The Congress leader refers to instances where veteran BJP leader LK Advani praised Jinnah and former BJP minister Jaswant Singh wrote a book lauding him.
NEW DELHI — Congress general secretary and Chairman of the party’s Communication Department, Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday said the purpose of the Vande Mataram debate in the Parliament was only to malign Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for something he never did.
Speaking during the debate on the 150th anniversary of the national song in the Rajya Sabha, the senior Congress leader also tore into the BJP’s accusations about Pandit Nehru having appeased Mohammad Ali Jinnah, asserting that the adoption of the song in its present form was the collective decision of the Congress leadership of that time.
Citing extensive correspondence that took place among towering Indian National Congress leaders who were also great freedom fighters, like Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Pandit Nehru and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, he said, it was a collective decision taken by the Congress Working Committee in Calcutta to adopt the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram as the national song.
He said all these leaders had expressed concern over the rising communal polarisation in the country at that time.
This, he pointed out, had been confirmed by Gurudev Tagore, in an article in Anand Bazar Patrika wherein he had written that the CWC had accepted his suggestion to adopt Vande Mataram as the national anthem, which was later adopted as the national song, in its current form.
Countering and cornering Hindu Mahasabha’s Syama Prasad Mookerjee with Muslim League’s Fazlul Haq in West Bengal, he said it was the same Haq who moved the resolution for Pakistan in Lahore in 1940. Ramesh said Hindu Mahasabha had also formed coalition governments with the Muslim League in Sindh and North-West Frontier Province, yet the BJP was accusing Nehru of appeasement.
He also referred to instances where veteran BJP leader LK Advani praised Jinnah and former BJP minister Jaswant Singh wrote a book lauding him. He said while the BJP leaders themselves aligned with the Muslim League and praised its leader, they were accusing Nehru of appeasement.
Referring to the Vande Mataram debate, Ramesh said: “the entire project was aimed at maligning Nehru”.
He pointed out that the Vande Mataram song is recited in every Congress session. He accused the BJP of not only insulting Nehru but all the great freedom fighters like Gandhi, Bose, Patel, Pant and others who had unanimously agreed on the current form of the national song.
