The Supreme Court rightly held on Friday that in India there was no concept of the “national song”, unlike the national anthem. It was ruling in a case brought by a spokesman of the Delhi unit of the BJP, the nub of whose pleading appears to be that Vande Mataram be deemed to be the “national song” and given a status akin to that of the national anthem. The BJP-RSS spectrum of political thinking has shown a special affinity to Vande Mataram, a song from the Bengali novel Anand Math written by Bankim Chandra, in which “Mother India” is deified. During the freedom movement (from which the RSS had kept away as a matter of policy), many courted arrest with Vande Mataram on their lips. Still, in free India the song did not make it as the national anthem.
The reason is that our Muslim citizens, in line with their religious precepts, cannot worship any idea or object or person other than God. Even the Prophet Muhammad, the messenger of God in their doctrine, is not an object of veneration. It doesn’t make sense to elevate a poem to the level of a national song when a section of the citizenry has faith-based objections. If the elevation does occur, the unity of the country will be affected. It has been argued that votaries of Hindutva press for Vande Mataram in order to prove that people of the Islamic faith are not nationalist enough. If so, this is a pity. We should be mindful that “Indian nationalism” is larger than “Hindu nationalism”.
