BJP spokesperson tries to sing Vande Mataram in TV studio to prove he's not anti-national
The BJP has the right to propagate the song. The government does not.
A recent viral clip of a debate on TV channel Zee Salaam shows BJP spokesperson Naveen Kumar Singh unable to recite India's national song Vande Mataram, when asked to do so by an AIMPLB member. The clip shows that Singh did not just forget the words of the song, he was unfamiliar with them, as becomes apparent when he tries to read the song off his mobile phone and mispronounces almost every word.
Singh is not alone. He has company, within the BJP, from leaders of different states and statuses. A few months ago, in a TV show at India Today, Uttar Pradesh's minorities welfare MoS Baldev Singh Aulakh was unable to sing a single line of the song.
Both the leaders, in the proper nationalistic spirit, were in the TV studios to defend their party's stand of forcing others to sing Vande Mataram.
In Maharashtra, after the Mumbai municipality made the song compulsory in civic schools, BJP MLA Raj Purohit suggested extending the diktat to all schools in the state. When asked to sing the song himself, he recited merely two lines, mispronouncing several words.
While Singh at Zee Salaam valiantly laboured on to sing the song, Aulakh at India Today had accused the show's anchor of trying to obfuscate the debate, and huffily announced that he was not seeking any certificate from those present in the newsroom. Aulakh is right. He doesn't need to prove his patriotism to anyone. However, his party thinks it has the right to demand such proofs from everyone else, on parameters it arbitrarily selects.
The BJP has for long tried to make the singing of the Vande Mataram compulsory at various platforms, from schools to legislatures. Why its leaders, at least when venturing out to defend their party's stand, do not google the song and memorise it, is difficult to comprehend.
The national song of India is unarguably quite a mouthful. Written in highly Sankritised Bengali, Vande Mataram has often proven to be rather unpronounceable and incomprehensible for generations of students, both urbane and in smaller cities or villages, trying to learn it by rote for the annual Independence Day and Republic Day performances.
To sensible minds, this in itself should have been reason enough to not push the song. How much respect can you give your country by praising it in words you do not understand and can barely pronounce?
Unlike the National Anthem, Vande Mataram does not enjoy a constitutional status. There are many other popular songs praising the country, including Iqbal's Saare Jahan Se Accha, which is far easier to understand and remember.
But the issue here is deeper, and more sinister.
Doesn't the BJP's love for Vande Mataram stem from the fact that the Muslim community has long had a problematic relationship with it? The party's insistence of foisting the song on people is another demonstration of its dangerous idea of India being a Hindu Rashtra, in which the objections of other communities should not matter.
Legal status
The National Anthem of the country - Jana Gana Mana - is so recognised in the Constitution. Vande Mataram has long enjoyed the status of "national song", and the BJP uses this in its attempts to make the singing of the song compulsory at various levels.
However, in February this year, the Supreme Court had clarified there was no concept of a national song in the Constitution.
"The Article (Article 51A (fundamental duties)) does not refer to National Song. It only refers to National Flag and National Anthem. Therefore, we do not intend to enter into any debate as far as the National Song is concerned," the bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra had held, responding - surprise - to a BJP leader's prayer for a government policy to "promote" the song.
Objection to the song
Vande Mataram was written in 1870 by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In 1882, it appeared as part of his novel Anandamath. The novel speaks of the Sannyasi revolt in famine-stricken Bengal of the 1770s, and has attracted charges of demonising Muslims, by holding the Muslim nawab and the community at large responsible for Bengal's ills.
What is popularly sung as Vande Mataram are only the first two paragraphs of the five-stanza song. While the first two stanzas praise a beautiful and bountiful country, the next three equate the motherland to Hindu goddesses, Durga and Lakhshmi, and speak of the armed goddess destroying enemies.
Monotheism is a central tenet of Islam, and Muslims object to a song that revers other goddesses, clearly against their religion.
BJP can love the song, the government can't
The oft-advanced argument that the song is in praise of the motherland and all patriots should sing it is illogical and idiotic. The singing of one song cannot be a measure of anybody's patriotism. If it is, then the BJP's leaders have proved themselves to be the rankest anti-nationals, and the party has lost the moral right to be in government.
The BJP has every right to love the song and propagate it. The elected government, at the state or the Centre, does not.
If it wishes, the BJP should organise meetings where the song is sung and its meaning explained to all. It should be mandatory for the party's leaders to attend these meetings so as to not appear like ignoramuses when asked to sing the song themselves.
The government, answerable to very citizen from community that's part of India, however, cannot force the song on us. It is the duty of a democratic government to protect the right of the minorities to practise their religion, safe from majoritarian bullying.
When the BJP government indulges in stunts such as forcing people to sing songs and record it, it is failing its constitutional duty. That is a far bigger act of anti-nationalism than refusing to sing a song.