Vande Mataram row: Congress hits back at PM Modi with 'proof', says CWC followed Tagore's advice

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for linking the 1937 Congress Working Committee (CWC) statement on Vande Mataram to the partition of India.

Ramesh, in a post on X, shared excerpts from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi to counter the Prime Minister’s remarks.

According to it, the CWC had issued a statement on October 28, 1937, regarding Vande Mataram, influenced by Rabindranath Tagore’s advice.


The statement clarified that only the first two stanzas of the song should be sung at national gatherings, as they celebrated the beauty and spirit of India without any religious references. The rest of the verses, which contained religious imagery, were rarely used.

The committee acknowledged that Muslim leaders had raised objections to some parts of the song and accepted those concerns as valid. It maintained, however, that the first two stanzas were an inseparable part of the national movement and symbolised India’s unity against British rule.


On Saturday, Ramesh shared screenshots of pages from Volume 4 of Rabindra-Jeebanee, the biography of Rabindranath Tagore written by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay and published by Visva-Bharati in 1994.

According to excerpts from the book, screenshots of which were shared by Mr Ramesh on X: “When consulted, Rabindranath Tagore gave three pieces of advice. He found the first two stanzas completely acceptable but could not agree with the sentiments expressed in the later verses.”

In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “I was deeply moved by the tenderness and devotion expressed in the first part of the song, which highlights the beauty and generosity of our motherland. I had no difficulty in separating these verses from the rest of the poem and the book it belongs to, as I could not relate to the other portions, being raised in my father’s monotheistic ideals.”

In his post, Ramesh said, “The Prime Minister has insulted the CWC and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. That he should have done so is shocking but not surprising, since the RSS had no role in our freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi.”

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He added that the Prime Minister should focus on present-day issues such as unemployment, inequality, and the state of the economy, instead of “abusing and defaming India’s first PM.”

The Congress response came after PM Modi, while inaugurating the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram on Friday, claimed that the decision to drop certain stanzas of the song in 1937 had “sown the seeds of partition” and reflected a “divisive mindset” still relevant today.

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