The recent controversial fatwa issued by JEU (Jamait-e-Ulema Hind) at its Deoband national convention meet, wherein, it asked all Muslims to shun singing Vande Mataram as some verses of the song are against the tenets of Islam (specifically Tawheed (Islam's faith in monotheism), as I read somewhere on the net), is rather unfortunate, to say the least.
The original Vande Mataram, as it appeared in Anand Math, was longer than the current version; however, the INC in its 1937 session decided to adopt only the first 2 stanzas of the song as the national song; as the later stanzas contained references where the motherland is likened to Goddess Durga and Laxmi. It was pointed out in the same session that the first two stanzas begin with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland and hence they would aptly make for the national song (for details, click here). Thus, its just the first 2 stanzas from the song "Vande Mataram" that comprise our national song. Hence, it's clear that the "objectionable" content of the original song "Vande Mataram" is no longer a part of our national song...
However, still, the issue of whether or not to sing Vande Mataram is best left to an individual (as Supreme Court also observed); after all, merely singing a song doesn't make one patriotic .. however, there is a difference in making the singing voluntary and its quite the other thing to issue a religious decree against muslims singing the song .. while the former is explainable, the later makes it unnecessarily political and has probably best been described by Mr Swapan Dasgupta, in his TOI blog, as "doctrinaire intolerance" (click here) .. by issuing the fatwa, JEU has thus, violated one of the basic requirements of a democratic society, that of tolerance .. this fatwa is now being used by several extremist groups to make singing Vande Mataram a measure of "Indianness" of an individual ... when Home Minister P Chidambram, in his speech at Deoband convention, asked majority everywhere (including Australia!!) to protect minorities and their interests, he was absolutely right .. however, he prob touched on only one side of the coin .. coz the other side that he shud hv touched as well is: do the minorities organizations hv no obligations towards the society (not the majority) in which they live ? we studied in our civic lessons that rights and duties always go side by side ... are such lessons only for learning at school ?? ...
The issue, once raised before (in 2006; when UPA Govt made singing of Vande Mataram mandatory on September 7; to mark the 125th year of the song's creation; only to make it voluntary later) is again back in limelight; and the cts discussion of such religio-political issues at the national level politics sometimes amazes me whether all the social issues e.g. poverty, illiteracy, terrorism hv been resolved ...
dude
ReplyDeletewho cares even if poverty, illiteracy,or terrorism being resolved or not
dey have got a lot of other things, on priority,to talk about n resolve
n dey r regionilism N now actually sumthin new evolved out of it "THE LANGUAGISM".(MARATHIS AS U KNW D CURRENT HAPPENING DEN SOUTHIES DEN NORTHIES N .............)
den dey have got casteism to think about and if i mention of relegionilism (den actually i m hittin back on my ass),its pathetic....bcz it stand no where nw ahead of the above mentions.
n above everythin else dey have got the vote bank to think about dey have got to think ki hw will dey sustain dere current designatory powers ,,, dey have got to think hw to harm the opposition ,,,,,,,hw to increase bank balance (ye bhi choti cheez hai infact)
so after such of these thoughtfull
schedule if we r still xpecting dem to think about sumthin else
its like we are livin out of this world nt dey.........
i dnt wher i ended but i guess u got wht i mean
@ asheesh: nice comment but u need to remember, they are the ppl whom WE nominated ... and how many of us actually vote during elections?? we are too busy planning a nice weekend trip (if elections happen to be on friday/monday) or spending a lovely day @ home .. and all the 'isms' that u mentioned are very true and prob the most unfortunate part of our democracy ... but for that, i would say we are as much responsible as politicians ... coz we support many of those 'isms' when they suit us, knowingly or unknowingly, and despise them when they dont ...
ReplyDeletedude
ReplyDeletei truely agree wid but the term u used "we are responsible" is scattered a bit nw a days
and actually its like "i am responsible" or "you are responsible"
and everybdy falls wid the later part knowing dat frst one is dere own
what i am tryn to say is we all knw this but dnt try to understand and instead of lukin in self we point out at other
n it happens untill we ownself become messy.....
SO A SELF REALISATION IS NEED OF THE HOUR........i guess
@ asheesh: very true .. SELF REALISATION IS NEED OF THE HOUR !!! +1 from my side .. and yes, when i said "we are responsible", i exactly meant what u hv mentioned above ... that we are very 'happy' in pointing out mistakes of others but would never look @ our mistakes... and as u mentioned in ur 1st comment, even i dont know where it will end ...
ReplyDelete