Modi's 'Vande Mataram' pitch signals renewed BJP push in West Bengal

After being in power in India for the last 11 years at a stretch and capturing power in several states at regular intervals under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the one state that has eluded the Bharatiya Janata Party's grasp so far is West Bengal, the "final frontier" in the saffron party's political lexicon.

The urge for power in West Bengal was once again evident in Modi's speech while opening the debate in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, on 8 December to commemorate 150 years of the iconic nationalistic song "Vande Mataram" written by novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

Modi was eloquent about Bengal and accused the Indian National Congress of truncating the six-stanza "Vande Mataram" song to appease the Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, saying the appeasement had led to the partition of the Indian subcontinent. 

The speech by the Indian prime minister left little doubt that he had at the top of his mind the coming assembly election to the 294-member legislative assembly of West Bengal, due in March-April 2026.

The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress came to power in West Bengal in the May 2011 assembly polls, on a powerful anti-Left Front plank ending 34 years of uninterrupted red rule in the state. 

A decade down the line, in May 2021 to be precise, Banerjee changed track to extend her grip on the state by invoking Bengali sub-nationalism and cultural pride and dubbing the BJP an "outsider." 

But the BJP still managed to win 77 seats, its highest ever in the state, as the Left parties suffered a meltdown in the 2021 electoral battle. 

In parliament, on 8 December, Modi's speech can be viewed as a counter by highlighting Indian nationalism through "Vande Mataram" and Bengal. In essence, it was delving into the past to look at the future for the BJP in the state.   

In his speech during the debate, Modi gunned for the expected political targets, Congress, which he accused of indulging in "appeasement politics" and turning into "Muslim League-Maoist Congress," and independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he accused of truncating the "Vande Mataram" song from six stanzas to two under pressure from the Muslim League.

The PM's political messaging was prefaced by reminiscing about the history of how Vande Mataram has been all about "resurrecting the glorious past of India," which is at the core of the BJP's ideological inspiration, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's cultural project. 

The political import was also on display when Modi threw in references to two of the events the BJP and RSS blame Congress for: the partition of the Indian subcontinent and the infamous Emergency of 1975, when democratic rights and civil liberties had been suspended under the prime ministership of Indira Gandhi.

Modi opened the debate by reminiscing about the British colonial regime's divide-and-rule politics in undivided Bengal and said, "When they divided Bengal in 1905, 'Vande Mataram' stood like a rock."

"They [British regime] used Bengal as their laboratory. They knew that Bengal's intellectual capability gave direction, strength and inspiration to the country. They knew Bengal's capabilities were the focal point of the country. This is why they divided Bengal," Modi said, adding, "They believed that if Bengal was divided, the country would be divided too."

"Vande Mataram" was first published in the literary magazine "Bongodarshan" and was incorporated in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel "Anand Math." Only the first two stanzas of the song were adopted, starting with a 1937 session of  Congress, and later the Constitution adopted it in 1950. Unlike the first two stanzas, which refer to mother and motherland at large, the other four refer directly to Hindu goddesses by name, invoking religious imagery.

Modi said the Congress had convened a session in "Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Bengal" to review the use of "Vande Mataram" – a reference to a Congress Working Committee meeting in Calcutta in 1937 on the matter. 

They "partitioned" Vande Mataram in 1937, Modi said, speaking in Hindi, "tukde kar diye," and linked the party's "appeasement politics" to "what led to the partition of India in 1947."

The prime minister quoted Mahatma Gandhi on "Vande Mataram" as published in the journal Indian Opinion, published from South Africa, where the latter wrote on 2 December 1905 that "Vande Mataram" had become immensely popular across Bengal, and during the Swadeshi movement, massive gatherings had been held where lakhs of people had sung it turning it into almost like a national anthem.

Modi said Jinnah raised a slogan against Vande Mataram from Lucknow on 15 October 1937 and claimed that Nehru, then Congress president, instead of firmly countering the statements of the Muslim League, questioned "Vande Mataram." 

He recalled that just five days after Jinnah's opposition, on 20 October 1937, Nehru wrote a letter to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, agreeing with Jinnah's sentiment and stating that the "Anand Math" background of "Vande Mataram" could irritate Muslims. 

The Indian prime minister quoted Nehru's words, saying, "I have read the background of the 'Vande Mataram' song. I feel that this background may provoke Muslims."

He said Congress's decision to truncate the full version of "Vande Mataram" had been "cloaked under the guise of social harmony, but history bears witness that Congress bowed before the Muslim League and acted under its pressure." 

Modi added that in Bengal's streets, a Bengali song had echoed, meaning that, "Dear Mother, serving you and chanting 'Vande Mataram,' even if life is lost, that life is blessed," which he said had become the voice of children and gave courage to the nation.

Modi's senior party colleague, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, participating in the debate, said some people had found the novel "Anand Math" to be "communal" and that it was for this reason that "Vande Mataram" had also been targeted. 

But "if we go back to that era, which 'Anand Math' depicts, it becomes clear that the subject matter was not against any religion or sect. At that time, Bengal was suffering from a severe famine, and the nawab of Bengal was collecting heavy land revenue from the starving population under pressure from the British. 'Anand Math' was written against this injustice," Singh said.

To sum up, the debate on "Vande Mataram" reiterates the oft-repeated saying: "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow."