The Union home ministry has chosen a striking moment for a cultural reminder. With the West Bengal assembly polls expected in April-May 2026, it issued a directive on January 28 that 'Vande Mataram' be sung in its original six stanzas at all government functions, effective immediately.
The ‘national song’, a position conferred by a Constituent Assembly resolution on January 24, 1950, is to be sung before the national anthem at all government functions. That the decisions of the Constituent Assembly itself is not deemed sacrosanct seems apparent since the Assembly never decreed that ‘Vande Mataram’ should precede ‘Jana Gana Mana’.
On the face of it, the directive to honour the 150th anniversary of the national song, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1875 and finding cultish currency when sung by Bhavananda, a character in his novel Anandamath, published in 1882. Do note: fiction changes facts.
That the novelist gave the song to Bhavananda is an interesting detail. Bhavananda falls in love with Kalyani, the wife of protagonist Mahendra, and, in “expiation” of his sin, later falls fighting enemies.
Bengal, in the novel, is under the wayward administration of the “traitor” Mir Jafar, “a bad Mussalman”. Then again, in the novel, all “Mussalmans” are “bad”.
It’s not a greatly insightful occupation to judge the past with the values of the present. Ideals, understanding and traditions change with the times. To sit in judgement of the past might afford us opportunities to feel superior to our predecessors. But all we are really doing is killing our natural kindness with our newly-acquired virtues. And so, we will not raise the question: if Bankim Chandra were living now and expressed his Islamophobic sentiments, which party would likely honour him more?
In Anandamath—the translation I have is that by Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta—we find a pronounced racial hatred for Islam, a point that must appeal to the BJP, especially since one of their planks in the impending election is the fetishising of illegal immigrants, a euphemism for real or imagined aliens from Bangladesh.
Consider this passage from the novel: “…but our Mussalman king—how does he protect us? Our religion is gone; so is our caste, our honour, and the sacredness of our family even! … Unless we drive these tipsy long-beards away, a Hindu can no longer hope to save his religion.”
In the latter part of the novel, Bhavananda addresses the English captain whom he has just overpowered: “Captain Saheb, we shall not kill you; the English are not our enemies. But why did you come in as friends of the Mussalmans? Come, I shall save your life, and for the present you are my prisoner. We wish all joy to Englishmen; we are your friends.”
Where Bankim Chandra offers a problem of sorts for the BJP is that he is an Anglophile—a secret love many BJP and RSS leaders seem to share but would not confess for obvious reasons.
At the very end of the novel, when the ‘Santans’ emerge victorious in their battle against Mir Jafar’s soldiers, a great mystic physician-monk—the ascetic guru who pulls the strings—appears and says the “revolution” should now be deferred: “The English are great in objective sciences, and they are apt teachers. Therefore, the English shall be made our sovereign. Imbued with a knowledge of objective sciences by English education, our people will be able to comprehend subjective truths. Then there would be no difficulties to the spread of the True Faith…Till that is so…the English rule will remain undisturbed… desist from fighting with the English and follow me. Where is the enemy now? There is none. The English are a friendly power and no one, in truth, has the power to come off victorious in a fight with the English.”
It must be noted that Bankim Chandra was a British civil servant and a magistrate. For his dedicated service, he was awarded the title of Rai Bahadur in 1891 and Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire in 1894. Therefore, we can at least raise the question whether he was compromised in his patriotic fervour.
The national anthem, now finding itself somewhat demoted, has often been accused by the right wing of being a tribute to George V—though Rabindranath Tagore said in his 1937 letter to his friend and associate Pulin Behari Sen that that was not the case.
But Tagore did have his own British connections, too. If he is guilty of Anglophilia, surely that was a burden shared by Bankim Chandra? So, at least on this count, why bring the national anthem down from its pedestal?
The unabridged version of ‘Vande Mataram’ is six stanzas long. The first two praise the natural bounty of India/Bharat. The last four praise and personify Hindu goddesses such as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. There is no good reason why the people or children of other denominations must listen to the powers of other gods in what’s yet a secular country.
It is clear that the ruling party is cynical in its politics to promote ‘Vande Mataram’ in this fashion. To conflate gods and goddesses with politics in a culturally diverse country is to render patriotism the last refuge of the ministries that be.
C P Surendran | Author whose latest volume of poetry is Window with a Train Attached
(Views are personal)
(cpsurendran@gmail.com)