Rajnath Singh, Anurag Thakur target Congress during Vande Mataram discussion

The Treasury Benches in the Lok Sabha on Monday (December 8, 2025) strongly put across the view that the national song, Vande Mataram, had powered India’s freedom struggle but was “betrayed” after Independence due to “appeasement politics” practised by the Congress party, as a result of which only two stanzas of the song were known to the people.

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Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke in detail about the context in which Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote the song, stating that it was during a period of famine in Bengal, with the local Nawab, under the sway of the British, extorting rent from impoverished peasants. “This was in no way communal, or targeting a particular community,” Mr. Singh said. This “betrayal of the Vande Mataram was appeasement politics that led to the Partition of the country later,” the Minister alleged.

“Now is the time for an unbiased evaluation of the Vande Mataram and its history,” Mr. Singh said, adding, “Everyone has heard the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram, but many are not familiar with the rest. Most parts of the original version have been forgotten, and those stanzas depict the essence of India.”

“The Vande Mataram is complete in itself, but there have been attempts to render it incomplete,” Mr. Singh claimed. He called for a return to the song’s glory.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, former Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur pointed to the absence of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra when the Prime Minister spoke.

“It [the Vande Mataram] is not just a song but a maha mantra [great chant]. It is not a song belonging to a religion, a person or a state, instead a song of the nation’s soul, of pride and aspirations. It is a tradition of love towards the nation, which is why Congress is afraid of it. They are so afraid that when PM Modi began the discussion, two members of the family that had ruled for so long were not present in the House…,” Mr. Thakur said.