Dec 7, 1998
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UTTAR PRADES Discordant Notes The move to make the recitation of Vande Matram and the Saraswati Vandana compulsory in schools causes strife. By Farzand Ahmed
Last week, the Kalyan Singh Government decided to go ahead with its decision to make the recitation of Vande Mataram and the Saraswati Vandana compulsory in government-run primary schools. Almost immediately, Muslim clerics gave a call to the community to withdraw their wards from the schools. The controversy erupted when renowned Islamic scholar Hazrat Maulana Abul Hassan Ali Nadvi, known as Ali Mian, who also heads the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, urged the Government to reconsider its decision. "Muslims are loyal to their country, their love for the motherland cannot be questioned, but as Muslims they can worship none other than Allah," he thundered. Shia scholar Maulana Kalbe Sadiq too declared it was nothing short of a conspiracy hatched by Kalyan to dub the community "anti-national". The slanging match continued with K.S. Sudarshan, RSS joint general secretary, going so far as to declare at a meeting in Meerut, "The Saraswati Vandana is a symbol of Indian culture. If anyone opposes it, we will not treat him as a son of India."
Tension mounted when activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students' wing of the BJP, burnt effigies of Ali Mian and Kalbe Sadiq. But the turning point came on the night of November 22, when armed men in plain clothes posing as police allegedly raided Ali Mian's house in Rae Bareilly. Expectedly, the events had a fallout. When Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Lucknow last Wednesday, Muslim shopowners downed their shutters in protest. Chief Minister Kalyan Singh denied his Government had anything to do with the raid. Vajpayee himself clarified that there was no need to make Vande Mataram compulsory in schools. "It is being recited in Parliament and other places but nobody objects to it," he said. About the incident at Ali Mian's house, he said, "I smell an effort to create communal tension on the eve of elections. Neither Central nor state agencies were involved," he declared. The mystery that shrouds the incident is yet to be solved. When Ali Mian reportedly asked state DGP K.L. Gupta who was responsible, he was quick to reply that during the day the newly posted Rae Bareilly sp Rajiv Ranjan Verma had sent two constables to Ali Mian's house to seek an audience with him. Gupta claims he doesn't have a clue to who broke into Ali Mian's home that same night. The raid appears to have been triggered off after a group of people distributed handbills requesting Hindus to boycott all those who opposed Kalyan's move. The All India Muslim Forum along with the CPI-ML (Liberation) held demonstrations all over the state on November 25. But state Minister for Basic Education Ravindra Shukla was scathing. "Vande Mataram is a patriotic song. Ulemas and clergies must realise it is part of our ethos." Coming in the wake of the nationwide debate over the Centre's subtle attempt to Indianise education in the country, the move is being seen as an experiment to use Uttar Pradesh as a laboratory to create divisions on communal lines. Says Om Prakash Sharma, president of the Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh: "The Government's decision to change the prayer is an attempt to whip up communal passions and divide society." Muslim clerics and leaders as well as some schoolteachers allege the exercise is part of the Sangh Parivar's plan to inculcate Hindu religious consciousness.They point out that a Committee of Writers has already been formed to rewrite 25 school textbooks with chapters glorifying Muslim rulers. Its brief, they claim, is to highlight the heroic deeds of Hindu rulers instead. Whatever the outcome of the current protests and the debate over Kalyan's decision, the two communities appear to be pawns in a far more devious political game. |
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It was once an ode to freedom that
inspired Hindus and Muslims alike to raise a collective voice against the British Raj.
That was during the freedom struggle and the whole of India, regardless of religion or
caste, knew it would have to stand united or else be crushed under colonial rule. It is a
different story today. Vande Mataram, a song that eulogises Mother India, has become the
bone of contention between the two religions in communally sensitive Uttar Pradesh. 
