Vande Mataram never announced as national song, claims scholar

Vadodara, Sep 4 (UNI) When the whole nation intensly debates over singing of ''Vande Mataram'' on September 7, an eminent Sanskrit scholar and former director of M S University's Oriental Institute, Rajendra Nanavati, has given a new twist to the controversy by claiming that Vande Mataram was never announced as India's National Song.

''It is absolutely wrong and misleading to claim that this is the centenary year of the Song without any historical evidence or record,'' the scholar told UNI today.

Mr.Nanavati, a former HoD of the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit languages in the M S University of Baroda, has served legal notices to both union HRD minister Arjun Singh and Gujarat's Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Department secretary for their recent circulars which claimed that Vande Mataram was accepted as the National Song in the 1905 AICC session held at Varanasi.

Taking strong exception to the governments' direction for organising the event nation-wide on September 7 to mark the occasion, Mr Nanavati said, ''I don't understand the significance of of the date when the Song has never been accepted as the National Song at any forum.'' Mr Nanavati also said, September 7 could not mark the completion of the 100 years of the Song as no event had taken place on that particular day in history and even the AICC session held at Varanasi in December, 1905, had not passed any resolution on the Song even as it was regularly being sung at every AICC session since 1901.

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