When the Imam of Jamma Masjid and other Muslim clerics dismiss the sacred National Song of Vande mataram with Islamic contempt and conviction, with the full back-drop support of the UPA Government in New Delhi, we should not forget the fact that their spiritual and cultural progenitor was Maulana Mohammed Ali who was a front rank leader in the days of the Khillafat Movement immediately after World War I. He paid his Islamic tribute to Maha Kafir Mahatma Gandhi in these immortal and time-defying words (perhaps even qualifying himself for the posthumous award of Bharat Ratna today!!!): 'However pure Gandhiji's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman, even though he be without character'. Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mahatma Gandhi'. All this he said in 1921.

Maulana Mohammed Ali who had thus politically stabbed 'Maha Kafir' Mahatma Gandhi in the back even in the days of the Khillafat Movement was given the supreme honor by the ever-nervous towards the Muslims Congress Party to preside over the Kakinada Session of the Congress in 1923. It was in that Session THAT THE FIRST BLOW WAS STRUCK AT THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF VANDE MATARAM. During those years, the reputed singer and patriot Vishnu Digambar Paluskar of Maharashtra used to sway the inaugural session of Congress with his deep and resonant music of Vande Mataram song. However, when he came on the dais to sing at the Kakinada Session in 1923, he was stopped by the President Maulana Mohammed Ali. The Maulana exclaimed that singing of music was taboo in Islam and as such he would not permit it. The entire Assembly was stunned; everyone, including the top leaders and stalwarts adorning the dais like Mahatma Gandhi, Madan Mohan Malaviya, and others sat dumbstruck, unable to think of a proper reply or retort to the Congress President. Paluskar, however stuck to his post of duty. In a voice filled with righteous indignation he retorted to the Maulana: 'The Indian National Congress is not the monopoly of any one particular sect nor is this place a mosque, where singing could be prohibited. You have therefore no authority to prevent me from singing VANDE MATARAM. Moreover, if singing in this place is against your particular religion, HOW IS IT YOU COULD TOLERATE MUSIC IN YOUR PRESIDENTIAL PROCESSION?' The ever-benevolent Maulana of course had NO ANSWER to this challenging and legitimate question, but left the dais while Paluskar went through the singing of the glorious song to the joyous applause of the audience. The patriotic spirit of thousands of common men and women of India triumphed over the monotheistic intolerance of Maulana Mohammed Ali on the occasion. There were no Arjun Singhs or Dasmunsis to give him the succor of Constitutional protection on that occasion.

When the British Government proscribed the singing or chanting of Vande Mataram during the days of Swadeshi Movement in Bengal in 1905, the Congress party was not unnerved by it. It remained unruffled and stuck to the gun of singing this glorious song throughout the country and even adopting it as its National Anthem. Very unfortunately for the country and for the forces of selfless Indian Nationalism, the Congress Party started wavering in 1922 and started viewing Vande Mataram as an 'irritant' in the path of winning over Muslims. The Congress Party even adopted Mohammed Iqbal's SARE JAHAN SE ACCHA HINDUSTHAN HAMARA as the associate National Anthem JUST TO SATISFY THE MUSLIMS.

The next stage in the strenuous and tortured story of Vande Mataram was reached in 1937 when Congress Party formed the Government in seven Provinces. In keeping with its past tradition, the Congress Party began commencing the Assembly proceedings with VANDE MATARAM. The Muslim League, equally true to its tradition, quite like the Muslim clerics of today, declared a war against it. The League Members in the Assembly raised a storm of protest and staged walk-outs. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) was scheduled to meet in October 1937 at Calcutta. The Muslim League conducted its session earlier and denounced Congress-ruled States as 'HINDU STATES'. And the most weighty testimony it adduced was the singing of the VANDE MATARAM in PROVINCIAL Assemblies!!
The League condemned the Congress for imposing 'VANDE MATARAM AS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM UPON THE COUNTRY' and termed it as 'callous, positively anti-Islamic, IDOLATROUS IN ITS INSPIRATION AND IDEAS, and definitely SUBVERSIVE of the growth of GENUINE NATIONALISM in India'. The Muslim League further called upon 'MUSLIM MEMBERS OF VARIOUS LEGISLATURES AND PUBLIC BODIES IN THE COUNTRY NOT TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES IN ANY MANNER WITH THIS HIGHLY OBJECTIONABLE SONG'.

H V Sheshadri has brilliantly summed up the ideological surrender of the Congress party to the machinations of the Muslim League in 1937: 'When the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met a few days later, it was haunted by the spectre of the League's opposition and formulated ITS POLICY ON 'MINORITY RIGHTS'. If HINDU-MUSLIM unity??without which the British would not part with power??was to be achieved, the Muslims should not, AT ANY COST, be allowed to feel displeased. THEIR SENTIMENTS SHOULD NEVER BE INJURED, FOR WHATEVER REASON. ACCORDINGLY, THE CONGRESS DECIDED TO 'CUT OUT' THOSE PORTIONS OF VANDE MATARAM 'WHICH WERE LIKELY TO OFFEND THE MUSLIM SUCEPTIBILITIES as indicated in the League's resolution. ONLY THE FIRST TWO STANZAS OF THE ONG DEPICTING THE PHYSICAL PICTURE OF THE MOTHERLAND-WERE RETINED AND THE REST 'DROPPED'. Indeed, it was in those subsequent stanzas that the real essence of our nationalism and the spirit of the Freedom Struggle were enshrined. However, the Congress considered these stanzas as 'CONTAINING CERTAIN ALLUSIONS AND RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY WHICH MAY NOT BE IN KEEPING WITH THE IDEOLOGY OF OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN INDIA', and upheld 'THE VALIDITY OF OBJECTION RAISED BY MUSLIM FRIENDS TO CERTAIN PARTS OF THE SONG'. The Congress further gave its organizers 'FREEDOM TO SING ANY OTHER SONG OF AN UNOBECTIONABLE CHARACTER IN ADDITION TO, OR, IN THE PLACE OF VANDE MATARAM'. The last sentence clearly indicated that the Congress had even taken away the unique position of VANDE MATARAM as the NATIONAL ANTHEM and 'PLACED IT ON PAR WITH OTHER NATIONAL SONGS'.'

The Congress party laid the cultural and spiritual foundation for the communal partition of India on 15 August 947, by abjectly surrendering to the black-mailing tactics of the Muslim league in 1937 by tearing apart the Vande Mataram Song on communal grounds and raping Bharat Mata with pseudo-secular fervor and passion. This task begun in 1937 was completed by Nehru and Jinnah in 1947. Today the Imam of Jamma Masjid and the other Muslim Clerics are asking the Congress Party to give up even the so called 'secular portions' of Vande Mataram as identified by the Congress Party in 1937. Instead of making it clear to the Imam and his other clerics that the Constitution of India has given the status of a National Song to Vande Mataram, the Government of India is keeping itself boisterously busy by picking up petty quarrels with the BJP on he ground that they have no historical associations with it. At the same time they are pseudo-secularly and voluntarily ignorant of the solid fact hat Dr. Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, was rusticated by the British authorities from the High School for singing the Vande Mataram Song. When Dasmunsi questions as to whether the BJP men have ever sung the Vande Mataram Song, I would like to ask him whether he is going to declare from a public platform that Sonia Gandhi's grand father sang the Vande Mataram song in the company of Rabindranath Tagore? Are not Muslim-nervous leaders like Dr. Manmohan Singh, Arjun Singh, Dasmunsi and other outstanding leaders of the Congress Party acting like Master Craftsmen in dealing with the vital national issue of Vande Mataram Song? I am using the word Master Craftsmen deliberately for the known and simple reason that Craft is common to both Skill and Deceit!!!

Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad was treated like a brother by Maha Kafir Mahatma Gandhi. He was twice elected President; in Delhi in 1923 (Special Session) and Rangarh in 1940. He continued as Congress President till 1946. he also stabbed Mahatma Gandhi in the last week of 1945 when he gave a letter to Lord Pethick-Lawrence of the Cabinet Mission by agreeing to his proposal for the non-inclusion of a Nationalist Muslim of Congress in the interim Union Cabinet that was being formed at that time. It was an unauthorized letter and Gandhiji was shocked by it when he got a letter from Lord Pethick Lawrence confirming in writing Azad's letter to him on behalf of the Congress. When Gandhiji confronted Azad even when the letter from Lord Pethick Lawrence was on his table, Maulana Azad denied having sent a letter to Lord Pethick Lawrencec!!

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia last month called a meeting with 13 senior Muslim leaders to map out a joint approach to curbing extremism within the 300,000-strong Islamic community, and obtained pledges of loyalty to Australia. But he was criticized for excluding Muslims considered 'radical,' and yesterday's summit was called by the uninvited Islamic leaders.

Howard told the Muslims of Australia: ' If you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you....If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option.'

Unlike the Muslim Clerics of India, the 'Radical' Muslims have pledged their loyalty to Australia'. On the contrary, our Pan-Islamic clerics are pledging their disloyalty to the sacred National Song of Vande Mataram!!! I hope that our learned Muslim Clerics will not issue a fatwa against the Australian Muslims for their declared loyalty to their duly constituted government. 

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4