Diversity no licence for divisiveness
Earlier, in 1937, the Congress Working Committee had adopted a statement at its meeting in Calcutta, clearly saying: “The Committee recognises the validity of the objection raised by Muslim friends to certain parts of the song.” The statement further said, “Taking all things into consideration, therefore, the Committee recommend that, wherever Bande Mataram is sung at national gatherings, only the first two stanzas should be sung, with perfect freedom to the organisers to sing any other song of an unobjectionable character, in addition to, or in the place of, the Bande Mataram song.” This statement raised more questions than answers. And if minorities are hurt by certain stanzas, won’t the majority also get hurt if these are deleted? This clearly was an example of minority appeasement for vote bank politics. Recently, an AIMIM MLA from Maharashtra refused to sing Vande Mataram in the State Assembly, claiming that his belief system disallows the same.
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