Sumitro Chatterjee, a BJP MLA and direct descendant of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay , has sought an unconditional apology from Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi over an alleged incident during the party’s Independence Day event at the AICC headquarters on August 15.
In a letter to Gandhi, the BJP MLA from Naihati said he was writing as an ordinary citizen, a patriot and a direct descendant of Bankim Chandra, expressing “deep pain, emptiness, and anger” over the episode.
Gandhi and Kharge can subsequently be seen allegedly gesturing to stop the song.
A video from the Congress event shows Gandhi speaking to party president Mallikarjun Kharge while “ Vande Mataram ” is being played. The Congress, however, denied that there was any attempt to stop the singing of the full version of “Vande Mataram”. The party said Gandhi was only asking for a chair for Kharge. Invoking Sri Aurobindo’s description of “Vande Mataram” as a mantra that initiated the nation into the “religion of patriotism”, Chatterjee said any reluctance to recite the full song on the soil of free India was an insult to the sacrifices of freedom fighters such as Khudiram Bose. Chatterjee highlighted the song’s role in India’s freedom movement, referring to Rabindranath Tagore’s rendition of “Vande Mataram” at the 1896 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani’s recitation at the 1905 Benares Congress session. The BJP MLA alleged that the Congress’s “so-called dual policy” towards the song was not new. He referred to the party’s decision in 1937 to truncate “Vande Mataram” after objections from Mohammad Ali Jinnah, saying the shadow of that “compromise” was visible again in the party’s conduct. Chatterjee also pointed to the Congress’s West Bengal student wing, Chhatra Parishad, which uses the slogan “Mantra moder sanjeevan – Vande Mataram”, and questioned why the party’s top leadership would be uncomfortable with the song.
