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| Vande Matram centenary celebrations | | editorial | |
While centenary of adoption of Vande Matram as the National Song, on
Sept 7, was celebrated all over the country with great enthusiasm,
despite controversy raised over the same earlier, in J&K the event was
observed in a very low key. In the absence of any directive from the
state government for holding of functions to mark the occasion and no
instructions issued either by the education ministry or by the
directorates of school education and higher education, the government
educational institutions totally ignored the important event. Only
sporadic functions were held here and there to mark the occasion, with
recitation of Vande Matram song and even its first two stanzas of the
song which for last 150 years has a remained inspiring the fighters
for the freedom of the country and for upholding the unity and
solidarity of the nation. While in Kashmir valley, as was expected no
function was held at all and the students in schools and colleges did
not sing the national song, in view of objections raised to its
singing by the Islamic clergies and fundamentalists, at the government
level it was ignored even in Jammu region. Nevertheless the occasion
was observed by some private schools and a function was organized even
in the Jammu University by some students, in which Vice Chancellor of
the University also participated. The Congress Seve Dal did observe
the occasion at Shahidi Chowk, where the senior party Vice President
Abdul Vakil was the Chief Guest, who joined others in singing the
song, disregarding the edict issued by Muslin clergy prohibiting
Muslims from singing the song. However a function organized by the BJP
at its party headquarter at Jammu was held somewhat at grand level,
with senior Pradesh party leaders including the president singing the
song in chorus. Besides students from some schools were also invited
to the function. In Kashmir valley it were only the schools run by the
army where the students assembled to sing the song. While in the rest
of the country there were directives from the authorities to the
education institutions for singing of at least first two stanzas of
the song written by Bankam Chander Chatterjee, although in some states
its singing by all was not made mandatory, as was the case in BJP
governed states, conspicuously the J&K State government failed to
issue any such directive or instruction to the education institutions.
The result was that the occasion went almost unnoticed in most parts
of the State and hardly few schools, on their own arranging for
recitation of the song at 11 A.M., as was directed by the union
ministry of Human Resources Development. In contrast to the J&K in
certain states a large number of Muslims did participate in singing
the song and even some Muslim Madrasas conspicuously observed the
occasion and recited Vande Matram. In this sorry state of affair in
J&K was a silver lining in a Madrasa at Bhathindi in Jammu city
holding a function on the occasion and reciting an other equally
patriotic song "Sare Jahan se Aachha Hindustan Hamara" written by
llama Iqbal.
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