No ground for opposing Vande Mataram, will make its recital must in schools: Yogi

The BJP-led Uttar Pradesh will make the singing and rendition of national song Vande Mataram compulsory in all schools and colleges of the state. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath made the announcement in Gorakhpur on Monday.

He was presiding over an event to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The anniversary coincides with the commemoration of 150 years of the national song.

Noting that no individual, faith or community was greater than the country, Yogi harked back to pre-Independence times to accuse the then Congress of dilutions in the original text of Vande Mataram, a poem which Bankim Chandra Chatterjee first wrote in 1875. It was later published as part of Chatterjee’s epic novel Anandmath in 1882.

Taking on Samajwadi Party MP from Sambhal Zia-ur-Rahman Barq who on Sunday said he has never sung the national song and this cannot be used to question his patriotism, Yogi said, “Even today for some people, individualism and personal faith are greater than the imperative of national unity and integrity. It is not without reason that such people attract suspicion. The fact is there is no justification in the opposition of Vande Mataram.”

Zia-ur-Ramham Barq is the grandson of late SP MP Shafiq-ur-Rahman Barq, the then BSP MP from Sambhal, who had on May 8, 2013, walked out of the Lok Sabha when Vande Mataram was played at the end of the House proceedings. Then Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar had taken strong exception to the move.

Yogi today said the Congress resolution in 1929 adopted a truncated version of Vande Mataram and this sowed the seeds of India’s Partition.

“A song that had served to ignite national imagination during the freedom struggle was diluted by the Congress for the sake of appeasement politics. In the 1896-97 Congress Session when Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore first sang Vande Mataram, then Congress president Mohammad Ali Johar left the conclave,” said Yogi announcing that the UP Government would mandate the singing of Vande Mataram in all educational institutions to inculcate in students a sense of gratitude to the motherland.

In an event in New Delhi, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the collective rendition of Vande Mataram should become a tradition in the University of Delhi. Addressing students of Ramjas College, he said the national song would serve as a guiding light in building a developed India.