Tagore, Aurobindo: On Vande Mataram row

The issue of Vande Mataram, a hymn taken from Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's historical novel Ananda Math, being made the national song of India left the mind of the nation deeply fissured in the late 1930s. A section of the Muslims opposed the idea vigorously, saying that it was an evocation of Hindu goddess Durga. They also vented reservation over the song being a part of 'fiercely anti-Muslim' Ananda Math. The Hindu nationalists, on the other hand, were in no mood to brook such reservation. They claimed that no song other than Vande Mataram could be made the national song of India, given the fact that it had inspired thousands to kiss the gallows and suffer alien rule's inhumane atrocities. It embodied the mantra of India's anti-colonial struggle, the view ran.  

Setting it to tune, Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram for the first time during the Calcutta Congress session in 1896 while Aurobindo Ghosh took charge of the editorial of Bande Mataram, a nationalist daily, sometime in 1905 when Bengal was aflame with anger against the British regime's decision to partition the province on communal lines. The movement the anger triggered is known in history as Swadeshi Movement. Tagore and Aurobindo aside from a galaxy of leaders led the movement from the front.     

However, by the time Vande Mataram spawned the fierce controversy, threatening to deepen the communal schism further, Tagore's mind evolved much from what he deemed as the hide-bound concept of sectarian, divisive nationalism to universalism, an all-embracing concept of world fraternity. And Aurobindo was then in Pondicherry, engaged in his Sadhana to bring about the life Divine on earth.

Explaining his stance on the controversy, Tagore wrote a letter to Subhas Chandra Bose. He wrote that the Muslims were justified in raising objection to Vande Mataram which was doubtless a hymn dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga. It was in full harmony with the theme of Ananda Math, but it could never be the national song of the great Indian assembly, he opined. "We got impatient seeing bigotry on the part of a section of the Muslims. But when we tend to imitate them it turns a matter of shame. It amounts to our defeat. There is a need to shed such narrowness to build up national unity on a strong foundation. We cannot afford to pawn unity on the altar of such divisive rigidity," Tagore wrote to Bose. 

Before that, stung by hostile criticism from the radical Hindu section of the nationalists, an embittered Tagore wrote to his son Rathindranath: "I have embraced the world as my country. I am happy I have been able to express my feelings to the world at large before I depart...May the message of Bengal be one of oneness of the world, international fraternity. Ideally, Vande Mataram should be an evocation of the world-mother..." 

Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and other stalwarts arrived in Calcutta to attend the important Congress working committee meeting slated there in October 1937.  They were then obsessed with the festering Vande Mataram controversy. Gandhi talked to ailing Tagore. Tagore had, however, made his point clear in a statement sent to Nehru a few days before CWC sat. He said the song if taken in the context of Ananda Math might hurt the Muslim susceptibility. "But how can we forget that the song epitomizes sacrifice of thousands of our friendsIJ We feel the Mantra must still be evoked to take the ongoing struggle to its consummation. If we take the first two lines of the song there is no reason to believe that if sung, it would remind the Muslims of the rest of the novel or the history it is accidentally associated with. The first two lines can stand independent of the rest. It contains an inspirational element that cannot hurt any religion or community," Tagore wrote. 

The resolution of the Congress working committee echoed Tagore's view, saying that despite accepting the reservation raised by a section of the Muslim brethren as justified, they were of the view that the first two lines of Vande Mataram inspired their reverence, given the saga of sacrifice it embodied. This fact was much more important than the song being accidentally a part of a historical novel, the resolution said. It instructed the party and the people to restrict themselves to singing the first two lines of the original song. However, at the same time, it gave full freedom to the people to go for another song if that proved to be a 'communally innocent' one as compared to the communally sensitive Vande Mataram. 

The resolution left Bengal seething with rage with the intelligentsia accusing Congress leadership of abjectly surrendering before fundamentalism by deciding to vivisect the original song to appease a section of a community.Significantly, around this time, Dr J H Cousins, the eminent Irish poet and theosophist who settled in and worked for India, sent a proposal from erstwhile Madras, recommending Tagore's 'Jana Gana Mana'   as the perfect national song of India. "My suggestion is that Dr Rabindranath's own intensely patriotic, ideally stimulating and, at the same time, world-embracing Morning Song of India (Janagana-mana) should be confirmed officially as the true National Anthem of India....It has a tune and rhythm that make it singable with definiteness, unity and vigour, whereas the Vande Mataram tune can never be given a satisfactory mass- rendering as its twists and turns are only possible in individual singing," he wrote.

Now, let us see how Sri Aurobindo, whose birth anniversary significantly falls on the Independence Day, viewed the emotive matter. 

After he left politics and settled in Pondicherry in 1910-his political career spanned over nearly five years-many regretted his retirement, as they could not see any external activity on his part which could be regarded as 'public'. About his retirement, he himself wrote that his retirement did not mean, as most people, supposed, that he had retired into some height of spiritual experience, devoid of any further interest in the world or in life...In his retirement, he kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action.  

Around two years after Congress cleared its stance on the Vande Mataram controversy, a disciple asked Sri Aurobindo (December 30 1939) about his view of the matter. "There are some people who object to Vande Mataram as a national song. And some Congress men support the removal of some parts of the song," a disciple said. Sri Aurobindo said: "In that case, the Hindus should give up their culture." The disciple further said: "The argument is that the song speaks of Hindu gods like Durga and that is offensive to the Muslims." Sri Aurobindo commented: "But it is not a religious song. It is a national song and the Durga spoken of is India as the Mother. Why should not the Muslims accept itIJ In the Indian concept of nationality, the Hindu view would naturally be there. If it cannot find a place there the Hindus may as well be asked to give up their culture." 

Sri Aurobindo was convinced that appeasement of fundamentalism would further whet its hunger for more. He stood for a deeper solution of the Hindu-Muslim tangle. "...Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be effected by political adjustments or Congress flattery. It must be sought deeper down, for where the causes of disunion are there the remedies must be sought... we must extend the unfaltering love of the patriot to our Musalman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom.; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice." 

This is the essence of what the revolutionary- turned- the prophet of the life Divine thought of the tangle that regrettably still festers in the collective psyche of India.