Congress dissected Vande Mataram to appease Muslims, responsible for partition: Amit Shah

KOLKATA: BJP president Amit Shah has blamed the Congress party for dissecting the national song – Vande Mataram – and giving it a communal colour for political gains.

"The song 'Vande Mataram' symbolises the geo-cultural nationalism of our country...It is wrong to communalise the song...It should not be treated as a song related to any religion or against someone, but a song which symbolises nationalism," he said in Kolkata on Wednesday.

Shah, while addressing the first memorial lecture on Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who had composed the song, said, ''Congress was mainly responsible for the country's partition because the party had surrendered before the politics of appeasement.''

The BJP chief continued by saying that ''the Congress had made a big mistake by labelling it with a religious colour." 

In 1937, Congress accepted Vande Matram & even gave it the title of 'national song', but accepted only the first two stanzas & dropped the remaining. Had the Congress leaders not committed this mistake, the country would not have been divided: BJP chief Amit Shah (27.6.18) pic.twitter.com/gI7tZCAQqm

— ANI (@ANI) June 28, 2018

Shah also explained why Congress adopted only the first two stanzas of the national song composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

''When the Congress had formed provisional governments in the pre-independence era, it had taken up 'Vande Mataram' as the national song, but only the first two stanzas were sung to appease a particular community,'' he said.

In 1937, Congress accepted Vande Matram & even gave it the title of 'national song', but accepted only the first two stanzas & dropped the remaining. Had the Congress leaders not committed this mistake, the country would not have been divided: BJP chief Amit Shah (27.6.18) pic.twitter.com/gI7tZCAQqm — ANI (@ANI) June 28, 2018

"Had Congress not done this mistake, the country would not have been divided (in 1947)," the BJP chief said.

"Historians sometimes blame the Khilafat movement, sometimes the divide-and-rule policy of the British and at times, the two-nation theory of the Muslim League. But I will say that the Congress's decision to take up only two stanzas of 'Vande Mataram' by surrendering before its appeasement policies had led to the division of India," he added.

The memorial lecture was organised by the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation.

Eminent writer Buddhadeb Guha, historian Purabi Roy, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's biographer Amitrasudan Bhattacharya were among those present at the programme.

Shah had arrived on a two-day visit to Kolkata on Wednesday. He also held two closed-door meetings with the party workers on organisational issues earlier.

He also held a meeting with the party's social media cell.

The BJP chief is scheduled to visit Purulia and Birbhum districts on Thursday. 

(With PTI inputs)