Just as Sonia Gandhi had objected to the playing of all six stanzas of Vande Mataram at the Congress headquarters in Delhi during the Independence Day celebrations, her INDIA bloc ally and National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stood for the entire song at the inaugural International Film Festival in Srinagar.
The Abdullahs remained standing for the full three-minute-and-10-second rendition of the song, following the Ministry of Home Affairs' newly issued guidelines.
The controversy over the national song began when Congress leader Sonia Gandhi objected to its complete rendition and appeared visibly angry, signalling that it should be stopped after realising that the singers had continued beyond the first two stanzas. The shortened version was adopted after a 1937 Congress Working Committee resolution, with the party maintaining that the decision was intended to preserve communal harmony.
As the controversy intensified, Congress defied the Centre's new guidelines and continued following its 1937 resolution at official party events and programmes, further escalating the dispute. Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused the party of reinforcing its politics of appeasement.
"Yesterday, the Congress Working Committee took an anti-national decision. Following its 1937 resolution, Congress decided to sing only two stanzas of Vande Mataram. I want to remind the nation that in 1937, by dividing Vande Mataram for the appeasement of Muslims, Congress laid the foundation for the partition of the country," Shah had said a day after Congress decided to adhere to the 1937 resolution.
However, the National Conference, a longstanding ally of the Congress, chose to stand for the complete rendition of Vande Mataram before the national anthem at the film festival, drawing considerable attention. Several people pointed out that while there is a debate in Delhi over the manner in which the national song should be sung, there seemed to be no such uncertainty in the Kashmir Valley.
"While Delhi debates how much of Vande Mataram should be sung, Kashmir seems to have settled the matter rather effortlessly - the full song, followed by the full anthem. No debate, no drama, no fuel for the idiot-box. Just music," journalist Zafar Choudhary said while sharing a video that showed the Abdullahs standing in the front row during the rendition.
Several other social media users joined the discussion, arguing that there was no confusion in Delhi and that the disagreement was limited to members of a particular political party, in an apparent dig at Congress. Others applauded the National Conference leaders for standing through the entire song.
The incident at the inaugural film festival in Srinagar last evening has added another layer to the ongoing Vande Mataram controversy, with the contrasting stances of Congress and the National Conference highlighting differing approaches to the national song within the INDIA bloc.
