TMC mandates Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol in Bengal schools as BJP marks 150 yrs of Vande Mataram

KOlkata: As the Bharatiya Janata company (BJP) launched nationwide celebrations on fri grading the 150th day of remembrance of Vande Mataram, composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, w Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee ordered that Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol be made mandatory, along with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore, at morning assemblies in all state-run and state-sponsored schools.The school education department passed an order on Thursday afternoon and asked all schools to make it effective from Friday morning. Except for the national anthem, there was no state-specified prayer song for Bengal government schools earlier.“Singing of Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol alongside Jana Gana Mana has been made mandatory at all schools from today. It has been done with the chief minister’s approval. This will strengthen social and communal harmony in our state,” Bengal education minister Bratya Basu said.Adopted by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government as the official state song in 2023, Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol was sung at the Raksha Bandhan ceremony Tagore started on October 16, 1905, to mark unity among Hindus and Muslims in the midst of the Swadeshi Movement against the partition ordered by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India. The song became equally popular in the East Bengal province, which became East Pakistan after the 1947 Partition and Bangladesh after the 1971 Liberation War.Meanwhile, BJP celebrated 150 years of Vande Mataram with state leaders leading a rally at Chinsurah in Hooghly district, where Chattopadhyay, an eminent novelist and civil service officer, lived.Written as a tribute to the motherland, Vande Mataram, a poem, was used by Chattopadhyay in his 1882 novel Anandamath, which told the story of Hindu monks carrying out a war against the British and tax-collecting landlords during the 1770 Bengal famine.Although the TMC government formed a committee on November 4 comprising some eminent poets, writers, and intellectuals to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, Bengal BJP’s former state president and Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar alleged on Friday that the state government had done little to pay tribute to Chattopadhyay.“The government has done nothing except for setting up a committee. Bengal seems to have forgotten Chattopadhyay today. This is sad indeed,” Majumdar said.The ruling TMC party called a press conference where the national anthem was played and floral tributes were paid to Tagore by Basu and state women and child development minister Shashi Panja.“Tagore was an enlightened soul who reshaped the collective conscience of our nation. The visionary spread wisdom, unity and religious harmony. BJP despises Tagore because his universal thoughts cannot be caged in their divisive and parochial ideologies,” Panja said.Citing an alleged remark by Karnataka BJP lawmaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri on *Jana Gana Mana* being written “to welcome British officials,” Basu said, “Kageri’s remark is not just a reflection of ignorance. It exposes the deep contempt BJP has for Bengal and Bengalis. Will they celebrate 150 years of *Jana Gana Mana* as well?”Sukanta Majumdar said, “The Karnataka MP’s remark was his personal opinion. I cannot say anything about that.”Leading a rally in Kolkata, BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly, said: “Vande Mataram was the driving spirit of our freedom movement. It drove out the British. We will use this spirit to drive out the TMC from Bengal.”