Schools ready for Vande Mataram

New Delhi, Sep 6 (UNI) The controversy apart, millions of students all over the country get ready to sing 'Vande Mataram 'tomorrow, the closing day of the centenary celebrations of its adoption as the national song that inspired freedom fighters for decades of their struggle.

The song had lost the race to become national anthem for lack of consensus.

While a section of Muslim clerics and Sikhs have taken the stand that singing of 'Vande Mataram 'should not be imposed as its contents went against the tenets of their belief and reflected the ethos of only one religion, political parties like the BJP and Hindu bodies like the RSS have come out in support of making the singing of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's master composition compulsory, saying it was a song of national pride celebrating the beauty and bounties of the motherland, with the Left parties opposing the rigid stand of both.

Muslims object to Vande Mataram on the ground that its latter portion were in praise of Goddess Durga and Islam permitted no praise to anyone except the God, a sizeable section of the community and a section of the cleric have opted to keep clear of the row saying if the song was intended to be in the praise of the motherland, there was no harm in its singing.

The Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has ordered all its 100 schools in Punjab and outside to restrain from singing Vande Mataram as ordered by the government and instead asked the schools to carry on the singing of Deh Shiva Var Mohe', the song scripted by Tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh.

SGPC Chief Jathedar Avtar Singh Makkar said in Amritsar that it was not right to impose Vande MatAram on the minorities as it propagate the philosophy of only one religion.

Simaranjit Singh Mann-led Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) has also expressed its opposition to the compulosry singing of the song on the ground that it did not represent all the communities. Forcing of the song in a secular country was unfortunate, he said.

The BJP has strongly objected to the Muslim and Sikh clerics' reservations against Vande MatAram and directed the states ruled by it to make the singing of the song compulsory.

The Left parties have critcised both Mulsims, the BJP and Hindu organisations for taking a rigid stand on the issue.

The controversy had arisen when Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh while responding to the objection of some Muslim clerics had said that he had given no directives to states for compulsOry singing of the song on September seven.

He said that he had only written a letter to chief ministers giving a suggestion that students may sing the song to mark the centenary day.

The BJP and Hindu organisations lost no time in accusing Mr Singh of succumbing to the pressure of Muslim clerics and demanded that all schools should be issued orders to make students sing the song on September seven.

Though Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has asked Muslims to keep their children away from schools on September seven to avoid any controversy, it is to be seen how effective would be its advice.

However, Darul Uloom said it had not issued any fatwa (edict) against the singing of 'Vande Mataram.

It may be recalled Vande Mataram was adopted as National Song on September seven, 1905. To mark completion of 100 years of this historic occasion, a National Committee for the centenary celebration of Vande mataram and Freedom Movement Memorial Committee was organising various events.

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