Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday that the Congress’s decision not to sing Vande Mataram in its entirety was an act of appeasement. He called on people across the country to remain united, saying that “appeasement politics” would not work in India.
Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had corrected the decision taken by the Congress in 1937, decades after Independence. He added that the people of the country would not tolerate any opposition to the full version of Vande Mataram and said the BJP strongly condemned the Congress’s decision.
Nitin Nabin says Congress has become the ‘new Muslim League’
Before Shah, BJP president Nitin Nabin criticised the Congress’s decision to sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at party events. He accused the Congress of disrespecting the national song for vote-bank politics and said the party had become the “new Muslim League”.
The Congress Working Committee announced on Wednesday that only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram would be sung at party events. Nabin said the decision was an insult to the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country with the song in their hearts during the freedom struggle.
He also referred to the controversy over the playing of the full version of Vande Mataram at the Congress office on 15 August.
New law makes insulting Vande Mataram punishable by 3 years
A new law was passed on 29 July, making the deliberate insult of Vande Mataram punishable by up to three years in prison.
The controversy comes shortly after Parliament passed legislation granting Vande Mataram the same legal protection as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana.
Under the new law, deliberately insulting Vande Mataram or obstructing its singing can result in a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.
