made the subject of a divisive In the edi daily ‘the controversy over the proposal to make the singing of ‘Vande Mataram and Saraswati Vandana compulsory" took a ‘serious turn when the Maulanas asked the sto withdraw their wards from government began to look as if the chief minister ‘made a scapegoat’ of a junior minister.” ‘The Organiser, an ongan ofthe Rashtriya Swayamsevake Sangh (RSS), defined ‘Nationalist Musl who refuse to adopt a separatist political policy raising issues of personal law, Vande Mataram, hajand madarsa...” and condemned fatwas against compulsory recitation of Vande Mataram.* A.G, Noorani, a noted commentator, rial opinion of a leading Caleut 1° as ‘those4 Vande Mataram haeld on the other hand that there was a violation of the Constitution since Articles 28(1) and 28(3) clearly forbid religious instruction in educational institutions “recognized by the state or receiving aid out of state funds’. Heasked, “How secular is Vande Mataram? and pointed ‘out that ‘attempts at imp decision to break with the the present we are not concerned with the further political repercussions, but what issignificantisthe communalization Of the issue, the political appropriation of a piece of writing dating back to the 1870s, Gyan Pandey points out that participation in the recital of Vande Mataram was regarded in 1947 almost as a test of loyalty to India in circles well beyond the periphery of communal parties. The Aaj of Benaras, ‘perhaps the most important Congress paper in the Hindi bele’, questioned the loyalty of Muslim legislators who ‘absented’ themselves, due to religious sensibility, at the ‘ime Vande Mataram was sung, It was argued that the song had ‘historical legitimacy’ even though the Constituent Assembly had not resolved on its status as a national song. The important thing about this statements that it was made by a paper regarded as Congress sympathizer. In 1954, B.R. Madhok, writing in the Organiser, was of the view that Bankim ‘presented India tothe Indian masses as Bharat Mata, the common Mother of all the Bharatiyas...” The crux of the matter was how to define the Bharatiyata, M.S. Golwalkarin his Bunch of Thoughts mn reflect a conscious ‘The Communal War Cry $ eloquently lauded ‘the inspired poet of freedom, Bankim Chandra’ who in his ‘immortal song Vande Mataram 1 Spurred thousaids of young hearts to cheerfully ascend the gallows’. He went onto single out and quote the passage in Vande Mataram which likens the motherland tothe goddess Durga: ticam-hi Durga, dasha-praharana- 4 legislator in the opposition party in West Bengal moved a resolution demanding that ‘the government should adopt measures to propagate the novel Anandamath which popularized the song Vande Mataram. The ruling alliance of Left partes refused to did, There was much Opposition triumphant the Assembly. This wavering on the part of those committed to ‘secularism’ invited these comments from Partha Chatterjee: Why should there be such hesitation in ‘progressive’ circles about taking a clear position on Anandamath.... lts fame does not rest on its aesthetic merits. It rests almost entirely on the symbolic significance it has ‘come to acquire within a particular political tradition in Bengal. Why then should the Left find itso difficult 10 define its own position with respect to that political6 Vande Mataram has only connived at perpetuating a cultural attitude ‘which sacralizes every item of that heritage, transforms them into icons that must be worshipped froma distance, ism as tantamount to ion. This is scarcely consistent with the ‘revolutionary’ cultural role ofa ‘progressive’ political leadership." ‘These episodes typify a trend India: the elevation or de he politics of post-1947 of Vande Mataram to meet particular purposes. They also bring into focus the ambivalences in political attitudes to Vande Mataram sa symbol. Battle lines are drawn on a somewhat hazy map of collective memories which unite and divide. However, even as politicians battled, the enormous popularity attained by a new rendering of the song by the composer A.R. Rahman showed that even in the late 1990s, about 130 years after its creation, the song was still a living part of the mind of the nation. The political controversies about Vande Mataram in our times, the confrontation between supposedly Hindu and Muslim approaches tothe issue, have along prehistory dating back at least to the late 1930s, juxtapose the Hindu Mahasabha’s stance with that ofthe ‘Muslim League in those times. Both attached immense importance to the song for different reasons. To both | parties the religious significance attributed to it was what mattered most; and both were unhappy with any is interesting to | ‘The Communal War Cry 7 ‘compromise-based solution that the Congress leadership tried to devise from time to time. V.D. Savarkar delivered an important presidential address atthe twentieth session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Nagpur in December 1938. He began with a call to the battle lines ‘to defend and consolidate Hindudom’, and ended with the slogan ‘Vande Mataram’."' In fact, just about a year before Savarkar delivered this address tothe Hindu Mahasabha, the party’s enthusiasm in favour of Vande Mataram was registered by demonstrations in Pune and Bombay. The Chief Secretary of Bombay reported: To protest against the opposition of the Muslim League to the Vande Mataram song, October 26 (1937) was observed at Poona and Bombay as the Vande Mataram Day by the Hindu Mahasabha and the Democratic Swaraj Party, when speeches were ‘made urging the adoption of the song as the national anthem of India. ‘The Democratic Swaraj Party, many of whose members ‘were followers of B.G. Tilak, put up candidates against Congress candidates in the election of 1937. Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee in his personal diary wrote of the cast of mind predominating in the Hindu Mahasabha at that time: ‘The Congress was of course the most organized and. representative political body and depended mainly8 Vande Mataram con the support of the Hindus. It hesitated however to, fight openly for Hindu rights as it would then be dubbed as a communal organisation... Ie represented Hindu electorates and yet it faltered inits sacred duty of defending Hindu rights. In the middle of 1939, Mookerjee was drawn to the ‘Mahasabha, particularly after ‘Savarkar came to Bengal with his new ideology of the Hindu Mahasabha’, To is ideology had a special appeal because he bed at the position of Bengal Hindus? -d as Muslim League domination in the Bengal provincial government between 1937 and 1939. On the whole at this time as Mookeerice saw it, the ‘Hindu Mahasabha was ining influence ‘on account of the League's act ‘The Muslim League held its conference at Nagpur from 4 to 7 January 1939. At that meeting the views expressed by the Mahasabha were contested and one of the resolutions condemned the Central Province government's Vidya Mandir Scheme which encouraged the singing of Vande Mataram in schools."¥ Objection was particularly directed against that practice in Urdu schools. M.A. Jinnah himself foregrounded this charge by mentioning it in the annual session of the League in December 1938 in Patna: ‘Muslim children in government schools are made to sing it, presumably in the Central Provinces where this was indeed a political issue." The Communal War Cry 9 the late 1930s the League generally ‘Mahasabha an attention disproportionate to the strength of the Hindu Mahasabha. This was no error of a fanatic minds League strategy to build up the Mahasabha as the ‘teal” representative of Hindu opinion. Thus Jinnah sai ‘Congress masquerades under the name of nationalism; ‘whereas the Hindu Mahasabha does not mince words." ‘A few months earlier Sir Mohammad Iqbal wrote to Jinnah that in his n both Congress and the Mahasabha were Hindu organizations but it is ‘the Mahasabha whom I regard as the real representative of the masses of the Hindus." This kind of recognition from its chief opponent was possibly a major source of strength to the Mahasabha. ‘Among leaders in the Muslim League who influenced as lesser middle-level leaders, an ized in the late 1930s. Iwas not entirely the creation of innah, though the fact that he lent his authority to it was of crucial ‘The emergence of the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha among the contestants in the elections of 1926; major communal riots in different parts of India in 1924, 1925, and 1926; and the recurrence of lesser incidents of conflict, leading to bloodshed and police between 1922 and 1927 (altogether 112 such incidents are reported by the government) created an ambience of tension in which the song increasingly opinions, as we10 Vande Mataram became one of many causes o Muslim conflict. ‘The Government of India Act of 1935, the reservation of the 1937 elections leading juncture we find Sir Henry Craik, then the head of the home department and member of the viceroy’s executive council, writing to Lord Baden-Powell that the song ‘actually originated as “hymn of hate” ik quotes chapter and verse from the novel Anandamath to point out that ‘the leaders of the Bengal revolutionary societies borrowed many ideas from this novel, and that the ‘special vow" taken by ‘terrorists’ was borrowed from there. Craik’s clinchi argument was: For many yeas the phrase Vande Mataram’ has been iterally the war cry of the terrorists in Bengal, and although the words simply mean ‘Hail Mother" they are commonly shouted as a slogan by terrorists when committing outrages, and by others as an outward sign of sympathy with revolution and of defiance against Government. The song has really no claim to be regarded as a national song... ‘This was in 1937. The next year we find Viceroy Linlithgow instructing the governor of Madras to ‘try every expedient of tact and persuasion’ in the governor’s effort towards “dropping the song which is undoubtedly offensive to ‘Muslim sentiment’. The issue was whether Vande ‘The Communal War Cry 11 ‘Mataram should be sung in the Legislative Assembly— some Muslim MLAs had objected to it. Early in 1939 Linlithgow received a similar report from the governor of Bihar; at the Muslim League Conference in Patna speeches were made against the song In the late 1930s the opinion against Vande Mataram in a section of the Muslim League—a reasonable conjecture will be that is section was in majority— xd into a demand backed by Jinnah. Among his private papers there are some notes hhe made for negotiations with Nehru in 1938. Atthe top of this agenda were three points: (1) the Muslim Mass ) Bande Mataram: must go to must cease; the Congress and the Leagu The substance of the Muslim League stance on the question of Vande Mataram was stated by Jinnah in his letter to Jawaharlal Nehru on 17 March 1938: ‘You desired to know the points in dispute for the purpose of promoting Hindu-Muslim unity.’ By way of a reply to the question Jinnah enclosed with his letter an article in the New Times of Lahore, 1 March 1938, which summed up what ‘Mi cluded the following: ‘the question of National Anthem: ... Pandit demands’ were ani Jawaharlal Nehru cannot be unaware that Muslims all over (India) have refused to accept the Vande Mataram or any expurgated edition of the anti-Muslim12. Vande Mataram song asa binding National Anthem.” On the same lines in April 1938, at the All India Muslim League special session in Calcutta, Jinnah in the presidential speech stated that the Congress ‘endeavoured to impose the Vande Mataram song in the Legislatures’ occasioning ‘much bitterness and opposition’* He went on to say in a more ‘general vein that ‘honorable settlement can only be achieved between equals and unless the two parties learn to respect and fear each other there is no solid ground for any settlemer ‘The tone of the discourse set by Jinnah in these last ‘words was maintained in the various provincial Muslim League conferences in 1938-39. The Sind Provincial Muslim League Conference meeting in Karacl the Vande Mataram on Muslims and others as a ‘Muslims who consider the song not only as idolatrous igin and conception a hymn of hatred to jinnah, at the same conference, in his presidential address said that after forming governments in six provinces, the Congress followed an agenda of aggression. “They started in the Legislatures with a song, cf Vande Mataram,’ he stated, ‘which is not only idolatrous but in its origin and substance a hymn to spread hatred for the Musalmans.’” The Orissa Provincial Muslim League, according to police reports, circulated widely a pamphlet in 1938 exhorting ‘narrow-minded cowards ‘The Communal War Cry 13 and selfish Muhammadans who are attached to the Congress’ to realize the anti-Muslim nature of Vande Mataram which the Congress promotes ‘as the National Anthem in the (Legislative) Council Chamber, schools and public meetings where people of every community and religion meet’ The governor of Bihar reported to the viceroy similar sentiments expressed against the song, by the Bihar Muslim League in January 1939.” In fact, prior to Jinnah’s public pronouncements, provincial leaders like Ahmad Yar Daulatana of Sind and some Muslim legislators in Madras had raised their voice. Daulatana, cor in Punjab from 1921 to 1937, made 4 press statement in August 1937 protesting that the Congress in six provinces decided to ‘insist that the ‘Muslim representatives (in Legislature) must sing Vande Mataram’, He asked: what if Sikandar Hyat Khan, premier of Punjab, had insisted ‘that the non-Muslim members should sing Sir Mohammad Iqbal’s Quami Taranah?*” In September 1937, a Muslim legislator of the Madras Legislative Assembly objected to Vand Mataram being sung, calling it ‘an insult to Isla ‘The Speaker of the House ruled thatthe first stanza was, inoffensive and could be sung. When the controversy arose again the next year, the governor reported to the viceroy that he was considering use of his special powers, to abolish the practi Itis interesting to see that Viceroy Linlithgow advised ‘against the governor's intervention.” Was it because the14 Vande Mataram longer the problem lingered the better, or was it because the viceroy was a constitutionalist opposed to executive intervention? There may not be a decisive answer. However, on a different issue—flying of the Congress flag under the new provincial governments in 1938— his observation, in a confidential letter to the authorities relevant: Nothing, I need not say, could be more satisfactory from our point of view than this problem, presenting as it does an awkward feature from our side, should be resolved by the you may have noticed that Vande Mataram had a ilar fate in Madras. play of party jealousies, and Ie communal identity that came into play in issues such as this was used as a convenient tool by the British Indian not be accurate to say that the question of bureaucracy, but the bureaucracy did not fail to see the advantages to be exp! ited in this situati ‘There were Muslim intellectuals who dissented from the Jinnah line. In Bengal, Rezaul Karim, wrote a critique ‘of Vande Mataram and the novel Anandamath inthe 1930s, Inhis Bankimchandra O Muslim Samaj Bankimchandra and Muslim Society) he argued that the main reason why a concerted move on the issue developed around 1937 was ‘to bring the Muslims out of the freedom ‘The Communal War Cry 18 struggle’. Karim’s approach to the question “from a indu point of view" consists of two points. First, the song ‘gave language to the dumb, courage to the faint-hearted” and this remains Bankim’s lasting gift to his country. Many people have and anti-Mustim, but ‘the part of Bankim that is portrayed as hostile to Muslims is not, I think, a self-por led him a communalist even if one accepts that he was ai literary worth lessened by that: read as literature the confusion of the political arena, then it is killed — robbed of its delight. Bankim should be seen, read and understood in literary terms. We have no other cli him, and even if we do have other claims he is not obliged fulfil them’. Thus, Rezaul Karim’s was an admirably bold assertion of authorial freedom, the autonomy of ig regardless of demands on the author beyond the domain of literatures Karim distrusted the adoption of Bankim as a mascot by one political group or anathema to another set of poli The approach of the national Muslim political sadership was complex. Though their defence of the I use of the song was predictable, there are esting nuances in their reactions, suggesting tensions within the ideal of seamless unanimity. Ds Syed Mahmud, minister of education in the Congress provincial creative wi16 Vande Mataram government of Bihar, thought that there was ‘nothing objectionable in the first two stanzas of the song’, and he announced in the Bihar Assembly that singing even these two stanzas was not obligatory.” Khan Mohammad Ismail, member of Legislative Council of Bihar and a Congress member from 1919, felt compelled to observe that ‘the singing of Vande Mataram ... is being misinterpreted. The matter requires further thinking over’ He thought that the Muslim community was alienated by the Congress governments in provinces which ‘on the strength of the majority in Legislature (had been) without least care to maintain friendly ms’ between the two communities. The hist KM. Ashraf observed in 1938 that ‘there is a g ‘complaint that the National flag song as now sung is not very intelligible to many a Muslim Congressmen’. (He also noted: ‘We have received numerous complaints that prominent members of the Hindu Mahasabha ‘occupy responsible postions in the Congress organisatio Congress leader Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Cabinet minister in the UP government, pointed out that for years the song was sung at the beginni and Muslims, including Jinnah, began to object: the late 1930s. In a press release he mentioned that ‘Mr. Jinnah left the Congress, not because he thought that ‘Vande Mataram was an anti-Islamic song’ but because he had found the idea of swaraj unacceptable." Thus Kidwai pointed to the possibility that making an issue of Congress sessions, ‘The Communal War Cry 17 of Vande Mataram was only a subterfuge, which concealed other motives. ‘Muslim leaders who were with the Congress, or at least distant from the League, held diverse views on the question of adopting the song as the national anthem. Some Muslim politicians, while not actively opposed to the song, confessed to being confused. Thus an obscure Muslim Congress member writes from Madras to Rajendra Prasad privately in 1939: ‘Vande Mataram is a Bengali word. The reactionary ‘groups say that the meaning for this word is, we adore 10 (sic) the Goddess of the Earth. Is it right? May 1 please know how Vande Mataram became a National slogan?....1sthe picture Bharata Matha with numberless hands and wings a religious symbol or pé Tosum up, between 1937 and 1939 the controversy over, the song intensified, parallel with the communal tension. ‘The increasingly adverse Muslim response to the propagation of the song was not wholly the creation of Jinnah, though he played a crucial role in the political appropriation of the issue by the Muslim League. The British Indian bureaucracy was, as one would expect, not unhappy with this development. ‘The nationalist “Muslim position on the question was rather defensive, while the communalist cast of mind, both Hindu and ‘Muslim, blew up the issue by highlighting the religious elements in the imagery and symbolism in the song.18 Vande Matarams Finally, what was the impact of these controversies on the Indian National Congress? ‘The communalization of a national cultural symbol such as Vande Mataram was not an issue the Congress could dodge. This was so for two reasons. First, the Congress had to clarify its position and act accordingly since elected Congress governments were in power in not less than six provinces. Second, the issue had to be confronted in the Muslim Mass Contact Programme launched by the Congress. While the programme was adjudged to be a massive failure eventually, in 1937 League leaders apprehended in it a serious the Muslim League. For instance, Jinnah said in 1937, “We hear of mass contact. For what? To get hold of tho: ‘who will be their creatures... to sing Vande Mataram. Fazlul Haq went further and said in 1938 that ‘some of four men ... betrayed the Muslim cause’."® The Mass Contact Programme also posed a challenge to the Congress leaders: how to satisfy Muslim public opinion con controversial questions, including the status of Vande Mataram. Hence a hesitant positioning of the song as a national anthem and occasional back-pedalling. That is the story in the next chapter: the disputed canonization of Vande Mataram as the national anthem, The events since 1937 recounted in this chapter can be understood in the light of what happened in the earlier decades. Two NATIONAL ANTHEM? By the 1920s Vande Mataram was possibly the most the song ‘grew in stature towards acquiring the status of ‘national anthem’, it also became a subject of dispute. On the one hand, it was undoubtedly historically associated with the national movement in many parts of India. We have session of the widely known national song in India. But, w! evidence that it was sung in the Calcut Indian National Congress in 1896—the song was xendered by Rabindranath Tagore and the music was composed by him.’ Its translation by the great Tamil poet Subrahmanya Bharati came 01 translations oft also became a Kannada (1897), Gujarati (1901), Hindi (1906), Telugu (1907), Tamil (1908), and Malayalam (1909)2 The song ‘was heard in public meetings and processions in many places across India. The swadeshi agitators protest the partition of Bengal in 1905 sang its Gandhi says his heart was touched when he first heard it when he was20. Vande Mataram just ‘a lad’? And according to the Hindi it was sung by processionists in the Madras province in 1907.* On the other hand, the question was raised whether it could legitimately claim to be the national anthem. Some found its imagery and rhetoric unacceptable on account of its ‘idolatrous’ character. Some others apprehended that it in tone, which might make the song a mn. Controversy over the status of the s of exclusion in an era when a new identity consciousness was developing in religious communities. The political appropriation of the song made it a divisive issue, The song that also divided. This was not only true of the period, as we have seen, but evei except that it did not assume the that the Muslim League imparted to itin the late thities In the first three decades ofthe twentieth century the song was catapulted to immense popularity. Prior to that it was rarely sung, A friend of Bankim Chandra writes in his memoirs that while Bankim was jovel Anandamath, an enthusiastic friend of his, another Bengali deputy magistrate, set Vande Mataram to tune in raga Malhar, the song. was: rendered by him in Bankim’s drawing roo: ‘We also have evidence ofa recital of the song. in 1882 at a literary meeting in Bankim’s presence.* But no musical score of the song was available tll 1885, ie. three years after the publication of the song in Anandamath. This song was inevitabl National Anthem? 21 score of the music (almost certainly composed by Rabindranath) based on Desh ragini (Kawali beat), was n by Pratibha Sundari of the Tagore family and printed in a magazine published by the Tagores.’ That Bankim preferred this tune is evident from the fact that he included the score in an appendix to the third edition of Anandamath (1886). Rabindranath Tagore writes in 1937 in a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru: “The privilege of originally setting, its (Vande Mataram’s) first stanza to the tune was mine when the author was still alive and I was the first person to sing it before a gathering of the Calcutta Congress." (Rethaps the only other national song with such a distinguished composer of music was that of Austria, the Emperor Hymn, for which music was composed by Haydn in 1797,) Tagore’s recital in the presence of Bankim must have happened before 1894 (Bankim died in 1894) and the Congress session Tagore mentions was that of 1896, ‘The score by Tagore, published by Visva-Bharati in the series of musical scores by Tagore, is in Desh ragini? All this suggests the appreciation the poem received in a limited circle of connoisseurs and enthusiasts. The song attained mass popularity only since 1905. The swadeshi movement in reaction tothe partition of Bengal by Viceroy Lord Curzon adopted ass theme song Vande ‘Mataram. A society called Vande Mataram Sampradaya ‘was set up in October 1905 along with a like-minded society, Swadesh Sevak Sampradaya which consisted of22 Vande Mataram itinerant singers.” The swadeshi leaders gave immense importance to national songs as a means of propagating their cause and particularly memorable was the procession led by Rabindranath Tagore on Rakshabandhan day in ‘October 1905, His nephew Abanindranath Tagore, the leading light of the Bengal School of Painters, has left in his memoirs a pen-picture of that Vande Mataram procession with Rabindranath as the lead singer." Tagore also used Vande Mataram as. refrain, almost as slogan, in some of his own songs in 1905." Needless to say, Tagore’s own swadeshi songs ofthis period—including ‘Amar sonar bangla which became the national song of Bangladesh—were very important in moulding nationalist imagination. But he also played a crucial role in popularizing the song and the cry Vande Mataram in the swadeshi agitation of 1905-08, ‘The emotional impact produced by the song in Bengal elevated it above the common run of national songs and here we have to take notice of a new technology. In 1906, the gramophone company Pathephone’s catalogue of cylinder and disk records not only claimed a technical improvement upon the earlier Edison-type records, but also boasted of their record of Vande Mataram. Pathephone’s Bengali catalogue proudly proclaimed: ‘The new technique of recording songs has been so successful that you feel that you are sitting next to the singer. Test that yourself... Vande Mataram! The glory of Bengal, the immortal Bankim Chandra’s National Anthem? 23 moving national song. And no less than Rabi-babu (Rabindranath Tagore) is the sin ‘According to the son of H, Bose, the Calcutta collaborator with Pathephone, the police had searched his shop and destroyed this record."* Only one of the pieces survived and from this copies were made in 1966 atthe initiative of Indira Gandhi. Now the copies are commercially available. ‘Another event which helped spread the song was the recital ofthe song in the Indian National Congress session in Benaras in 1905. The president of the Congress G.K. Gokhale requested a Bengali lady Saraladevi Chowdhurani to.sing Vande Mataram. She was Rabindranath Tagore’s niece and the wife of Rambhuj Datta Chowdhury of Lahore, the editor of a nationalist Urdu weekly. She writes in her autobiography: Some time after my marriage, I was present at the Benaras Congress and sat among the ladies in the upper balcony ofthe hall... Unexpectedly there was ‘a request from the house that I should be asked to sing the song Vande Mataram.... Shortly before that in some places in Bengal the song was banned in ‘public meetings by order of magistrates. Gokhale was ‘a cautious man... He sent me a litte chit asking me to sing but also to abbreviate the song for want 0 time. [could not guess what he wanted to be omiteed so I skipped verses in the middle and came part where I put ‘30 crores’ in place of ‘7 crores24 Vande Mataram This last statement refers to the fact that Saraladevi amended Bankim’s original version. In the original version seven crore people are mentioned because Bankim had used the then available census of Bengal of 1872. When sang the song the recent census had reported population of thirty crore in India and therefore she replaced ‘sapta-koti’ with ‘tringsha-kot? (A crore or a gathering gave it great In fact it was already prominent enough to draw the attention of a commentator in South Africa: “The song, it is said, has proved so popular that it has come to be our National Anthem. ...Just as we worship cour mother, so is this song a passionate prayer to India,” The commentator was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Indian Opinion, 2 December 1905.” In Allahabad, Govind Ballabh Pant, in his teens, copied the song in his students’ exercise book of 1906-07 and wrote a Kumaoni song on that model; this diary, the first in his life, has survived among the private papers of Pant. The elevation of Vande Mataram to such a status notwithstanding, opposition to the song can be discerned in certain attitudes even in the early decades of the century. The records of the intelligence department of the police throw light on this occasionally. As eazly as 1906-07, in the early days of the swadeshi agitation we National Anthem? 25 hhave evidence of this. For example, in November 1906, in the Barisal district of East Bengal there were disturbances ‘due to some Hindu processionists shouting, ‘Vande Mataram as they passed a Muhammadan mosque, in spite of the protests of the Muhammadans at prayer in the mosque’."* And in a more general vein it was reported that ‘the temper of the Muhammadans has been affected by the pressure exerted upon them’ and the ‘continuance of the boycott in mofussil hats.’ The boycott referred to is, of course, the boycott of foreign goods, specially Manchester cloth, organized by the swadeshi agitators. In 1907, the East Bengal government noted the abstention of Muhammadans from such activities and theie absence in Congress meetings.” This might have been a factor in the communal conflicts in the district of Mymensingh and a consequent panic in other districts? In the same year, an anonymous Bengali pamphlet, printed on lurid red paper, began to circulate among Muslims exhorting them: ‘Not a single Muhammadan should join the perverted Swadeshi agitation of the Hindus.... Oh Muhammadans, sing not Bande Mataram!’ This so-called ‘red pamphlet’ attracted some attention because, on being reported in English newspapers, a question was asked of the secretary of state for india on 16 July 1907 in the House of Commons: ‘was the pamphlet the principal cause of the communal discurbances in early 19072 The answer was, probably rightly, in the negative.”26 Vande Mataram The police reported that in Dhaka district "Muhammadans were provoked into attacking’ the swadeshi volunteers who stood in front of the shops ‘singing national songs and shouting Vande Mataram, It may be mentioned that this cry is now reported to be generally resented by Muhammadans when addressed to them’. The ‘limited appeal of the Stwadeshi ideas? among the Muslims in the first decade of the century has been explained partly in terms of ‘anti ready at work in Bengali Muslim rural society the pro-partition atitude of the educated Muslims ‘on account of ‘the declared policy of the East Bengal government to prefer Muhammadans to Hindus in government services’. In the first rwo decades of the ‘swentieth century we have occasional reports of Muslim ‘opposition to Vande Mataram. in the 1920s what is new is a critique of Bankim and his works in ideological terms from the Muslim point of view. ‘The greatest proponents of elevating Vande Mataram the status of a national song were the biplabis or tant nationalists. And exclusion of Muslims was such 4 widespread practice among biplabis that one can almost identify that as their pris objectives of the Anusilan Samiti the question was discusseds this secret document was seized by the police and it throws light on the attitude of militant nationalists. ‘The question is posed: ‘Why Muslims are not admitted (to the samiti)?” The answer was that the vows taken at indu revivalism In a tract on the National Anthem? 27 the time of admission of members were sacred to the Hindus, but not to the Muslims. This appears to be a trivial answer, for the real reason seems to be prejudice. ‘The biplabi tract also added, ‘It cannot be said that all Mausalmans are individually antagonistic (to the militant nationalists), even among Musalmans there are many who are honest and swadeshi’ but collectively they were supposed by the biplabis to be antagonistic." These and other passages demonstrate a prejudice in biplabs against Muslims and such prejudice could not have served to endear their mantra of Vande Mataram to the Mustims. On occasions there were appeals to Muslim sentiments in biplabi writings. In June 1907, Sandhya, a magazine founded by Aurobindo Ghose had this to say: ‘We want Swaraj for all the sons of Mother India that there are ... And for this reason, we cannot promote the interests of the Hindus at the cost of those of the ‘Musalmans, or the interest of the Musalmans at the cost of those of the Hindus. What we want is that Hindus and Muslims both should bring about this Swaraj in unison and concert ‘The journal jugantar editorialized in November 1907 that hindrance in the freedom struggle isthe rulers’ ‘policy of dividing Hindus and Musalmans, We, both these peoples, ought to know that... both Hindus and Mnsalmans are dependent. The sorrows of both ate equal .... we28 Vande Mataran ‘ought no longer to quarrel’ These writings came in the wake of communal riots in 1907 in East Bengal. However, the systematic exclusion of Muslims from membership of the Anusilan Samiti, the Jugantar group, etc, left its mark on the nat Muslim mind. And the nature of some verses in Vande Mataram also deterred ‘many Muslims from supporting such militant nationalist groups. One of the founders of the Communist Party of India, Muzaffar Ahmed, writes in his autobiography that Bankim’s novel Anandamath was ‘full of communal hatred from beginning to end’ while the song Vande ‘Mataram was ‘unacceptable toa Muslim boy, monotheist (by upbri is thus evident that Vande Mataram was already a cause of some resentment in a section of the Muslim ‘community in the early years of the swadeshi movement, 1905-1908. However, the resentment was mainly on account of the disturbance in the bazaars or the vicinity of mosques, and in a general way a lack of sympathy for the anti-partition agitators, From the second decade of the century the ‘idolatrous’ nature of the song, the like me’2” icism from some Muslims prominent in the public sphere. This critique of the song crystallized in “Muslim periodicals in the 1920s. According to an opinion in the Bengali journal Islam Darshan published in 1920, “The only and supreme Allah’s kalima Allah-o-Akbar when combined with the Hindus’ anthem to mother India, National Anthem? 29 ‘Vande Mataram’ was found objectionable—it was ‘pushing the Maslims towards idolatry (kaw/ journal, Shariat-e-Islam, stated in 1928: ‘We must remind you of the shariat and th forbidden for the Mus! ‘Muslim middle-class opinion became highly Bankim—and there were indeed in his fictional writings a great deal that was objectionable. The opinion in the Muslim press was that Bankim ‘was a Musi the innermost core? (191 nating Vande Mataram is of the evaluation of Bankim in Bengali Mi journals naturally influenced the attitude to his most celebrated creation, Vande Mataram. With the enactment of the Government of India Act of 1935 the battle lines between the supporters of the ‘Muslim League and the Congress began to be drawn. The electoral battle between the political parties was itself catalytic agent in bringing this about. The Congress programme of ‘Muslim Mass Contact’ was also a factor in that it seemed to be a chailenge to the League’s monopoly. “We talk of approaching the Muslim masses,” Nehru said in April 1937 in a press statement. “That is no new programme for us although the stress may be new... It must be remembered that the Congress has always had30. Vande Mataram lange number of Mi ts fold... Some of our most eminent national leaders have been and are Muslims. But itis true thar the Muslim masses have been largely neglected by us in recent years. We want to correct that ‘omission and carry the message of the Congress to them. Why do others object to accompanied by the assurance that ‘the Congress, being a political organization, does not concern itself with religion or connected matters’. ie to the League inherent Programme, conceived mai by Nehru, hardened attitudes towards isues debated then. One ofthese issues was the status of Vande Mataram. ‘Amongst the papers of the AIC we have the report of| the famous historian K.M. Ashraf, then a young Congress i, the secretary of the UP Provincial Congress Committee. In view of the ‘general complaint’ from Muslim Congressmen, the report stated that ‘we should appointa Committee to select a number of National Songs and Flag Songs acceptable and intelligible to both Hindus and Muslims”. This opinion of Ashrafis probably a reaction to an attitude prevailing widely in the Muslim community. Nehru writes to Subhas Chandra Bose in October 1937 about ‘the present ‘outcry against Vande Mataram’s Nehru though this was ‘toa large extenta manufactured one by the communalists. At the same time there does seem some substance in it and people who were communalisticaly inclined have National Anthem? 31 been affected by it. Whatever we do cannot be to pander tocommunalist feeling but to meet real grievances where they exist’. An astute leader ofa province with a substantial ‘Muslim population, Rajendra Prasad, sent a warning, signal to Vallabhbhai Patel: “The Vande Mataram song is objected to by some Musalmans on the ground the invocation to Hindu Goddess’ and that tis tantamount to ‘idol worship which Musalmans can never agree to, While there are Musalmans who do not look upon the song in this light there sno doubta feeling among them not to accept it as National Song... ‘We have already seen in the previous chapter the nature of the ‘outcry’ on the issue of Vande Mataram, The AICC was aware of the issue and Subhas Chandra Bose was up in arms in defence of Vande Mataram. He ‘wrote to Rabindranath Tagore on 16 October 1937 objecting to an essay published in Visua-Bharati News and written by Krishna Kripalani (a person known to be close to Tagore, having married into the Tagore family). A considerable intellectual in his own right, Krishna Kripalani had made some critical remarks about the sectarian nature of the song. Subhas Bose requested of ‘Tagore a clarification; were the views of Kripalani ‘the opinion of Visva-Bharati’? Bose wrote to Tagore: While writing to you, I also plan to write to Jawaharlal... Discussions are going on in Congress circles on the subject of Vande Mataram. On 26 October (1937) Congress Working Committe at their32 Vande Mataram meeting in Calcutta will address the issue. Perhaps the Committee will decide to discard the song, I do not know your opinion on this matter and that is why I write to you. In Bengal and among Hindus outside of Bengal great excitement has been caused and [write to you now because many friends advised me to do so. Subhas Bose himself was exercised enough to lobby with others like Ramanand Chattopadhyay, the eminent editor of Modern Review and a friend to Mahatma Gandhi. Bose’s request to both Tagore and Ramananda was that they should write to Gandhi and Nehru on the issue. In the meanwhile, Nehru had decided to consult Rabindranath Tagore. Nehru had only recently read the novel Anandamath. Only six days before the Working Committee meeting, Nehru writes on 20 October 1937: have managed to get an English tra Anandamath and Lam reading background ofthe song. It does sem that this background is likely to irvitate the Muslims.”” Nehru also found the letter. Nehru, in his uncertainty, had decided to go to the widely acknowledged oracle. He answered Subhas Bose that he would ‘discuss the Vande Mataram song, with Dr Tagore’ Upon being consulted Rabindranath Tagore’s advice was threefold. While the first two stanzas were entirely National Anthom? 33 acceptable to Rabindranath, he could not sympathize with the sentiments in the latter stanzas. In a letter to Nehru, Tagore wrote: ‘Tome the spirit of tenderness and devotion expressed in its first portion, the emphasis it gave to beautiful and beneficent aspects of our motherland made a special appeal, so much so that [found no difficulty in dissociating it from the rest of the poem and from those portions of the book of which it s a part, with all the sentiments of which, brought up as I was in the monotheistic ideals of my father, I could have no sympathy.” Tagore also recalled the historical associations of the song with the nationalist movement. He mentioned that he ‘was the first person to sing it before a gathering of the Caleutta Congress’, presumably the session of 1896. He also recalled how ‘at the poignant period of our strenuous struggle for asserting the people's will against the decree of separation’, i.e. the partition of Bengal in 1905, Vande Mataram ‘caught on asa national anthem’ He also remembered how Vande Mataram became a national slogan associated with ‘the stupendous sacrifices of the best of our youths’. Thirdly, Tagore was of the view that although the association of the poem with the novel Anardamath was accidental, in the context of the novel the song was liable to hurt Muslim sentiments, in particular if one takes the song as a whole. A complex34 Vande Mataram National Anthem? 35 sentence, unlike Tagore's usual style, expressed this thought: fF to order. They come when genius wills it, and even when they come they have to seck the suffrage of the people.” The recognition of a national anthem must wait such a song has proved its worth by its excellence and popularity and the sentiment that gathers around it’. ‘These passages were omitted. In fact, the Working Committee, against the grain of those statements, resolved that ‘those who are so inclined are invited to L 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 Moslem susceptibilities, but a national song, though derived from it, consist only of the first two stanzas of the original poem, need not remind us every time of the whole of it, much less ofthe story with which it was accidentally th has spontaneously come to __ send their compositions to the Sub-commit ‘setup by the Congress Working Commitee, for ot associated. It has acquired a separate individuality FE gress Working Committe, for the selection of such compositions as national songs* The main body and an inspiring significance of its own in which I rie ° ae a ee ene of the long and wordy resolution of the Working cee Committee said: It was in many ways a remarkable letter. Tagore differentiates between the first two stanzas of the poem and the res, between its meaning by itself and its meaning in the context in which it was placed in the novel ‘Anardamath, and between the significance that a piece of writing may acquire in peor original context. The first and simplest of these ideas was readily accepted by the Congcess Working Committee in October 1937. ‘The resolution that was drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru has survived in the AICC papers and it contains some parts which were discarded by the Committee. The I draft included a passage which shows seen in political documents: ‘It is obvious that great songs and anthems cannot be produced ‘Working Committee feel that past associations, with. their long record of suffering for the cause, as well as, popular usage, have made the first two stanzas of this song living and inseparable part of our national ‘movement and as such they must command our affection and respect. There is nothing in these stanzas to which anyone can take exception. The other stanzas of the song are little known and hardly ever sung. They contain certain all ions and a religious ideology which may not be in keeping with the ideology of other religious groups in In ‘The Committee recognise the. validity of the objection raised by Muslim friends to cééain parts ofthe song, While the Committee have taken note of such objection in So far as it has intrinsic value, the36 Vande Matarams Committee wish to point out that the modern evolution of the use of the song as part of national fe is of infinitely er in a historical novel before the national movement had taken shape. Taking all things into consideration therefore the Committee recommend that wherever the Bande Mataram is sung at national gatherings only the first two stanzas should be sung, with perfect freedom to the organisers to sing any other song of an unobjectionable character, in addition to, or in the place of, the Bande Mataram song. importance than its setting ‘The banality of the Working Committee's ideas was only | redeemed by its prefatory statement which was partly | drafted in his own hand by Nehru: “The words Vande Mataram became a slogan of power which inspired our people, and a greeting which ever reminds us of our struggl Gradually the use ofthe first two stanzas of the song, spread (from Bengal) to other provinces and a certain national significance began to attach to them. The test of the song is very seldom used and is even now known by few persons. These two stanzas describe in tender language the beauty of the motherland and the abundance of her gifts.... The song was never | sung as a challenge to any group ot community in India and was never considered as such or as offending the sentiments of any community.... At no time, | National Anthem? 37 however, was this song, or any other song, formally adopted by the Congress as the National Anthem of India. But popular usage gave ita special and national importance. Thus, the outcome of these debates in the Congress was that it accepted the first ewo stanzas of Vande Mataram as itto be sung, be substituted with ‘any other song of an uno! character’. The subcommittee formed to consi substitutes—from out of compositions submitted for sclection—consisted of Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal ‘Nehru, Subhas Bose, and Narendra Dev, with a further proviso that the committee would take the advice of Rabindranath Tagore. Shades of bureaucracy are mote inevidence than the sensibilities which literary creations demand. As far as Nehru is concerned, this rather bureaucratic answer to the issue was probably unsatisfactory. He wrote about this to the great Urdu poet Ali Sardar Jafri ‘reat songs and anthems cannot be made to order. requires a genius for the purpose." Nehru also showed his sense of the historical: ‘...thirty years ago this song and this ery became a criminal offence and it developed land the ideas it contains are also out of keeping with38 Vande Mararam modern notions of nationalism and progress’. Thus Nehru dithered. As for Subhas Bose the compromise offered by the Working Committee could scarcely be satisfactory. Rabindranath Tagore suffered a temporary eclipse of his iconic status in Bengal. His opinion, that only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram were universally acceptable, was published in the newspapers—pethaps in defence of the Congress Committee's decision. It was ‘an unpopular stance in Bengal. He wrote bitterly to the poet Buddhadeb Bose: ‘Since I have been born in Bengal the typhoon of name-callingiislike the accustomed breeze | cof my homeland to me. I have lodged no complaint or protest, Those days are over when I was sensitive to all thar..." Even Tagore’s closest friend, Ramananda Chatterjee, differed sharply from him. A Brahmo by faith, like Tagore, Ramananda was certainly a monotheist and against idolatry. But he regarded Vande Mataram as neither idolatrous nor anti-Muslim and editorialized in his Modern Review on those lines. Nehru spoke in Calcutta on 30 October 1937 to refute allegations in ‘some of the newspapers (which published) big he expressing resentment at the Working Committee's statement’ on Vande Mataram. He stated that the ‘Working Committee’s statement reconsidered the song, as it did ‘not because objection was taken to it by some (ie. the League leaders)—the Congres is strong enough to fight that objection—but because having carefully ‘examined it we felt that in regard to one or two matters, National Anthem? 39 legitimate objections might be taken .... There are certain swords in it (the song) which certainly can be taken objection to by some’. The resolution, he said, was a recognition of the fact that after the first two stanzas ‘in the rest of the song there is ideology, imagery, allegory, cc. which people of various groups cannot put up with’, “The Congress resolution, widely perceived as a concession, did not satisfy those who objected to the song. In March 1938, a few months after the Congress resolution was d, Jinnah wrote to Nehru reiterating the : ‘Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru cannot be ‘unaware that Muslims all over have refused to accept the Vande Mataram or any expurgated edition of the ‘anti-Muslim song as a binding National Anthes the previous chapter we have seen instances of conflict thus caused between the Congress insisting on their October 1937 resolution and the League leaders insisting ‘on the deletion of Vande Mataram in toto. In response to this situation Gandhi placed before the Working Committee at its meeting in Wardha, a draft statement which was cieculated in January 1939 to ‘wrote on top of his draft—‘Strictly confidential. Not for publication.’ The portion of the draft by Gandhi relating to Vande Mataram was as follows:**40 Vande Mataram Aso the singing of the long established national song, ‘Vande Mataram, the Congress, anticipating objections, has retained as national song only those stanzas to which no possible objection could be taken on religious or other grounds. But except at purely Congress gatherings it should be left open to individuals ‘whether they will stand up when the: In the present state of things, in local Board and Assembly meetings which their members (are) obliged to attend the singing of Vande Mataram should be discontinued.” ‘Thus a concession was made to ‘anticipated’ objections. Actually, objections had already been clearly made by Jinnah and other League leaders in no uncertain terms so that the statement about Congress anticipating them scems alittle difficultto understand. What is abundantly clears that the Mahatma was unwilling to allow the great song to be a pawn in politics. An alternative explanation ly be that he was bent on making compromises 1e extent of advising legislature assemblies and local boards to refrain from using the song. The first of these two hypotheses seems to be correct. In July 1939 Gandhi published an essay about this in his Harijan ‘where he recalled that ‘Vande Mataram was a powerful battle-cry’ and that he himself as a lad’ was enthralled by the song, Bat, he went on to say: Ienever occurred to me that it was a Hindu song or ‘meant only for Hindus. Unfortunately now we have National Anthem? 41 fallen on evil days. All that was pure gold has become base metal today. In such times itis wisdom not to market pure gold and let it be sold as base metal. I would not risk a single quarrel over singing Vande Mataram at a mixed gathering. It will never suffer from disuse. Its enthroned in the hearts of millions.” ‘There were some among Gandhi's colleagues who seem to have looked upon the position he had taken in 1939 as a concession to League pressure. C. Rajagopalachari ‘wrote from Madras that ‘these concessions will not save the situation, We may act up to this formula ourselves, but if we set them forth as concessions th nly become points for further agitation and will make no gain for peace. On the other hand, the concessions may give rise to a weakening of Hindu psychology and produce depression all around’. But he concluded saying ‘I am, however, in entire agreement’ with the new formula, G.B. Pant wrote from Lucknow that there ‘was ‘no doubt that Vande Mataram has taken deep roots and will continue to hold the field’; but he too, acceded to the new prescription, and added that ‘this is alright so far as it goes’. The final outcome was summed up by Nehru in a letter to G.B. Pant on 16 January 1939: ‘In regard to the flag and the Vande Mataram, the Working, ‘Committee was of opinion that we should avoid making, this a matter of controversy as far as possible...."* In accordance with this policy of the Congress, the Congress ministry in Bihar and the Central Provinces42 Vande Mataram declared that singing Vande Mataram was not obligatory. In February 1939, the minister of education in Bihar, Dr Syed Mahmud, declared in the Assembly that ‘in deference to the Muslim opposition’, the government of Bilhar issued instructions that the song should not be made obligatory, even though the government was of opinion that the first two stanzas were unobjectionable." In Dr Rajendra Prasad’s mn of documents one can see reflections of the debate in the Central Provinces. The Muslim League appointed a committee, known as the Pirpur Committe, to report on the compulsion allegedly used to make Muslim children participate in singing ‘Vande Mataram in government and municipal schools, While this committee supported these that its instructions regarding the song were ‘permissive and not mandatory’ and thatin no case compulsion was League and the Congress traded charges against each other. In this instance too the League charged the Congress government in Bihar of forcibly introducing ‘Vande Mataram inthe district school, which, the League In December 1939, the ‘Congress ministry in the Central Provinces, led by Ravi Shankar Shukla, entered into an agreement with Liagat ‘Ali Khan, the secretary of the All India Muslim League. ‘One ofthe clauses ofthe agreement was that government- claimed, was a cause of the National Anthem? 43 aided schools or local government bodies would not be ‘allowed to use any compulsion’ in respect ofthe recital of Vande Mataram.** that in 1945 MAR. Jayakar’s perception was that ‘vital differences between the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha have diminished? This eter, among the papers of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, suggests a trend among a section of Congress members. There ‘was on occasions in the past an ambivalence in the pronouncements of the Congress leaders. On the Vande ‘Mataram question for instance there were some who clearly preferred to play it down, while others were forchrightly in favour ofthe songs thats how interpretations ‘were made of the reports that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad concluded their presidential addresses atthe Congress in 1931 and 1934 with Vande Mataram, while Nehru did notin 1929 and 1936. Jinnab’s complaint in 1937—that ‘at times itis very difficult to say who are Congress leaders'and who are Mahasabha leaders, for the line of demarcation between the two with regard to large number of them is very thin indeed’"—was however an exaggeration, though it was applicable to some individuals in the Congress at that time. On 24 January 1950, the last day ofthe last session of the Constituent Assembly, the president of the Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad, gave 2 decision from the Chair. Rabindranath Tagore's Jana gana mana would be the national anthem and ‘the song “Vande-mataram”44° Vande Mataram National Anthem? 45 ‘which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian given to Vande Mataram, i freedom, shall be honoured equally with “Jana-gana- loyalty of many Indians. This ‘mana” and shall have equal status with i¢.* This was a ‘motion from te Chair and thus not debated upon or put to vote, unlike the numerous resolutions debated and voted upon in the process of making the Constitution of jued to command the cry and a vow of fealty to the logan. How this happened in the ‘the Republic, thas been a matter of speculation whether carly years ofthe twentieth century isthe question we address this procedure was adopted because there was difference in the next chapter, going back in time to an earlier of opinion within the Congress and the Constituent ‘epoch when Vande Mataram first emerged as a slogan. Assembly about the selection of the national anthem. However, it is on record that both songs were sung at the end of the deliberations of the Assembly on the same day, 24 January 1950. ‘To sum up, we have two parallel stories. On the one ‘of composers and singers, and upheld ist leaders asthe fitting anthem for the ther hand, there were questions about its claims to being considered the national anthem, doubts about its credentials as a unifying symbol, hesitations ‘onaccount of opposition to it on the ground that it was, idolatrous, and efforts to grope towards a compromise by expurgating the poem or making participation in its public presentations optional or non-obligatory. However, despite these contestations on the status to beThree SLOGAN From 1905 the song Vande Mataram became a slogan for the nationalists. Many nationalist revolutionaries themselves preferred to cal it their ‘mantra’. Aurobindo Ghose writes in 1907 that it was a mantra of a new ‘religion of patriotism’ given to the nation by ‘Rishi? Bankim Chandra, It was thirty-two years ago that Bankim wrote his reat song and few listened; but in a sudden moment of awakening from long delusions, the people of Bengal looked round for the truth and in a fated ‘moment somebody sang Vande Mataramt. The mantra had been given and in a single day a whole people had been converted to the religion of patriotism. The ‘Mother had revealed herself. Aurobindo was not the first person to popularize the song, but he was the first to discern a peculiar significance in the religious semiotics of the song. Slogan 47 Among the Rishis ... we must include the name of the man who gave us the reviving mantra which is ‘creating a new India, the mantra Vande Mataram cau He, first of our great publicists, understood the hhollowness and inutlity of the method of political agitation which prevailed at that time... The Mother of his vision held trenchant steel in her twice-seventy million hands and not the bow! of the mendicant. It ‘was the gospel of fearless strength and force which he preached under veil and in imagesin Anandamath... ‘This almost suggests that Bankim was a precursor of the extremists, as opposed to the moderates, in the nationalist movement. Whether this was so is doubtful. But the important point was that Aurobindo correctly BF tothe role the song played: ‘The bare intellectual idea | of the motherland is notin itself a great driving force’, bbutthe vision that inspired people was something more— ‘a form of beauty that can dominate the mind and seize the heart’? Aurobindo helped popularize the song through the | journal he edited, Bandemataram, which was not only the organ of the revolutionary Jugantar Party but alsoa very popular broadsheet read by many who were not part of the movement. Among the exhibits put up by | the Prosecution in Aurobindo’s trial, we have numerous citations of Bankim in the journal.‘ Similarly, the other periodical Aurobindo started, Sandhya, upl readers Vande Mataram as the national anthem and the48 Vande Mataram ee purposes as a means of asserting national unity. On that day Vande Mataram was a slogan shouted in public by processionists, until in some areas in Bengal che slogan was banned? ‘An ICS officer, H.C. Salkeld, was appointed as a ‘magistrate on special duty to research the revolutionary associations and his report was kept in the secret files for years (till 1995) because he drew upon reports of secret informers or spies. He reproduces documents which show that the vow taken by members of the Anusilan Samiti and the accompanying ritual were ‘taken bodily from the Anandamath of Bankim Chandra Chatarj’ {sic)® Still another report was prepared in 1917 by J.E. ‘Armstrong, a police officer on special duty, to investigate :nt nationalist operations. Armstrong observes that ere is scarcely ever a revolutionary document that is not headed with Om Bandemataram’." He cites J. Ramsay MacDonald, the future prime minister of England: ‘deification of India’ was at the root of the ‘psychology ofthe unconstitutional movement’. MacDonald quoted as his evidence Bipin Chandra Pal’s statements ‘of1909 thac the motherland s ‘the symbol of our nation- idea.... The Divine idea, the Logos...the Deity whom we salute with the cry Bande Mataram’.!? The ‘official’ British attitude to the song Vande Mataram is reflected very clear! article on Bankim in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in its edition of 1910. The political significance of Bankim's novel Anandamath as the repository of the ideals to be followed. ‘In every village, every town Anandamaths ‘must be established... Then the Mother's name will be uttered by seven crores of throats and every side willl Bande Mataram,’ exhorted an arti It went on to further say, ‘Let santans be gathered together and you will see that nothing will be ‘wanting for the establishment of the throne of Swara ‘These are awkward translations from Bengali by officials of the police intelligence department. In 1917, J.C. Nixon, an ICS official in the home department compiled report on revolutionary ‘organizations in Bengal, leaning information from court cases and records ofthe intelligence department. Nixon thought that the distinguishing trait of Aurobindo was ‘setting out his political doctrines in religious garb’. Aurobindo's journal Bandemataram was prosecuted for sedition in 1907, shortly before he was tried for manufacturing bombs and spreading sedition.‘ While his Jugantar Party was active in western Bengal, the in 1907, mentions that their ‘war cry’ was Vande ‘Mataram, and occasionally Bharat-mata ki jai’ a ‘Bande Mataram promise’, a vow taken by entrants to the Samiti, was required of all members.* The tra: festival of Rakshabandhan was: in the anonymous50 Vande Mataram song is forefronted: ‘Of all his works... by far the most important from its astonishing political consequences | was the Ananda Math which was published about the time of the agitation arising out of the IIbert Bill” The song is described as ‘the work of a Hindu idealist who personified Bengal under the form of a purified and sd Kali’, Most of the verses, the article stares, harmless enough’ but some parts ‘are capable of very dangerous meanings in the mouths of unscrupulous agitators’, given the context in the novel, the hymn being rebels attacked British forces. probably the essence of the bureaucracy’s attitude towards the song after the swadeshi agitation, the Britannica goes on to say: what was During Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s lifetime the Bande Mataram, though its dangerous tendency was recognized, was not used as a party war-cry it was not raised, for instance, during the ber Bill agitation, nor by the students during the trial of Surendra Nath Banerji in 1883. It has, however, obtained an evil notoriety in the agitations that followed the partition, of Bengal. In ‘this view, emphasis on the semiotics of Hindu derivation in the novel and the song assumed significance vis the swadeshi agitation. The advantage of having 4 section of Muslim opinion in their favour was not lost Slogan 51 ‘on the British officialdom. The Rowlatt Report of 1917 ‘on seditious movements in India underlined the breach | within the ranks of the native subjects revealed by the Iukewarm attitude of a section of Muslim opinion to the swadeshi agitators. During 1905-08, a major object of intelligence reports was to focus on that breach; | instances of efforts to create an alliance between leaders, | who influenced opinions in the Hindu and Mus! communities were closely watched, evidently with apprehension. ‘The appeal of the slogan was not, of course, limited to Bengal. One of the earliest instances of its spread in FP) Maharashtra occurs in the List of Proscribed Publications ‘of the Government of India in 1910: ‘a photograph containing portraits of Nana Fadnavis and others ... notorious for acts or opinion of a violent and subversive character...arranged on the words Bande Mataram.”® ‘The same year a ban was enforced on the circulation of | Bande Mataram, a journal published from Geneva and later Berlin, containing ‘seditious and revolutionary ‘his monthly ‘supported by Madam Cama’— ji Rustomji Cama—was edited and supported successively by Hardayal, V.V.S. Aiyar, and Virendra | Chattopadhyay. Its importation was prohibited under the Customs Act but the police reported its circulation in | Bengal, Bombay, United Provinces, Punjab, and Madras."* | Apart from this journal from abroad, many pamphlets | containing the slogan were issued in different parts of52 Vande Matarame India despite censorship. Many of these were printed in | Bengal, but a vast number elsewhere. Thus, pamphlet published in Madras in 1914 addressed peo} in Punjab to exhort them to rebel against British rule and ended with the slogan Vande Mataram."* Another English pamphlet, proscribed in 1910 and produced anonymously, was entitled Killing No Murder, and had at its masthead ‘Jugantar: Jai Bande Mataram’.” Another | such English pamphlet was issued by the ‘council of Red Bengal Arabindo Ghose’ in English helped spread the slogan in Maharashtra, ‘However, the more important channel for populasizing the slogan was undoubtedly the so-called ver press. Some of these publications were issued by loca organized associations, sometimes ephemeral bodies which put down their name as the publishers of these pamphlets. We know of these pamphlets from the Proscribed Literature List; very few reached the librai and survived. Among these pamphlets carrying the Vande Mataram were those issued in Hindi or Uedu by the Tilak Vidyalaya in Muzaffarpur (1921), the Yuvak Hindu University of Benaras (1929), and above all by the well-known Nav Jivan Bharat Sabha (1929) was the source of many pamphlets er ‘Mataram’. This included a series of pamphlets published from Lahore by Ram Prashad (1921), another series under the same title published from Lahore in Hindi (1924), Mataram, Sat Sri Akal, and Allah-o-Akbar’ (1921). ‘There were also a number of pamphlets entitled “Vande | Mataram’ published elsewhere, mainly in Hindi—from Benaras (1924), from Ahmedabad by ‘Desha Sevak’ (1924), among others.” The visual representation of the idea of Vande Mataram was commonly made in leographs of an image of Bharat Mata accompanied by the slogan and pictures of national heroes.” Although the bulk of this literature was autonomously generated in regional urban centres (and often by unrelated with the action programme of mi nationalists), we have some evidence that the Bengal | biplabis or militants made a conscious effort to reach across the language divide to access a wider readership. For instance, their journal Jugamstar writes in 1906: ‘As there are many tongue (sic) in use in our country many people say that this is a cause of our want of unity.... The basic of unity is not language, itis the country which is the cause that units.... But in India it is necessary to have one language, specially at the present time, for an interchange of thoughts between ‘one another has to be made... We want a language by learning which the preachers of our Mother's name will be able to roam throughout India singing the races (sic) of India understand the ‘We hope that those who wish to the name. Hindi language.