Nationalism as Gandhi envisioned it
Mahatma Gandhi’s views on Vande Mataram or Bharat mata ki jai offer lessons on divergent opinions on this slogan. He associated Vande Mataram with the purest national spirit and was enthralled by it.
The concluding words in hundreds of letters written by him since 1911 were not “Yours sincerely” or “Yours faithfully” but “Vande Mataram, Mohandas”. In fact in countless letters to Muslims he simultaneously used “Salaam”, “Aadab”, “Vande Mataram” or “Blessings” as would be proper and fitting. However, he maintained that, “I would not risk a single quarrel over singing of Vande Mataram at a mixed gathering”. During the Khilafat agitation Gandhi noticed that the recitation of Vande Mataram by the Hindus met with recitation of “Allah-oAkbar” by Muslims. Seeing such conflicting recitals he wrote an article entitled ‘Three National Cries’ in Young India on September 8, 1920 and urged people to recite three slogans — Allah-o-Akbar, Vande Mataram or Bharat mata ki jai and Hindu Musalman ki jai. He firmly believed that people professing diverse creeds would have no problem in reciting those slogans in the order given. He felt that nobody would object to reciting Allah-o-Akbar as its meaning is “God is Great”. It is a fact that Gandhiji stressed the plurality of slogans in spite of his exceptional fondness for Vande Mataram. In the Constructive Programme he wrote in 1943, Gandhi categorically wrote that students “may not impose Vande Mataram or the National Flag on others”.
On December 23, 1945, when asked by political workers if Vande Mataram should be replaced by the new song “Qadam, Qadam”, Gandhiji asserted that Vande Mataram could never be given up. However, he suggested that a new song or songs could certainly be added to the repertoire of national songs after due thought.
When Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose coined the Jai Hind slogan it electrified the nation. But Gandhiji disapproved of attempts of some people to force others to recite Jai Hind. He stated that “Inasmuch as a single person is compelled to shout ‘Jai Hind’ or any popular slogan a nail is driven into the coffin of Swaraj...”
In 1939, he wrote that calling the State a Hindu State or Muslim State constituted a libel as far as nationalism was concerned. Using force on anybody to recite a slogan is such a libel. Persecuting a person for not saying Bharat mata ki jai, though he is more than willing to recite any other slogan, is like the persecution of Prahalad by his father, Hiranya Kashyup, for praying to Lord Hari in defiance of his diktat to pray to Lord Shiva. Gandhiji considered Prahalad, along with Jesus Christ, Imam Hussain and Mirabai, a fine satyagrahi. This lesson is relevant for the present debate on Bharat mata ki jai.