SONG OF POLITICAL DISSONANCE

PM Modi's tribute to the national song's 150th year in Parliament is a strategic bid to recast Bengal's cultural symbols and target rivals ahead of polls next year

- ANILESH S. MAHAJAN

In Parliament on December 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rose not to present a bill or answer the Opposition, but to pay tribute to a song that, in his words, "gave India its soul". It was the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's hymn to the motherland, officially declared India's national song in 1950. Yet what unfolded in the Lok Sabha that morning was more than commemoration. It was a tightly staged performance that blended history and culture-layered with unmistakable electoral intent.

The optics were deliberate. Modi spoke for more than an hour, longer than on recent foreign policy or economic interventions. "Those who knelt before the Muslim League to cut Vande Mataram sowed the seeds of Partition," he said, referring to the Congress Working Committee's 1937 decision to confine official use to the first two stanzas. "Mohammed Ali Jinnah raised slogans against Vande Mataram in Lucknow in 1937. The then Congress chief Jawaharlal Nehru saw his chair at risk and instead of condemning Muslim League's statements and showing his own dedication towards Vande Mataram, he started investigating Vande Mataram." Political observers believe the message was aimed squarely at the Bengal assembly polls scheduled for April-May 2026, with a clear attempt to enter the Bhadralok imagination-the educated, culturally influential class that shapes opinion and voting patterns across Kolkata, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Hooghly, Burdwan and parts of Birbhum.

Analysts estimate that their influence extends across 80-100 of Bengal's 294 assembly segments, translating into sway over 15-18 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats.

BJP'S BENGAL REALITY