Discussion on Vande Mataram started in Parliament, PM Modi narrated the glorious story of ‘Vande Mataram’, said – Through the song, the British were answered with bricks with stones.

New Delhi, 8 December. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in the Lok Sabha on Monday that Vande Mataram was torn into pieces under the pressure of the Muslim League when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the Congress President. He also said, “Congress bowed down to the partition of Vande Mataram, hence one day it had to bow down to the partition of India.” Modi, while initiating the “discussion on the occasion of completion of 150 years of the national song Vande Mataram” in the House, referred to the Emergency imposed in the country in 1975 and said that when the national song completed 100 years, the country was caught in the chains of Emergency and The Constitution was strangled.

Taking a dig at the Congress, he said, “When an attempt was made to crush independence, the Constitution was stabbed in the back and emergency was imposed on the country, then this Vande Mataram made the country stand up.” The Prime Minister said that when Mohammad Ali Jinnah raised the slogan of protest against Vande Mataram, the then Congress President Nehru wrote a letter to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and agreed with Jinnah’s sentiments and said that “Vande Mataram.” The background of Anand Math may irritate Muslims.

He claimed that Congress had compromised on Vande Mataram and torn it into pieces citing social harmony. The Prime Minister said, “The decision to break Vande Mataram into pieces was masked as an act of social harmony. But, history is witness to the fact that Congress surrendered before the Muslim League and this was done under the pressure of the Muslim League. This was Congress’s way of pursuing appeasement politics.

Modi said, “Unfortunately, the policies of Congress are the same today and today INC has become MMC.” On November 14, the Prime Minister had used the term MMC (Muslim League Maoist Congress) for Congress in his speech after the NDA’s victory in the Bihar Assembly elections. Modi said, “Vande Mataram was not just a mantra for political battle. Only the British should go and we should stand on our path, Vande Mataram was not limited to this only. This was a fight for freedom, a war to liberate this motherland. It was a holy war to free Mother India from those shackles.

He said, “The British had understood that after 1857 it was becoming difficult for them to survive in India for a long time. Due to the kind of dreams they had come with, it became clear to them that unless India is divided and people are not made to fight among themselves, it will be difficult to rule here. Then the British chose the path of ‘divide and rule’, and they made Bengal its laboratory.

Modi said, “It is a great privilege for all of us in this House to remember the virtue of Vande Mataram, the mantra, the slogan that gave energy and inspiration to the country’s freedom movement, and showed the path of sacrifice and penance. It is a matter of pride for us that 150 years of Vande Mataram are being completed and we all are witnessing this historic occasion.

He said, “The 150-year journey of Vande Mataram has passed through many stages, but when it was 50 years of Vande Mataram, the country was forced to live in slavery. When Vande Mataram completed 100 years, the country was in the chains of Emergency and when Vande Mataram should have been a wonderful festival, the Constitution of India was strangled. The Prime Minister said that when Vande Mataram completed 100 years, people who lived and died for patriotism were locked behind bars.

He said, “On the completion of 100 years of the song Vande Mataram which gave the energy of independence to the country, a dark period of our history has unfortunately been exposed.” Modi told the members present in the House, “We are indebted to Vande Mataram.” He paved the way for it to reach here (in Parliament). Now we are walking with the dream of a self-reliant India and Vande Mataram is our inspiration. The spirit of the Swadeshi movement is still present and Vande Mataram connects us.

He said that before independence, great men had the dream of an independent India and the dream of today’s generation is of a prosperous India. Modi said that this journey of Vande Mataram was started by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee from the land of Bengal in 1875. He said that this song was written at a time when the British Sultanate was in panic after the freedom struggle of 1857. He said, “Our dream is that the country should become a developed India in 2047. If anyone could dream of the country’s independence 50 years before independence, then we can also dream of a prosperous, developed India 25 years ago.