As BJP continues to make wild allegations about others “disrespecting” ‘Vande Mataram’, it is interesting to note how many saffron Party leaders, including ministers, miserably failed to sing the national song on TV in the past.
Senior BJP leader and UP Minister of State for Minority Welfare, Baldev Singh Aulakh, was asked to sing Vande Mataram during a debate on August 11 last year, but he failed to sing it. Aulakh was persistently seeking to make singing of Vande Mataram mandatory in school, colleges and legislatures during the debate.
The saffron Party faced a second blooper on October 31 last year when its spokesperson from Bihar, Navin Kumar Singh, failed to sing the national song on TV.
During a prime-time debate on a news channel, Singh got into an argument with Islamic leader and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi. Arguing on the topic of patriotism, Qasmi asked Singh to “prove his nationalism” by singing the national song. What ensued was hilarious.
Singh faltered in the first line itself and was met with laughter and ridicule. But he kept on trying to open the lyrics on his mobile phone. Even that came of little help to him, a report in The Quint said.
Soon after, he was trolled on the social media after a video of his attempts to sing the song went viral.
A day later, on November 1, India Today conducted a patriotism test for BJP leaders and asked many of them to sing Vande Mataram.
Party’s Kota mayor Mahesh Vijay and a woman councillor couldn’t sing the song while another cadre from Rajasthan had a tough time telling the national song from national anthem.
These goof-ups became a talking point because the BJP has been pushing to make singing of Vande Mataram mandatory in schools and legislatures.
Vande Mataram, which first appeared in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s 1881 novel Anand Math, was sung for the first time from a public platform by Rabindranath Tagore in 1896 at the Calcutta Congress session. The first two verses of the song were adopted as the National Song of India in October 1937 by Congress Working Committee prior to the end of colonial rule in August 1947.