BY CHANDRODAYA BHATTACHARYA

With regard to our national song, some men have recently raised an objection that it does not suit the non-idolatrous tenets of Islam. The Indian National Congress, too, has thought it necessary to resoond to this reaction, by its proposal to cut down a major portion of it, which, according to it, might be repugnant to Muslim Sentiment. But the Song contains no idolatry. There is in it merely a personification of the Mother-land. Certainly nobody would maintain that Poets of non-idolatrous faiths eschew this common figure of speech. Thus Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur, in his beautiful Poem ‘India to England,’ addressed the following words to England in her hour of need:

No doubt, in the ‘Vande Mataram’ Song, the Motherland has been addressed by the names of some Hindu goddesses as Durga, kamala, Vani, etc. Yet, here she is no goddess of Hindu mythology; she is merely a living country with her brimful rivers, flowering plants, fruitful trees, green cornfields, her moonlit nights, her wealth and power and her teeming millions. Where in the whole of the Hindu pantheon can one discover this goddess of the Motherland? Imagery is not necessarily idolatry.

It has also been suggested that our national Song is anti-Muslim, because in the book ‘Anandamath,’ where it first occurs, it happens to be the war-cry of Some Hindu rebels that rose against what may be termed as Muslim rule. A careful perusal of the book will, however, show that they fought against only the misrule of Mir Jafar who was admittedly a weak puppet under the thumb of his English overlords. It is true that the monks of ‘Anandamath’ were, in the beginning, actuated by a desire to re-establish Hindu Raj in their land of birth. That was natural enough. But with surprising foresight, befitting a far-seeing prophet, the author of ‘Anandamath’ has made them realise, in the sequel, that the re-establishment of Hindu Raj is an impossible thing and a narrow ideal. How catholic and wonderfully true of the future is this outlook of wisdom! Who can still read communalism into the ‘Vande Mataram’ song?

In the ‘Anandamath,’ the Motherland of these rebels is the whole of Bengal (when Bihar and Orissa were not separated from her) with her seven crores of children. The phrase "seven crores" clearly indicates that the Motherland owns the Mussulmans also as her children. In fact, she includes the whole of India and every community of India. Though the exigencies of time and space, incidental to the story of the novel, required the mention of ‘seven crores of people’ in the ‘Vande Mataram’ song, still it reflects the sentiment and aspiration of every Indian. In the first place, there is in it no mention of Bengal by name. In the second place, the description it gives of the Motherland answers to the whole of India. ‘Seven crores’ has already changed gradually to thirty, thirty-two and thirty-five crores; and it could easily give place to ‘forty crores’ when the population of India would rise to that figure, just as the National Anthem of England admits of either ‘King’ or ‘Queen’ without in any way destroying its organic unity.

‘That the author of ‘Anandamath’ meant much more than what it could openly express is clear from the concluding words of its first edition: "The fire kindled by Satyanand did not die. If I can, I will say more about it afterwards." But there was the British gag. For many years in Bengal, the ‘Anandamath’ was considered by the Police as seditious. As a matter of fact, the author of ‘Anandamath’ was rather a communist in his leanings than a communalist. His sympathy with Marxian ideology is evident from his book ‘Samya’ which he wrote, as he puts it in the preface, in order to spread communistic ideas among the uneducated people of the country. In his article, ‘The Farmers of Bengal,’ he tried to draw the attention of the public to the woes of the farmers. And he was quite conscious that most of these farmers were Mussulmans (vide ‘Vividha Prabandha,’ Part 2.)

Bankim, the author of ‘Anandamath,’ was, no doubt, a Hindu. But he was no hater of the Mussulmans. True, he found fault with the weak rulers of Moghul decadence; but he also severely criticised the cant and hypocrisy of the Hindus. Let those Mussulmans who are against the ‘Vande Mataram’ song read the works of Bankim, especially his religious essays, with sympathy; and they will have, the right perspective for appreciating this beautiful and inspiring hymn to the Motherland. It has not an iota of idolatry, or antipathy to Islam, or, for the matter of that, to any religion whatsoever.

As for the leaders of the Congress, they should think a thousand times before they finally settle to cripple our accredited National Anthem. For it is a unique whole. No doubt, the first few lines which they mean to retain are fine poetry, sweet and charming. But the more inspiring words that alone can raise it to the level of a national song come later. The Motherland will be distinctly the poorer if she is deprived of this invaluable offering of a talented son of hers, an offering which she has spontaneously accepted as her own.

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