Vande Mataram debate | Aim is to malign Nehru: Congress; BJP flags ‘demographic invasion’

Participating in a debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram, Congress member Jairam Ramesh said the objective of the debate was to malign Nehru, and accused the BJP of insulting freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country.

discussion on Vande Mataram in Rajya Sabha | Debate aim is to malign Nehru: Cong; BJP flags ‘demographic invasion’

BJP member Samik Bhattacharya (left) and Congress MP Jairam Ramesh in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. (ANI)

4 min readNew DelhiDec 11, 2025 06:11 AM IST First published on: Dec 11, 2025 at 05:05 AM IST

The Opposition accused the BJP of “distorting” history and only targeting the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, while the BJP accused the TMC government in West Bengal of disturbing the state’s demography by allowing a “silent demographic invasion” of Rohingya.

Participating in a debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram, Congress member Jairam Ramesh said the objective of the debate was to malign Nehru, and accused the BJP of insulting freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the country. “Those who have spoken from the other side have proved… they wanted to be historians, but they have become ‘distorians’,” Ramesh said.

“Rajendra Prasad wrote to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on September 28, 1937, raising concerns and worries prevalent in large sections of our political system on Vande Mataram, and requesting Patel that the Congress Working Committee take a stand. Was it appeasement? Are you accusing Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel of appeasement?” he said.

Ramesh added that the CWC passed a resolution about Vande Mataram in the presence of Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Patel, Nehru, Maulana Azad, Acharya Kripalani and G B Pant. He added that Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore had issued a press statement that he had advised the CWC that they pass a resolution to adopt the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram as “national anthem”, and it was later adopted as the national song.

In a veiled dig at RSS, he said, “Many organisations were responsible… one of them is celebrating its centenary now. They spread communal fire, and today they tell us Congress did appeasement.”

TMC member Ritabrata Banerjee said in 1905, when Bengal was being partitioned, an anti-partition movement erupted with Tagore as the “nerve centre”. “On August 7, 1905, at the first mass meeting of anti-partition protest, Tagore himself sang the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram,” he said. He also said it was Tagore who said the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram should be adopted.

Countering Opposition’s arguments, BJP member Samik Bhattacharya accused the CM Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government of disturbing the state’s demography by allowing a “silent demographic invasion” of Rohingya and creating a passage for them to disturb the balance in other states, including Jharkhand and Bihar. He claimed the entire demographic balance of the area has been disturbed due to infiltration.

“A government openly invites the Rohingya and brings illegal Bangladeshi immigrants into West Bengal. For the Rohingya, a donation box is placed openly. What will happen to that state and the rest of the country?” he said.

BJP member from Maharashtra, Bhagwat Karad, said it is Congress’s “culture to oppose the recital of Vande Mataram”.

Sana Satish Babu of TDP said that even today, singing Vande Mataram was not restricted to one region. It travelled across linguistic and cultural borders, he said. “In Andhra Pradesh, the Swadeshi movement was known widely as the Vande Mataram movement. It was fuelled by visits from national leaders such as Bipin Chandra Pal in 1907, whose speeches in coastal Andhra sparked an intellectual and moral awakening…” he said.

BJP’s Baburam Nishad alleged the Opposition was trying to do appeasement in the singing of the national song.

CPI’s P Sandosh Kumar meanwhile demanded a special discussion on the contributions of Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. “It’s all the more important today because (Nathuram) Godse is creeping into the social fabric of our lives,” he said.

Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said the true history of 150 years of Vande Mataram has reached the people after the Opposition presented the true chronology of its history in the House. “In his speech, Home Minister (Amit Shah) said that this is a celebration, absolutely. But this was not a celebration for BJP because in his own speech, he talked about polarisation, he talked about running his political agenda,” she said.