Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai

Mumbai, Aug 18: Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing its leadership of “intellectual bankruptcy” and unnecessarily dragging the national song Vande Mataram into political controversies.

In a hard-hitting editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Thackeray-led party claimed that the BJP had played no role in India’s freedom struggle, major national milestones or the historic slogans associated with the independence movement, including Vande Mataram and Inquilab Zindabad.

The editorial also targeted BJP founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee over his role in the Bengal cabinet, which it said was led by the Muslim League. It accused Mookerjee of advocating stern British action against freedom movements, including the Quit India movement.

The party said that instead of seeking apologies from political opponents, the BJP should apologise to the nation for what it described as historical betrayal of the freedom movement.

The attack comes amid heightened friction between the Opposition and the Centre over parliamentary proceedings. According to the editorial, the Congress-led Opposition recently disrupted Parliament seeking a statement and apology from Union Home Minister Amit Shah over an alleged pellet gun firing incident at Jantar Mantar.

The editorial alleged that Shah avoided the parliamentary proceedings and later accused the Congress of “intellectual Naxalism” over its position on Vande Mataram while demanding an apology.

“To drag Vande Mataram into political battles and accuse opponents of 'intellectual Naxalism' reflects a sheer lack of historical awareness and political desperation,” the editorial said.

‘Vande Mataram’ legacy

The Thackeray camp cited the song’s role in the freedom movement while rebutting the Centre’s position.

It recalled that Rabindranath Tagore first sang Vande Mataram at the 1896 Kolkata Congress session, presided over by Rahamatullah M Sayani. The editorial said that after the British colonial government banned the song and arrested those who sang it, Congress members and leftists went to jail in its defence.

It further said that, following advice from Tagore in a letter to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the Congress Working Committee in 1937 unanimously adopted the first two stanzas of the song. The committee included Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Maulana Azad, Govind Ballabh Pant and Acharya Kripalani.

The editorial also recalled that before Nehru delivered his landmark Tryst with Destiny speech, Sucheta Kripalani rendered Vande Mataram during the special midnight session of Parliament.

Attack on Modi government, RSS

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena also criticised the government’s handling of national symbols and institutions.

The editorial accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of shutting down the historic Parliament building, where the country’s independence was originally inaugurated, and replacing it with a new structure that it compared to a “private Gujarati marriage hall”.

It also alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP, did not hoist the Tricolour at its offices and branches for nearly five decades after Independence.

Drawing another historical parallel, the editorial referred to Balajipant Natu lowering the Maratha flag and raising the British Union Jack at Pune’s Shaniwar Wada on November 17, 1817.

It said that on August 15, 1947, freedom fighter Krantisinh Nana Patil lowered the Union Jack and raised the Tricolour at the historic site amid chants of Vande Mataram.

Citing former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu’s past remarks, the editorial said Vande Mataram should remain above political divisions and maintained that freedom fighters and the Congress had consistently embraced the song during India’s independence struggle.