Overview
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated a special Lok Sabha discussion marking 150 years of Vande Mataram, citing Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1937 letter to Subhas Chandra Bose that the song might “provoke and irritate Muslims.”
- Modi linked previous anniversaries to repression, saying the British targeted the song and that its centenary coincided with the Emergency when the Constitution was “throttled.”
- Congress and INDIA bloc leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Gaurav Gogoi, rejected the charge of betrayal and accused the BJP of staging political theatre and rewriting history.
- Parliament has earmarked 10 hours of debate in each House, with the NDA allotted three hours in the Lok Sabha, and the Rajya Sabha discussion set to be led by Amit Shah on Tuesday.
- The long-running dispute over the 1937 decision to use only the first two stanzas resurfaced, with the BJP calling it appeasement and the Congress saying it followed Rabindranath Tagore’s inclusive advice.