To reject Vande Mataram is no treason

To reject Vande Mataram is no treason - I

V SUNDARAM

The Government of India have issued a directive to the State governments for recitation of Vande Mataram in educational institutions during a celebration on 7 September, 2006 to mark the National Song's centenary.

National song Vande Mataram is 'against Islamic beliefs' and asking Muslims to sing it would amount to 'suppression' of the community', Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari said on Sunday.

Addressing a press meet in Allahabad, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, who is also patron of the United Democratic Front, said: 'According to the tenets of Islam, one could love one's country and even lay down one's life for it if the circumstances so demand. But when it comes to worship only Allah is given that honour. A Muslim cannot worship his or her parents, motherland and even the Prophet though they are held in high esteem.

Ever since independence, all governments at the Centre and in the states have been suppressing Muslims. This proposal is yet another example. If somebody sings Vande Mataram voluntarily, I have no objections. But if people are forced to do so, it will meet with resistance.'

The simple question to be asked by the effete and ever obliging Islam- embracing UPA Government is whether Bukhari is above the sacred traditions of the land. If Bukhari is right, then Bala Gangathar Tilak, Sri Aurobindo and hundreds of great nationalist leaders who fought for our country's freedom were wrong. For all of them Vande Mataram meant India's freedom and India's freedom meant Vande Mataram. Millions of our countrymen marched against the British Raj with the song of Vande Mataram on their lips.

Zafaryab Jilani, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has said, 'Reciting Vande Mataram is against the tenets of the shariat (islamic law). There are some lines in Vande Mataram which go against our religion. However, Muslims have no problem in reciting the National Anthem, Jana gana mana.' What are the national credentials of this patriotic Indian to sit in judgement on Vande Mataram? I have every right as a patriotic Hindu to ask this simple question though I will not ask the same question in Pakistan or Bangladesh or Iran or Iraq.

All India Muslim united Morcha vice-president M Asiddique has also denounced the move, saying, 'the recitation of Vande Mataram is against Islam and that the Muslims would under no circumstances allow their children to recite the song'.

Another AIMPLB member, Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali, has aired similar views and demanded scrapping of the move.

The Centre has sought the Uttar Pradesh Government's help for the concluding function of the 'Vande Mataram' Centenary Celebrations', wherein the song will be sung in all schools, colleges and educational institutions on 7 September.

An official release issued in Lucknow on Saturday has said that a letter from Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh has been received by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, seeking his help for successfully holding the function. Necessary directives according to the wishes of Arjun Singh for ensuring the recital of the song's first two stanzas at 11 am on 7 September have been issued to concerned officials, the release said.

Patriotism and loyalty are indivisible, inexorable, immutable and inalienable. The effete and ever Islam-embracing UPA Government does not subscribe to this view. A great Statesman said that when you are in doubt, take your lessons from your own national history. Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari, three Members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board(AIMPLB), Zafaryab Jilani, Khalid Rashid, Firangi Mahali and India Muslim united Morcha vice-president M Asiddique are all behaving very much the same way as the Ali Brothers, Maulana Mohammed Ali and Maulana Shoukat Ali during the days of Khilafat Movement in 1921. The Ali Brothers had more than once affirmed their loyalty to the doctrine of PAN-ISLAMISM. Mohammed Ali in 1921 addressed a letter to Amanulla, the Amir of Afghanistan, inviting him to invade India. Unlike the anti National pseudo-neutral UPA Government today, the British Government reacted in an effective way by arresting the Ali Brothers. The following statement of Mohammed Ali before the Jury in the Sessions Court with regard to his stand vis-à-vis the Afghan invasion only confirmed his complicity:

'If His Majesty the Amir of Afghanistan is impelled by the same religious motive to contemplate Jehad against those who are in wrongful occupation of the Jazirutal-Arab and the holy places;' who aim at the weakening of Islam and deny to us the full freedom to advocate its cause,'then the clear law of Islam requires that no Mussalman should render any assistance against the Amir, and if the Jehad approaches his region every Mussalman must join the Mujahidin and assist them to the best of his or her power'.

When Mahatma Gandhi gave a call in 1921 for the burning of foreign cloth by calling it a religious duty of all Indians, all the great leaders like Rajaji, Motilal Nehru, C R Das and millions of our countrymen made bonfire of English cloth. However the 'patriotic' Mussalmans of the Khilafat Movement sent all the foreign clothes for the use of their Turkish brethren. It was the national Khilafat duty of India to die for Turkey but not vice versa!!

When Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal in 1905, his only political aim was to divide India and to create two nations ?? a Muslim Nation and a Hindu Nation. Anticipating the rise of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, Lord Curzon wrote to Lord Brodrick in 1904: 'If we are weak enough to yield to their Swadeshi clamour now, we shall not be able to dismember or reduce Bengal again ; and you, will be cementing and solidifying on Eastern flank of India , a force almost formidable and certain to be a source of increasing trouble in the future'.

The seeds of future Pakistan were thus sown by Lord Curzon. In his book called Awakening of India, Ramsey Macdonald (later the British Prime Minister) written after his visit to India in 1910 wrote: 'The partition of Bengal was not merely a blunder : it was an indictable offence. By a division, which neither administrative convenience, nor historical tradition, nor ordinary sagacity could justify, Lord Curzon divided the Bengali-speaking people. Moreover, the Bengal partition was accompanied by a series of administrative and judicial acts which definitely ranged the government of India against the Hindu and taught him that our administration declined to do justice to him. Mohammedans proclaiming physical strike from the housetops were hardly cautioned : Hindus whispering their grievances were treated as criminals'..it is of the greatest political significance to note that the date afterwards given in the Alipore bomb trials as that when the murderous conspiracy commenced was the day when Lord Curzon did his worst act in India by partitioning Bengal.

Thus Lord Curzon converted the Hindus of Bengal into third class citizens by his scheme of Partition of Bengal. The Congress Government in India after independence has converted 850 millions of Hindus in majority in India into third class citizens?? dumb and impotent denizens through the twin swords of Pseudo-Secularism and Minority Right-ism. The cultural, religious and spiritual traditions, feelings, hopes, urges, aspirations and above all susceptibilities of 85% of the majority Hindus can be cast aside by a handful of Muslim Clerics in our hopelessly wretched land. This is indeed pseudo-secular democracy at its noblest, if not purest.

Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari, three Members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Zafaryab Jilani, Khalid Rashid, Firangi Mahali and India Muslim United Morcha Vice-President M Asiddique are all behaving very much the same way as the Ali Brothers, Maulana Mohammed Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali did during the days of Khilafat Movement in 1921.

These Muslim clerics today are dismissing great patriots like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee who composed the immortal Vande Mataram song, Swami Vivekananda, Shri.Aurobindo, Bipin Chandra Pal, C R Das, Surendranath Banerjee, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and others with contempt. All of them derive their spiritual inspiration from Maulana Mohammed Ali who paid this 'noble' (!!) tribute to Mahatma Gandhi in 1924 in Aligarh and Ajmer: 'However pure Mr. Gandhiji's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman, even though he be without character'. An year later when he was questioned at a public meeting in Lucknow, the immortal and irreplaceable Maulana Mohammed Ali cheerfully accepted and even 'improved' (!!) upon his previous command performance by saying: Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi.

This great reward and tribute Mahatma Gandhi got from Maulana Mohammed Ali for having fully supported the Khilafat Movement by functioning as its Chairman. When the news came that Mohammed Ali and his brother Shaukat Ali were to be put behind bars on charges of treason, Mahatma Gandhi declared at Allahabad on May 10th 1921: I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumour goes, and why am I to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir of Afghanistan, that if he came, no Indian, so long as I can help it, would help the government to drive him back.

To reject Vande Mataram is not treason? - II

The hypocrisy of intellectually and ideologically debauched Congressmen and the degenerate Congress party can be clearly seen in the disgraceful statement issued by the Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi who has fully endorsed Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh's views to the effect that the direction issued by his Ministry to educational institutions on recitation of 'Vande Mataram' in educational institutions is not mandatory but 'voluntary in nature' and any community is free to recite it or not. Abhishek Singhvi has declared: 'Congress party and the country is proud of the national song 'Vande Mataram' which had electrified our freedom fighters and who made umpteen sacrifices....Even then if a community or group feels otherwise, they are free to recite it or not. We agree with the Union Minister Arjun Singh in this regard'.

In order to put an end to the controversy over a central directive for the recitation of the Vande Mataram song in schools on 7 September 2006, Arjun Singh said on Sunday while addressing a minority academic institution in Varanasi that it was not mandatory. According to him, the recitation of the song is aimed at paying tributes to freedom fighters and martyrs. Arjun Singh is talking in multiple voices. It is clear from his declared views that singing our sacred National Song of Vande Mataram is optional, voluntary and non-mandatory.

The problems we are facing from some of the leading anti-national Muslims today started with Gandhiji's unconditional support for the Khilafat Movement in 1920-21. Achyuth Patwardhan, one of the Socialist stalwarts in the Congress, has given a remarkably candid and self critical analysis of the Congress Party vis-a-vis Khilafat: 'It is, however, useful to recognise our share of this error of misdirection. To begin with, I am convinced that looking back upon the course of development of the freedom movement, THE 'HIMALAYAN ERROR' of Gandhiji's leadership was the support he extended on behalf of the Congress and the Indian people to the Khilafat Movement at the end of the World War I. This has proved to be a disastrous error which has brought in its wake a series of harmful consequences. On merits, it was a thoroughly reactionary step. The Khilafat was totally unworthy of support of the Progressive Muslims. Kemel Pasha established this solid fact by abolition of the Khilafat. The abolition of the Khilafat was widely welcomed by enlightened Muslim opinion the world over and Kemel was an undoubted hero of all young Muslims straining against Imperialist domination. But apart from the fact that Khilafat was an unworthy reactionary cause, Mahatma Gandhi had to align himself with a sectarian revivalist Muslim Leadership of clerics and maulvis. He was thus unwittingly responsible for jettisoning sane, secular, modernist leadership among the Muslims of India and foisting upon the Indian Muslims a theocratic orthodoxy of the Maulvis. Maulana Mohammed Ali's speeches read today appear strangely incoherent and out of tune with the spirit of secular political freedom. The Congress Movement which released the forces of religious liberalism and reform among the Hindus, and evoked a rational scientific outlook, placed the Muslims of India under the spell of orthodoxy and religious superstition by their support to the Khilafat leadership. Rationalist leaders like Jinnah were rebuffed by this attitude of Congress and Gandhi. This is the background of the psychological rift between Congress and the Muslim League'.

Dr Anne Besant another Congress President also spoke about the folly of the Congress Khilafat Policy when she said: 'Since the Khilafat agitation, things have changed and it has been one of the many injuries inflicted on India by the encouragement of the Khilafat crusade, that the inner Muslim feeling of hatred against 'unbelievers' has sprung up, naked and unashamed, as in years gone by'.

Gopalakrishna Gokhale, another stalwart Congress leader said: 'The seven crores of Muslims here have become more or less hostile to our national aspirations'.

Many great Hindu leaders of the time like Swami Shraddhananda were greatly perturbed by Mahatma Gandhi's blind and foolish support for violent Muslim intransigence. Men like Ali Brothers, with known Pan-Islamic loyalty, were repeatedly proclaiming on the public platform from 1921 to 24 that in the event of the British either out of sheer exhaustion or disgust, the integrity of India could be safeguarded only by the 'compassionate' Muslims with their spiritual belief in International brotherhood. For, they alone could secure the sympathy and support of their trustworthy co-religionists residing beyond the North-Western border. It was in accordance with this conviction and strategy that Muslim leaders including those in the Congress were clamouring for greater recruitment of the hilly people of North-Western Province to the Indian army. All the top ranking Hindu leaders of that time like C.R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai and Surendranath Banerjee saw the mortal danger that lay ahead in this dastardly anti-national plan of the Muslims. Lala Lajpat Rai wrote a prophetic letter to C R Das in 1924: 'I am not afraid of seven crores of Muslims of Hindustan but I think the seven crores of Hindustan plus the armed marauders of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Turkey will be irresistible. I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity or desirability of Hindu-Muslim Unity. I am also fully prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Quran and the Hadis? The Muslim leaders cannot override them. Are we then doomed? I hope not. I hope your learned mind and wise head will find some way out of this difficulty.'

A terrible and gruesome fallout of the disastrous Khilafat experiment of Mahatma Gandhi was the Moplah Rebellion in Malabar District in 1921. According to the Report of the ENQUIRY COMMITTEE OF SERVANTS OF INDIA SOCIETY, the number of Hindus murdered by Moplah Muslims was 1500, the number of Hindus forcibly converted 20,000 and the value of property looted about Rs three crore. When the national and local leaders appealed to the virulently anti-Hindu Moplah Muslims in the name of Mahatma Gandhi to follow the ways of peace and non-violence, they replied bluntly with Islamic fervour: 'GANDHI IS A KAFIR, HOW CAN HE BE OUR LEADER?' Dr Anne Besant declared: 'The Moplah Muslim marauders murdered and plundered abundantly, killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about 100,000 people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything'. She also accused all the Khilafat religious preachers for all this terrible atrocities. J Campbell, chief of the Intelligence Department, Government of India, held the Khilafat leaders squarely responsible for inciting racial hatred resulting in Moplah carnage.

Despite the known magnitude of atrocities committed by the Muslim marauders during Moplah rebellion, the Congress Working Committee passed the following resolution: 'Whilst, however, condemning violence on the part of the Moplahs, the Working Committee desires it to be known that evidence in its possession shows that provocation beyond endurance was given to the Moplahs and that the reports published by and on behalf of the Government have given a one-sided and highly exaggerated account of the wrongs done by the Moplahs'. The Congress resolution put the number of conversions at just three as against 20,000 arrived at by the Enquiry Committee of the Servants of India Society of which Rt Hon Srinivasa Shastri was the President at that time. The Congress Party today also lives and functions in a self-chosen cave of demented pseudo-secular delusion!!!

How did the Muslim Leaders of the time respond to these over generous gestures of Congress Working Committee and 'MAHA KAFIR' Mahatma Gandhi? Hakim Hajmal Khan, the Congress President of the 1921 Session at Ahemdabad, while presiding over the Khilafat Conference in the same town, came out with this brazen declaration, with Gandhiji and all other kafirs sitting by his side on the dias, about the glorious future awaiting the Pan-Islamic Empire: 'India on the one side and Asia Minor on the other are but two extreme links on a chain of future Islamic Federation, which are gradually but surely joining together all intermediate States in one great system'.

The eruption of Muslim communal frenzy in the form of Moplah uprising in Malabar and other riots all over the country played a key role in removing the blinkers from the eyes of many Hindu leaders in 1921. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das (1870-1925), President of the Gaya session in 1922 declared with conviction: 'Hindu Muslim Unity has ceased to be a pious dream. It has now become an impossibility'.

Rabindranath Tagore and CR Das were great friends. In 1924, Tagore's genuine fears about the divided loyalty of Muslims appeared in Times of India (18-4-1924): 'A very important factor which is making it almost impossible for Hindu-Muslim unity to become an accomplished fact is that the Muslims cannot confine their patriotism to any one country. I had frankly asked many Muslims whether, in the event of any Mohammedan power invading India, they would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common motherland, I was not satisfied with the reply I got from them. I can definitely state that such men as Mr.Mohammed Ali have declared that under no circumstances is it permissible for any Mohammden whatever be his country to stand against any Mohammadan'. Tagore was yet another superstitious KAFIR.

The Congress today is repeating the tragedy of Mahatma Gandhi and the political perfidy of the Congress Working Committee of 1921 by committing the same 'HIMALAYAN BLUNDER' of extending full support to compassionate and ever-gracious Muslims like Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari who are hell-bent on converting the whole of India into a Pan- Islamic Republic unlike the so-called 'secular' Jinnah who only wanted a few bits of India to be converted into Pakistan.

To reject Vande Mataram is not treason? - III

Dr Rajendra Prasad, while presiding over the Constituent Assembly on 24 January, 1950, made the following statement which was also adopted as the basis for the final decision on the issue:

'The composition consisting of words and music known as Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations as the Government may authorise as occasion arises, and the song VANDE MATARAM, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honored equally with Jana Gana Mana and SHALL HAVE EQUAL STATUS WITH IT. (Applause) I hope this will satisfy members.' (Constituent Assembly of India, Vol. XII, 24-1-1950)

It will be clear from Dr Rajendra Prasad's declaration that Vande Mataram is equal in status to our National Anthem of Jana Gana Mana.. When he made this declaration on 24 January, 1950, all the Muslim Members of the Constituent Assembly including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad also gave their full approval to the proposal. It is not now open to anyone in India to question the constitutional or the legal status of this great National Song of Bankim Chandra Chaterjee. If they are given that freedom or latitude, that means they are questioning the Constitution of India. Petty and self-seeking men like Arjun Singh and Priyaranjan Dasmunsi dressed in brief authority today are creating a communal wedge between Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram only for sordid vote-bank and narrow political reasons. Their pernicious Anti-Majority political philosophy on this issue can be summed up in a laconic limerick:

Vande Mataram is not mandatory

Even Jana Gana Mana need not be involuntary

Vande Mataram can be secularly mandatory

Vande Mataram can be communally non-mandatory

In our official Non-Government

Sacred things often become sacrilegious

And sacrilegious things become sacred

Things sublime will be viewed as subversive

Things subversive will shine as jewels sublime

Pray don't dismiss us as dubiously dilatory

By temperament and training, we are suavely soaked in sophistry

We are not steeped in 'communal' stupidity

Is it not almost a pity?

Nobody understands our poor pseudo-secular ditty

That we often sing with Sonia-reverence alacrity

With such non-constitutional clarity

And with known and authentic Anti-Hindu acerbity!!

With total dedication to absolute communal minority!!!

Virulent controversy is now raging in the Lok Sabha over the recital of Vande Mataram and yesterday there was a pandemonium in the House. Arjun Singh made a great declaration that singing the Vande Mataram song is purely a voluntary affair. He can now add that respecting the National Flag is also a purely voluntary and private affair. He can also add that political chastity is communal and political prostitution is secular, constitutional and cosmopolitan. Another great national hero famed in modern song and legend called P.R.Dasmunsi, Parlimentary Affairs (Pseudo-Secular and Non-Communal and Non-Saffronised!!) made the historic declaration: 'The BJP does not even know the meaning of the Vande Mataram song. This song was composed even before the BJP was born and this was sung by the Indian National Congress. The BJP does not even know the meaning of this song. The BJP is only giving a communal colour to the issue to divide society'.

The BJP leader V K Malhotra has covered himself with glory by saying,' It is unfortunate that some people are objecting to the singing of Vande Mataram which is most condemnable. At the time of the centenary of the Vande Mataram song in September this year, singing of this song should be made compulsory and those who do not wish to do it, can leave the country', I am quite sure that many known anti-national and anti-Hindu quislings in the UPA Government will go to the extent of proposing the 'constitutional' withdrawal of citizenship rights from those 'communal' citizens who will dare to sing the Vande Mataram song with gusto and enthusiasm on 7 September 2006!! This dastardly proposal will be pushed to another pseudo-secular JPC of the Lok Sabha for its careful consideration! Nothing unfair is impossible and nothing fair is possible.

P R Dasmunsi may be 'voluntarily' ignorant of the fact that Vande Mataram (in Bangla: Bônde Matorom) is the National Song of India and that it was first written in 1876, nine years before the birth of the Indian National Congress in Bombay in December 1885. When it was composed, neither the Indian National Congress nor the BJP or for that matter any political party of today existed. This song was composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in a highly Sanskritized form of the Bengali language. The Vande Mataram a poem known for sublimity of thought dedicated to the glory of motherland was composed by late Shri Bankim Chandra Chatterjee on 7 November, 1876 at the Kantal Pada village of Bengal. This song was published in Bang Darshan magazine from 1880 to 1882. The song first appeared in his immortal novel Anandamatha, published in 1882 amid fears of a ban by British Raj. H V Sheshadri has rightly observed: 'It was a hymn of love of motherland sublimated into an ecstatic devotion to the DIVINE MOTHER-BHARAT. In that exalted vision was manifest the trinity of SARASWATHI (THE GODDESS OF KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE), LAKSHMI (THE GODDESS OF BEAUTY AND WEALTH) AND DURGA (THE GODDESS OF STRENGTH AND ENERGY).' Vande Mataram became the national battle cry for freedom from British oppression during the freedom movement. In the hectic days of Swadeshi Movement following the Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905, large rallies, fermenting initially in West Bengal, in the major metropolis of Calcutta (Kolkata), often worked themselves up into a pitch of high patriotic ferver by shouting the slogan 'Vande Mataram,' or 'Hail to the Mother(Land)!'. The British, fearful of the potential danger of an incited Indian populace, at one point banned the utterance of the motto in public forums and jailed many freedom fighters for disobeying the proscription. To this day, 'Vande Mataram' is seen as a national mantra describing the love of patriots for the Indian Nation. Rabindranath Tagore sang 'Vande Mataram' in 1896 at the Calcutta (Kolkata) Congress Session. It was the first political occasion when Vande Mataram was sung in chorus. Rabindranath Tagore also set Vande Mataram to music.

The Indian National Congress rehearsed Vande Mataram in 1901 under the guidance of Dakshanrajan Sen. Smt. Sarla Devi Chaudharani, niece of Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram at the Benares Congress Session in 1905 despite the ban on its singing by the British Government. Lala Lajpat Rai started a journal called VANDE MATARAM from Lahore in 1906.

To quote the appropriate words of R Pandya and Somkuwar : 'Vande Mataram had become an expression of nationalism for the patriots and revolutionaries who launched several movements and agitations against the oppressive British Rule drawing inspiration from the magic words of Vande Mataram song. In fact, Vande Mataram had become a symbol of India's freedom struggle. Great exponent of Indian classical music Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar played an important role in popularizing Vande Mataram during the glorious days of our freedom movement. He began public recitation of Vande Mataram from Lahore and sung it at many places all over the country. His presentation of Vande Mataram was so charged with sublime emotions that it used to thrill the listeners and arouse feelings of nationalism among them making them feel proud of the mother nation'.

In 1905, the freedom movement had taken an organized shape and in the same year our national politics took a new turn with the announcement of Swadeshi Movement on 7 August, 1905 at Calcutta. The British divided Bengal on 16 October, 1905. Vande Mataram immediately became the people's song not only in Bengal but in the entire nation. Its soul-stirring words reverberated in the streets, schools and every part and portion of India. It quickly spread throughout India and was on the lips of millions. The founder of RASHTRIYA SWAYAM SEVAK SANGH DR. KESHAV BALIRAM HEDGEWAR WAS EXPELLED FROM HIS SCHOOL IN NAGPUR BECAUSE OF HIS ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE VANDE MATARAM AGITATION. LATER IN 1925, DR. HEDGEWAR FOUNDED THE RSS. The declaration of Swadeshi movement completed its 100 years on 7 August, 2005.

After 1915, it became an established and sacred tradition to begin every session of Indian National Congress with recitation of Vande Mataram song .Subhash Chandra Bose made Vande Mataram the song of his Indian National Army and it was regularly broadcast from his Singapore radio station from 1943 to 1945. The Cambridge History of India describes Vande Mataram as, 'the greatest and most enduring gift of the Swadeshi movement'. B N Pande in his 'A Book of India' writes, 'Vande Mataram, soon became the LA MARSEILLAISE of the nationalist movement throughout India.'

It is a known fact of history that Gandhiji often extolled the grandeur of the Vande Mataram song. At Comilla in 1927, he said that the song held up before one's mind the picture of the whole BHARAT?ONE AND INDIVISIBLE. H.V.Seshadri concludes: 'Vande Mataram??these two simple words had, indeed, wrought a miracle which even thousands of speeches and articles could not have achieved in several generations. It became the cry of the awakened and resurgent national soul'.

History is philosophy teaching by example, and also by warning. History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable. He alone reads history aright, who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.

To reject Vande Mataram is not treason? - IV

When the Imam of Jamma Masjid and other Muslim clerics dismiss the sacred National Song of Vande mataram with Islamic contempt and conviction, with the full back-drop support of the UPA Government in New Delhi, we should not forget the fact that their spiritual and cultural progenitor was Maulana Mohammed Ali who was a front rank leader in the days of the Khillafat Movement immediately after World War I. He paid his Islamic tribute to Maha Kafir Mahatma Gandhi in these immortal and time-defying words (perhaps even qualifying himself for the posthumous award of Bharat Ratna today!!!): 'However pure Gandhiji's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman, even though he be without character'. Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi'. All this he said in 1921.

Maulana Mohammed Ali who had thus politically stabbed 'Maha Kafir' Mahatma Gandhi in the back even in the days of the Khillafat Movement was given the supreme honour by the ever-nervous towards the Muslims Congress Party to preside over the Kakinada Session of the Congress in 1923. It was in that Session THAT THE FIRST BLOW WAS STRUCK AT THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF VANDE MATARAM. During those years, the reputed singer and patriot Vishnu Digambar Paluskar of Maharashtra used to sway the inaugural session of Congress with his deep and resonant music of Vande Mataram song. However, when he came on the dais to sing at the Kakinada Session in 1923, he was stopped by the President Maulana Mohammed Ali. The Maulana exclaimed that singing of music was taboo in Islam and as such he would not permit it. The entire Assembly was stunned; everyone, including the top leaders and stalwarts adorning the dais like Mahatma Gandhi, Madan Mohan Malaviya, and others sat dumbstruck, unable to think of a proper reply or retort to the Congress President. Paluskar, however stuck to his post of duty. In a voice filled with righteous indignation he retorted to the Maulana: 'The Indian National Congress is not the monopoly of any one particular sect nor is this place a mosque, where singing could be prohibited. You have therefore no authority to prevent me from singing VANDE MATARAM. Moreover, if singing in this place is against your particular religion, HOW IS IT YOU COULD TOLERATE MUSIC IN YOUR PRESIDENTIAL PROCESSION?' The ever-benevolent Maulana of course had NO ANSWER to this challenging and legitimate question, but left the dais while Paluskar went through the singing of the glorious song to the joyous applause of the audience. The patriotic spirit of thousands of common men and women of India triumphed over the monotheistic intolerance of Maulana Mohammed Ali on the occasion. There were no Arjun Singhs or Dasmunsis to give him the succor of Constitutional protection on that occasion.

When the British Government proscribed the singing or chanting of Vande Mataram during the days of Swadeshi Movement in Bengal in 1905, the Congress party was not unnerved by it. It remained unruffled and stuck to the gun of singing this glorious song throughout the country and even adopting it as its National Anthem. Very unfortunately for the country and for the forces of selfless Indian Nationalism, the Congress Party started wavering in 1922 and started viewing Vande Mataram as an 'irritant' in the path of winning over Muslims. The Congress Party even adopted Mohammed Iqbal's SARE JAHAN SE ACCHA HINDUSTHAN HAMARA as the associate National Anthem JUST TO SATISFY THE MUSLIMS.

The next stage in the strenuous and tortured story of Vande Mataram was reached in 1937 when Congress Party formed the Government in seven Provinces. In keeping with its past tradition, the Congress Party began commencing the Assembly proceedings with VANDE MATARAM. The Muslim League, equally true to its tradition, quite like the Muslim clerics of today, declared a war against it. The League Members in the Assembly raised a storm of protest and staged walk-outs. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) was scheduled to meet in October 1937 at Calcutta. The Muslim League conducted its session earlier and denounced Congress-ruled States as 'HINDU STATES'. And the most weighty testimony it adduced was the singing of the VANDE MATARAM in PROVINCIAL Assemblies!!

The League condemned the Congress for imposing 'VANDE MATARAM AS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM UPON THE COUNTRY' and termed it as 'callous, positively anti-Islamic, IDOLATROUS IN ITS INSPIRATION AND IDEAS, and definitely SUBVERSIVE of the growth of GENUINE NATIONALISM in India'. The Muslim League further called upon 'MUSLIM MEMBERS OF VARIOUS LEGISLATURES AND PUBLIC BODIES IN THE COUNTRY NOT TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES IN ANY MANNER WITH THIS HIGHLY OBJECTIONABLE SONG'.

H V Sheshadri has brilliantly summed up the ideological surrender of the Congress party to the machinations of the Muslim League in 1937: 'When the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met a few days later, it was haunted by the spectre of the League's opposition and formulated ITS POLICY ON 'MINORITY RIGHTS'. If HINDU-MUSLIM unity??without which the British would not part with power??was to be achieved, the Muslims should not, AT ANY COST, be allowed to feel displeased. THEIR SENTIMENTS SHOULD NEVER BE INJURED, FOR WHATEVER REASON. ACCORDINGLY, THE CONGRESS DECIDED TO 'CUT OUT' THOSE PORTIONS OF VANDE MATARAM 'WHICH WERE LIKELY TO OFFEND THE MUSLIM SUCEPTIBILITIES as indicated in the League's resolution. ONLY THE FIRST TWO STANZAS OF THE ONG DEPICTING THE PHYSICAL PICTURE OF THE MOTHERLAND-WERE RETINED AND THE REST 'DROPPED'. Indeed, it was in those subsequent stanzas that the real essence of our nationalism and the spirit of the Freedom Struggle were enshrined. However, the Congress considered these stanzas as 'CONTAINING CERTAIN ALLUSIONS AND RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY WHICH MAY NOT BE IN KEEPING WITH THE IDEOLOGY OF OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN INDIA', and upheld 'THE VALIDITY OF OBJECTION RAISED BY MUSLIM FRIENDS TO CERTAIN PARTS OF THE SONG'. The Congress further gave its organizers 'FREEDOM TO SING ANY OTHER SONG OF AN UNOBECTIONABLE CHARACTER IN ADDITION TO, OR, IN THE PLACE OF VANDE MATARAM'. The last sentence clearly indicated that the Congress had even taken away the unique position of VANDE MATARAM as the NATIONAL ANTHEM and 'PLACED IT ON PAR WITH OTHER NATIONAL SONGS'.'

The Congress party laid the cultural and spiritual foundation for the communal partition of India on 15 August 947, by abjectly surrendering to the black-mailing tactics of the Muslim league in 1937 by tearing apart the Vande Mataram Song on communal grounds and raping Bharat Mata with pseudo-secular fervour and passion. This task begun in 1937 was completed by Nehru and Jinnah in 1947. Today the Imam of Jamma Masjid and the other Muslim Clerics are asking the Congress Party to give up even the so called 'secular portions' of Vande Mataram as identified by the Congress Party in 1937. Instead of making it clear to the Imam and his other clerics that the Constitution of India has given the status of a National Song to Vande Mataram, the Government of India is keeping itself boisterously busy by picking up petty quarrels with the BJP on he ground that they have no historical associations with it. At the same time they are pseudo-secularly and voluntarily ignorant of the solid fact hat Dr.Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, was rusticated by the British authorities from the High School for singing the Vande Mataram Song. When Dasmunsi questions as to whether the BJP men have ever sung the Vande Mataram Song, I would like to ask him whether he is going to declare from a public platform that Sonia Gandhi's grand father sang the Vande Mataram song in the company of Rabindranath Tagore? Are not Muslim-nervous leaders like Dr Manmohan Singh, Arjun Singh, Dasmunsi and other outstanding leaders of the Congress Party acting like Master Craftsmen in dealing with the vital national issue of Vande Mataram Song? I am using the word Master Craftsmen deliberately for the known and simple reason that Craft is common to both Skill and Deceit!!!

Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad was treated like a brother by Maha Kafir Mahatma Gandhi. He was twice elected President; in Delhi in 1923 (Special Session) and Rangarh in 1940. He continued as Congress President till 1946. he also stabbed Mahatma Gandhi in the last week of 1945 when he gave a letter to Lord Pethick-Lawrence of the Cabinet Mission by agreeing to his proposal for the non-inclusion of a Nationalist Muslim of Congress in the interim Union Cabinet that was being formed at that time. It was an unauthorised letter and Gandhiji was shocked by it when he got a letter from Lord Pethick Lawrence confirming in writing Azad's letter to him on behalf of the Congress. When Gandhiji confronted Azad even when the letter from Lord Pethick Lawrence was on his table, Maulana Azad denied having sent a letter to Lord Pethick Lawrencec!!

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia last month called a meeting with 13 senior Muslim leaders to map out a joint approach to curbing extremism within the 300,000-strong Islamic community, and obtained pledges of loyalty to Australia. But he was criticized for excluding Muslims considered 'radical,' and yesterday's summit was called by the uninvited Islamic leaders.

Howard told the Muslims of Australia: ' If you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you....If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option.'

Unlike the Muslim Clerics of India, the 'Radical' Muslims have pledged their loyalty to Australia'. On the contrary, our Pan-Islamic clerics are pledging their disloyalty to the sacred National Song of Vande Mataram!!! I hope that our learned Muslim Clerics will not issue a fatwa against the Australian Muslims for their declared loyalty to their duly constituted government.