REPLACEMENT OF VANDE MATARAM UNACCEPTABLE

REPLACEMENT OF VANDE MATARAM UNACCEPTABLE 

I have never been able to accept the replacement of Vande Mataram with Jai Hind just to appease Muslim sentiment and, so, attempt superficial national solidarity at a treacherous time when fissiparous forces were trying to dismember the motherland. Vande Mataram was the clarion call of freedom for nearly all the revolutionaries. To relegate it to subordinate position thus was not only a travesty of history but a violation of the very patriotic spirit of the freedom struggle. It ought not to have happened despite all. The Muslims have never budged an inch from their scriptural injunctions to facilitate national cohesion. Why then did Netaji have to take this momentous decision that so went against the very grain of the revolutionary movement for freedom?

Written by Sugata Bose