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V SUNDARAM

        Shakespeare wrote: 'I do love my country's good with respect more tender, more holy and profound than my own life.' The minority UPA government in New Delhi would dismiss this saying of Shakespeare as sentimental if not communal and saffronised nonsense. The wickedly petty and sordid way in which this non-performing government has gone about to belittle and trivialise the immortal VANDE MATARAM song of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) in the centenary year of the singing of this beautiful and patriotic song constitutes one of the darkest moments in the history of India after independence.

        All nationalistic and patriotic Indians in India must unite together to sing the glorious song of VANDE MATARAM tomorrow (7 September, 2006) which marks the completion of the centenary year of the countrywide singing of the song after the Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, in 1905. In spite of ruthless public opposition to the move, Lord Curzon declared the Partition of Bengal, on 20 July 1905. This day is one red-letter day in the history of the fight for freedom of our country. The Swadeshi and Boycott Movements which were to assume in future nation-stirring proportions were really the products of the Partition of Bengal. Bengal in 1905-06 indeed became a cauldron of wild conflagration. The public frenzy rose to unprecedented heights. The VANDE MATARAM song of the Sanyasis in the immortal novel, Ananda Math of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was heard everywhere in streets and houses, in squares and the river bunds, in the towns and villages, not only in Bengal but in all parts of India. The sentiments expressed in this song and the national spirit which it aroused, threw a challenge to the British rule. Provoked by these anti-slogans, the British government became so ruthless as to proclaim the sentence of public whipping to all those who even uttered VANDE MATARAM. The government banned service-people from participating in the public singing of VANDE MATARAM. Secret circulars were issued by the government warning government servants that they would be dismissed from service if they chose to sing VANDE MATARAM. Despite this warning, hundreds of government servants came forward to sing the VANDE MATARAM song on the streets and all of them were demoted or dismissed. Thus by the beginning of 1906, VANDE MATARAM acquired the unrivalled status of the national song.

        In March 1906, the BARISAL PARISHAD was created and a Provincial Conference of Bengal was fixed at Barisal. The rising star of the new age, Aurobindo Ghosh (later Shri Aurobindo) was to adorn this conference. The government banned the singing of VANDE MATARAM song at that conference. The delegates were furious at the ban and they decided to defy it. A massive public procession chanting VANDE MATARAM went through the city of Barisal. Surendra Nath Banerjee was in the vanguard of this huge procession. The police let loose violence through a lathi- charge against all who participated in this procession. There was a disastrous melee. The procession was broken. Thousands were injured. With blood dripping from their wounds, all the mouths were loudly singing VANDE MATARAM. Even when the conference was on, a police officer came on the scene to read out the government ban and the conference was closed.

        The Barisal incident had a great emotional impact on Shri Aurobindo. As a mark of protest, he resigned from his public service in Baroda in order to start a new revolution in Bengal and indeed India. On 7 August, 1906, Shri Aurobindo started his paper VANDE MATARAM which later turned to be an immortal and unforgettable newspaper in the history of Indian journalism. He wrote in a fiery and spirited style. His thoughts were noble and penetrating. His writings had the effect of conquering the soul of India and thousands upon thousands were inspired to offer their lives upon the altar of freedom with the song of VANDE MATARAM on their lips.

        Om Shri Hem Chandra Das was an adventurous revolutionary who sold all his immovable property in Bengal and went to Paris in 1906. He became a member of the 'ABHINAV BHARAT' of Veer Savarkar. Under the guidance of Veer Savarkar's colleagues, he established his contact with Russian Nihilists. From them he got the formula and practical lessons in the manufacture of bombs. Hem Chandra Das returned to India with the formula and the art. He came to Poona and demonstrated the formula and the manufacture of bombs to Lok Manya Tilak and Aurobindo Ghosh. Under his inspiration, Khudiram Bosh and Prafulla Chandra Chaki threw bombs in a carriage at Muzaffarpur in December 1907. It was directed against the notorious Chief Presidency Magistrate, an Englishman called Kingsford. But unfortunately he was not travelling in that carriage on that fateful day and two innocent English ladies got killed. This was the first bomb explosion in India as a weapon to frighten the alien English rulers. This was the first political murder with the help of a bomb. The whole of Bharath was shocked by this explosion of the bomb. Prufulla Chandra Chaki killed himself with his own revolver. Khudiram Bosh was arrested on 1 May, 1908. When he was being taken to the Muzaffarpur Police Station, milling crowds greeted him with VANDE MATARAM. He also joined the chorus singing of VANDE MATARAM with great frenzy and fervour. Khudiram Bosh confessed courageously in the court that he had thrown the bomb. This tender youth of 16 years climbed the platform to be hanged on the gallows on 11 August, 1908, with the sacred book of Bhagavat Geetha in his hands, the sacred song of VANDE MATARAM on his lips and a smile of cool satisfaction on his face. It was indeed just another reminder of the deathless courage of that heroic Abhimanyu of Mahabharatha fame.

        It is a grim national tragedy in our public life today that we have an Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating minority UPA government today at the helm of affairs in New Delhi which is more concerned with the sentiments and sensibilities of anti-national Muslims like the Imam of Jama Masjid of New Delhi. At a recent press meet in Allahabad, Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari covered himself with Pan-Islamic glory when he said 'Vande Mataram is against Islamic beliefs and asking Muslims to sing it would amount to suppression of the community. 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.' Was this not a moment of jubilation and bliss to the dubious and pseudo-secular patriots in the surrogate UPA government in New Delhi? According to them, fervent national patriotism rooted in VANDE MATARAM is negotiable and divisible. The traditions established by Surendranath Bannerjee, Bala Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh, Subhash Chandra Bose are viewed as sacrilegious disposable communal wastes by the Congress leaders of the UPA government in New Delhi committed only to the sordid cause of Religious and Communal Vote-Bank Politics. Great revolutionaries like Khudiram Bosh, Prafulla Chandra Chaki, Jatindranath Das, Chandra Shekar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Raj Guru and many others who shouted VANDE MATARAM before they were hanged in prison are being viewed as inconsequential derelicts by men like Arjun Singh in comparison with their own favourite Mullas and Maulvis from different parts of India.

        Another great Mullah/Maulvi Obaidullah Qasmi, who leads prayers at a mosque in Ranchi, says: 'Singing Vande Mataram, which translates as 'Mother I bow before thee', is against the basic tenets of Islam. A Muslim bows only before Allah. We can not equate the country with a Goddess.'

        The UPA government in general and the Congress segment of it in particular are soft and solicitous towards Muslim vote-banks. Consequently, the Mullah and Maulvis arrogate to themselves the constitutional powers of the government of India depending upon mood, moment, issue, sentiment and circumstance from time to time. If some of them view VANDE MATARAM as anti-Islamic, then positively they have to be viewed as anti-national. If Syed Ahmed Bukhari of Jama Masjid, Delhi and Maulvi Obaidullah Qasmi of Ranchi think that offering prayers to the Motherland of India is against the tenets of Islam, then I would like to ask the question as to why the Muslims in Germany and France are not raising the same objections to the singing of the National Anthems in those countries which also contain the same emotional references and overtones as in our VANDE MATARAM. For example the National Anthem of Germany, refers to Germany as Fatherland as follows:

        Unity and law and freedom

        For the German Fatherland

        Let us all strive for that.'

        There are 2.6 million Muslims (3.2 per cent of the population) in Germany. Muslims are now the third largest religious group in this country. If these German Muslims dare not behave like Syed Ahmed Bukhari of Jama Masjid, Delhi and Maulvi Obaidullah Qasmi of Ranchi . If they do so they would be charged with treason and punished under the German Law. In India they would qualify for the highest Presidential honour for insulting our National Song. That is the current state of our malevolent and wretched pseudo-secularism today!!

        Similarly in the French National Anthem - The Marseillaise also there are references to France as Fatherland.

        Sons of the fatherland, let's stand,

        The day of glory has arrived!...............

        Sacred love of our fatherland'

        Islam is the second largest religion in France after Catholicism. In France there are 4.5 million Muslims today. They also know, like the Law abiding Muslims in Germany, that the French Law will take its own course if they dare to refuse to sing the French National Anthem.

        Tomorrow (7 September 2006) marks the centenary of the Historic singing of VANDE MATARAM. On this very sacred occasion let each one of us declare to ourselves: 'Let our object be our country, and nothing but our country. And by the blessing of God, may our country become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror as it is today, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the whole world may gaze with admiration forever.'