Vande Mataram debate: Not only Nehru, freedom fighters like Patel and Bose have been insulted: Jairam Ramesh

The senior Congress leader asked Treasury benches whether they were alluding that freedom fighters like Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose were also involved in appeasing Muslims.

New Delhi: Accusing the ruling BJP of distorting history, Congress Rajya Sabha Chief Whip Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday claimed that the whole aim of the debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram was to malign Jawaharlal Nehru but ended up insulting Rabindranath Tagore as well as other freedom fighters.

Participating in the debate on Vande Mataram in the Upper House, he asked the Treasury benches whether they were alluding that freedom fighters like Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose were also involved in appeasing Muslims by being party to a decision to limit the first two stanzas of 'Vande Mataram' as national song.

"Those who have spoken from the other side have proved...they wanted to be historians, but they have become 'distorians'," he said while referring to communication between pre-independence day leaders on the question of Vande Mataram.

"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 (CWC) take a stand. Was it appeasement? Are you accusing Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel of appeasement?" Ramesh said.

"On October 28, 1937 CWC passed a resolution about Vande Mataram... Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Acharya Kripalani, GB Pant. They were all present. Are you saying they were appeasing Muslims?," Ramesh said.

He said Tagore had on 30 October, 1927, issued a press statement that he had advised the Congress Working Committee 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.

Claiming that a communal environment was created in 1937 on Vande Mataram, he said many organisations were responsible and "one of them is celebrating its centenary now. They spread communal fire, and today they tell us Congress did appeasement". He referred to BJP ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee forming a government with AK Fazlul Huq, who later presented the Lahore resolution for the formation of Pakistan.

"A lot has been said, the aim of this whole debate is to malign Nehru. This is a part of that project... You are insulting people who sacrificed their lives for the nation," he said.