NPR on Vande Mataram
September 10th, 2006Mike pointed me to this NPR report (audio) on the centennial year of India’s favorite national song, Vande Mataram. The song was written as a rallying call for independence from Britain. But since its inception, the Hindu-inspired lyrics have fueled a debate about whether the song ignores India’s large Muslim population.
Vande Mataram has a special place in our hearts - so much so that some have even expressed the desire for it to be redesignated as India’s National Anthem, replacing Tagore’s Jana Gana Mana. While I believe this is a ludicrous idea, as are the controversies that even circulate on the Internet these days about Jana Gana Mana being inappropriate since it was written in praise of England’s King George V that would be sung on the occasion of his coronation ceremony.
While Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Vande Mataram has a clear historical and cultural significance in that it glorifies the Motherland and was the national cry for freedom from British oppression during the freedom movement, it is the focal point of an age-old controversy that has been refreshed today in the light of the move to introduce the song in school assemblies across the nation. The controversy arises due to the fact that Muslims, India’s largest minority, are restricted by their faith to sing the song, as Islam requires its followers to sing praises to only one God - and therefore, the Motherland cannot be glorified to the position of God in prose or verse. Quoting Wikipedia:
“… The song was also rejected on the grounds that Muslims felt offended by its depiction of the nation as Ma Durga—a Hindu goddess— thus equating the nation with the Hindu conception of shakti, divine feminine dynamic force; and by its origin as part of Anandamatha, a novel they felt had an anti-Muslim message.”
The NPR report concludes on a note that depicts the strength in India’s secularity - by mentioning A R Rehman’s rendition of Vande Mataram, a song that gained immense popularity independent of religious affiliations, across the nation.
