Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Saturday said the recent dispute in the state over singing Vande Mataram reflected the “narrow mindedness” of those who refused to sing it. “Some people are saying that we will not sing Vande Mataram,” Adityanath said. “We want this country to move ahead in the 21st century and the matter of dispute is that we will sing Vande Mataram or not.”
He was speaking at a book launch in Lucknow. “This is a matter of grave concern,” the chief minister said. “We will have to find a way out to overcome this narrow mindedness.”
It started at a Meerut Municipal Corporation meeting on March 28, where Mayor Harikant Ahluwalia did not allow seven Muslim corporators to participate in the meeting because they did not sing the song. After that, Allahabad’s civic body tried to introduce a rule to make the song compulsory at meetings, but the Samajwadi Party objected to it saying that some verses in the song were against beliefs in Islam, reported NDTV.
“We have almost 90 corporators, of whom 18 are Muslims. Only a handful of people have an issue with Vande Mataram; the rest sing it,” the mayor had said after the incident. “Everyone at the session decided that those who boycott the national song should be boycotted. I just agreed with my people.”
Vande Mataram is not the national song of the country. The Indian Constitution does not even have such a concept, the Supreme Court pointed it out in February. A BJP leader had moved court seeking a national policy to promote Vande Mataram as the national song of the country. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat has called Vande Mataram “the real national anthem” in the past.
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