VANDE MATARAM SHOULD GO HAND IN HAND WITH SOCIAL GOOD: PM

NEWDELHI: People lose the right to chant Vande Mataram if they can’t keep the country clean, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday as he urged people to fight social evils such as disrespect to women.

He underlined the need to bring social changes during a motivating speech at a student convention marking the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s famous Chicago address and ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s centenary. “I know many people might be hurt, but do we have the right to say it? Think 50 times if we have the right to say Vande Mataram,” Modi said, minutes after he was greeted with chants of Vande Mataram at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi.

“If we chew paan and spit on mother India, can we say Vande Mataram? If we throw all waste on mother India can we say Vande Mataram?” he asked, signalling that patriotic feelings should not come without social responsibilities.

Cleanliness has been a top priority of the Modi government after coming to power in 2014 as it launched a nationwide drive, Swachh Bharat, to make India clean and free of open defecation in five years.

The Prime Minister also linked Vande Mataram, composed by pre-Independence Bengali poet and author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in the 1870s, with respect to women.

He said he will bow a hundred times before a person who respects women.