In PM’s Vande Mataram remarks, rich references to poll-bound Bengal, TN

At a time of bitter political jousting with the ruling Trinamool Congress and DMK of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively, Prime Ninister Narendra Modi on Monday made rich references to both poll-bound states when recalling the glories of Vande Mataram, the national song.

Bengal today featured repeatedly in PM’s Lok Sabha speech on the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, written by the legendary Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875 and included in his epic Anandmath in 1882.

PM Modi spoke of the song written in the aftermath of the 1857 war of independence which made the British realise that “they could not rule India without dividing it”.

“The song was written at a time of a conspiracy to take the British song — God save the Queen — house to house. At that time when the British spawned all round inferiority among Indians, Bankim Babu dared the British and wrote the song that inspired everyone in the common cause of freedom. The British soon realised they needed to divide India to rule and that is how they Partitioned Bengal,” said Modi.

The PM said the British saw Bengal’s intellectual might as the core of India's inspiration for freedom and wanted to destroy it.

“That is why they chose Bengal for their divide and rule experiment,” Modi said, adding that even in those dark phases Vande Mataram stood like a rock.

The Prime Minister referred to Sarojini Ghosh of Barisal, now in Bangladesh, to laud the power of Bengal’s rebellion against the British who had banned both the singing and utterance of Vande Mataram.

‘In those times women associated bangles with self-pride. But Sarojini Ghosh of Barisal took the pledge that she won’t wear her gold bangles till the British lifted the ban on Vande Mataram,” Modi said referring to prabhat pheris, a tradition of agitations across the streets of Bengal to reclaim and liberate Vande Mataram from British penalties.

“Bengal’s streets would reverberate with sounds of prabhat pheris. Children in Bengal would sing Vande Mataram and dare the British. They were ready to sacrifice their lives for the national song. Soon the voice of Vande Mataram that emerged from the corners of Bengal became the voice of India,” said Modi, mentioning Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore setting the song to music.

Modi also referred to how the Indian revolutionary Master Surya Sen from Bengal was hanged for singing Vande Mataram.

“In his last letter to friends, Sen wrote Vande Mataram,” said the PM remembering Bipin Chandra Pal and Arvind Ghosh, both from Bengal, and their newspaper titled Vande Mataram.

Modi also mentioned national poet Subramania Bharati, who translated Vande Mataram into Tamil language and wrote a description of the National Flag titled “Salutation to the Flag”. The PM said Vande Mataram which united Indians from east, west, north, south as one in the urge for freedom, stood as a prime example of “One India, glorious India”.

Modi’s references to Bengal and Tamil Nadu came at a time when the ruling BJP faces its most formidable political challenge from the ruling parties in these two states, the fiercest point of the slugfest being Centre-state ties. Bengal and Tamil Nadu go to polls next year with BJP seeking to expand its electoral footprint in both.