Should ‘Vande Mataram’ be sung in its entirety? The Congress party appears to be in a dilemma on this question. We got a glimpse of that dilemma during the Congress Seva Dal’s Independence Day programme. When the song continued beyond the first two stanzas, Sonia Gandhi appeared to gesture towards those singing it. Rahul Gandhi, too, looked distracted. There appeared to be an exchange between Sonia and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. The rendition of the song, however, continued. Sonia looked visibly uncomfortable, even upset. ‘Vande Mataram’ was sung in full.The dilemma within the Congress partyVideos of the episode are now circulating on social media. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters have seized upon them to repeat the familiar charge that the Congress is anti-national. The Nehru-Gandhi family, they say, is anti-national because it cannot tolerate the national song. Sonia and the Congress, according to them, have insulted the soul of the nation.Congress spokespersons, on the other hand, have offered their own explanations. The song was sung in full, they say, and Sonia did not object to it. She was merely asking that a chair be brought for Kharge, who had been standing since a long time. Since the voices in the video are not sufficiently clear, so it is difficult to say whether the Congress’s explanation is correct.But leave this particular episode aside. Congress governments in different states have not taken a uniform position on the song. In Karnataka and Telangana, ‘Vande Mataram’ was sung in full; in Kerala, it was not. According to reports, the Kerala government has said that singing the song in its entirety is not mandatory. The Union government had directed that all the stanzas of ‘Vande Mataram’ be sung first at Independence Day programmes, followed by the national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’. The Kerala government’s position is that this is an advisory and not a binding instruction.Also read: Three Months After Supreme Court Said Not Singing Vande Mataram Imposed No Penal Consequence, Centre Moves to Criminalise ‘Insult’Other Congress governments, however, sang the song in full at their programmes, as did the Congress Seva Dal in Delhi. In one video, a Seva Dal worker can be heard telling a journalist that their leader had wanted the singing to be stopped, but they went ahead and sang the entire song.The dilemma within the Congress is therefore unmistakable. But is Sonia or Rahul’s discomfort with the complete singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ really something to be ashamed of?After all, both Sonia and Rahul have served as presidents of the Congress and remain among its most prominent leaders. They, therefore, have a responsibility towards the ideas their party espouses as well as its history. It is entirely legitimate for them to remind Congress workers of a resolution unanimously adopted by the party in 1937.According to that resolution, only the first two stanzas of ‘Vande Mataram’ are to be sung on public occasions. That decision has never subsequently been altered at any session of the Congress. Hence, strictly speaking, singing the entire song is a violation of the party’s own decision.The Seva Dal member who proudly declared that the song was sung in full despite Sonia’s objection appears to be unfamiliar with the history of his own organisation. But is there really no one left in the Congress, apart from members of the Nehru-Gandhi family, who can explain why singing ‘Vande Mataram’ in full is inconsistent with the secular nationalism that the Congress played such a major role in creating?The idea of belongingSecularism cannot just be a principle of state policy. It must also perform the much more difficult task of binding Indians to one another emotionally. Whatever forms the nation chooses to represent itself through, every section of society should be able to find some reflection of itself in them. Those forms cannot be such that one section is made to feel excluded, alien or lesser-than.No religious community has, to this day, objected to the Ashoka Chakra or to other symbols through which the nation represents itself. Yes, the BJP itself once described the Dharma Chakra at the centre of the tricolour as communal because of its association with the Buddhist tradition. But no one has objected to the maxims adopted by Indian institutions either.That is precisely why, whenever a community expresses discomfort with a particular national symbol, we need to pause and ask why.The reason is simple: What matters to India is that every section of its people experience a sense of emotional and cultural reassurance, a sense of belonging. The nation must make every person feel that they belong to it and that it belongs to them.Muslims have two principal objections to the slogan and song ‘Vande Mataram’. The first is that the Bharat Mata invoked in it is not merely the motherland. The word mata, or mother, becomes the name of a goddess in the second stanza. She is armed, she is the destroyer of enemies, she is Durga and Kamala whose images are to be fashioned and worshipped in temple after temple.But who is the enemy? And who are those who are worshipping this form of the mother?‘Vande Mataram’ and AnandamathBankim Chandra Chattopadhyay did not leave the matter entirely ambiguous. He first wrote the song independently and later incorporated it into his novel Anandamath. The novel was set against the background of the Faqir–Sannyasi rebellion during the famine of the 18th century. However, Bankim removed the faqirs (Muslim Sufi ascetics) from his narrative and transformed the rebellion into an uprising of the sannyasis (Hindu ascetics) alone.The implication is difficult to miss. At least in this novel, Bankim does not imagine Hindus and Muslims working together towards a common purpose. The novel constructs a collective Hindu identity by separating Hindus from Muslims.But the matter does not end with separation. In the logic of Bankim’s novel, the duty of the Hindus is to annihilate the Muslims. The sants are the vanguard of these Hindus, thirsting for Muslim blood. They declare that they are not only fighting against the Muslim nawabs; their objective is also the complete elimination of Muslims.Also read: ‘Bande Mataram’ Fits the BJP’s Agenda, But its History is ComplicatedIt is these sannyasis, these sants, who engage in a war of annihilation against Muslims and who also imagine, create and worship this particular form of the mother. And it is for the worship of this mother that Bankim placed ‘Vande Mataram’ in his novel.Once we know this history, is it reasonable to expect a Muslim to sing this hymn while asking him to forget the context in which it acquired its particular meaning? If a prayer or invocation was written to seek the strength to annihilate me, can I reasonably be expected to sing it?It is true that the slogan ‘Vande Mataram’ became immensely popular in the movements against British rule towards the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century. But communal riots and tension between Hindus and Muslims also increased during that time. Tensions between the two communities deepened. And with that came a growing anxiety about the language in which Indian nationalism was being defined.Why the Congress chose the first two stanzasIt was at this point that Muslims began drawing the attention of Congress leaders to the communal and anti-Muslim associations of the slogan and song ‘Vande Mataram’. Until then, even M.K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had not fully understood that the song could cause discomfort to Muslims. Even Rabindranath Tagore, when he set it to music, did not appear to have fully recognised this problem.Once the Congress became aware of it, it considered the matter and arrived at a decision. The first two stanzas describe the country’s natural beauty and abundance and portray it in gentle, gracious words. They could therefore be accepted without difficulty by everyone.The Congress examined the history of the song and its importance to the national movement and offered a carefully considered argument:“Past associations, with their long record of suffering for the cause, as well as popular usage, have made the first two stanzas of this song a living and inseparable part of our national movement and as such they must command our affection and respect. There is nothing in these stanzas to which any one can take exception. The other stanzas of the song are little known and hardly ever sung. They contain certain allusions and a religious ideology which may not be in keeping with the ideology of other religious groups in India.The committee recognise the validity of the objection raised by Muslim friends to certain parts of the song. While the committee have taken note of such objection in so far as it has intrinsic value, the committee wish to point out that the modern evolution of the use of the song as part of national life is of infinitely greater importance than its setting in a historical novel before the national movement had taken shape. Taking all things into consideration, therefore, the committee recommend that wherever the ‘Bande [Vande] Mataram’ is sung at national gatherings, only the first two stanzas should be sung.”The resolution makes two things clear. First, the two stanzas were the popular ones; they were the ones actually sung. Second, the Congress accepted the objections raised by the Muslim community about the song as legitimate. Its association with anti-Muslim feelings could not be denied. At the same time, it asked that the song (the first two stanzas) and its slogan be understood in the context of the national movement.Muslims did not object to the singing of the first two stanzas of ‘Vande Mataram’. But we must also acknowledge that as Hindutva nationalism grew in influence, the association of the song with the world and spirit of Anandamath acquired a new force.The national movement had, in a sense, freed ‘Vande Mataram’ from the communal and anti-Muslim meaning embedded in Anandamath. Over the past 30 years, however, the growing influence of Hindutva has gradually transformed ‘Vande Mataram’ into an anti-Muslim proclamation.‘Vande Mataram’ acquired its glory by becoming associated with the spirit of the freedom struggle. It began to lose that glory when it was increasingly placed in the service of Hindutva domination.That is how ‘Vande Mataram’ can become the national song of an India that is no longer secular, indeed of an India whose organising ideology is increasingly anti-Muslim.Why it should not be made mandatoryThis needs to be said because weak arguments are being offered against the idea of singing ‘Vande Mataram’ in its entirety.Saying that the BJP or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) people themselves cannot sing it properly is no argument. It may well be true that maintaining an attentive posture and concentration for three minutes is difficult. But that is hardly a serious argument against singing the song.The reason ‘Vande Mataram’ should not be made mandatory is much simpler.“If you want to live in India, you must say ‘Vande Mataram’.”The threat contained in this sentence tells us, by itself, why it should not be made mandatory.No external condition can be imposed upon an Indian as a test of whether he or she belongs to the country. No one has ever been told that if they want to live in India, they must sing ‘Jana Gana Mana’. The very form of this threat tells us that one group is attempting to impose its symbols upon another.No community in India can be allowed to impose its will upon other communities.The discomfort displayed by Sonia and Rahul when ‘Vande Mataram’ was sung in full must be understood in this context. They are aware of the history of the Congress and are sensitive to the idea of secular Indian nationalism that the party helped create.The question, therefore, is not why they looked uncomfortable. The more important question is why other members of the Congress party are not equally alert to the value of secularism. Why does the party still appear so uncertain about its own responsibility to defend it?Apoorvanand teaches in Delhi University.