Overview
- Marking the song’s 150th year, a Rajya Sabha discussion became a partisan clash after the Prime Minister’s Lok Sabha claim that Nehru, under Jinnah’s pressure, agreed in 1937 to drop later stanzas.
- Jairam Ramesh countered that a Congress Working Committee resolution on October 28, 1937 adopted only two stanzas after consultations that included Gandhi, Bose, Patel, Nehru and others, citing Rabindranath Tagore’s advice.
- Amit Shah argued the truncation launched “appeasement” politics linked to Partition, a narrative the Opposition dismissed as historical distortion aimed at maligning Nehru.
- The exchanges widened to current politics, with a BJP MP accusing West Bengal’s government of enabling a Rohingya “demographic invasion” and Opposition MPs calling the debate a distraction from jobs and prices.
- Editorial voices called for a non‑partisan historical probe into the song’s omissions, but no independent inquiry has been initiated.