By Geetha V P
In a charged parliamentary session that blended reverence for India’s national song with sharp political undercurrents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unleashed a targeted narration aimed squarely at discrediting the Congress party and Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy, only for Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to deliver a masterful, fact-driven rebuttal that exposed the prime minister’s selective history as partisan fiction. The Lok Sabha debate on December 8, 2025—marking the 150th anniversary of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s iconic 1875 composition—began as a commemoration of the mantra that fueled the freedom struggle but quickly devolved into accusations of historical revisionism, communal appeasement, and electoral maneuvering amid interruptions and opposition murmurs. Stretching over 10 hours during the Winter Session, the exchange sparked widespread reactions, with opposition leaders praising Gandhi’s poise and precision as a decisive counterpunch, while BJP allies dismissed her intervention as deficient—though her archival evidence left little room for such claims. By methodically dismantling Modi’s narrative with letters, resolutions, and timelines, Gandhi not only neutralized his barbs but redirected the discourse to urgent national crises, underscoring her effectiveness in turning a potential Congress rout into a resounding defense of historical truth and contemporary accountability.
Prime Minister Modi opened the proceedings with a resounding tribute to Vande Mataram as a “mantra of unity and courage,” crediting it with galvanizing the nation against British divide-and-rule tactics. He painted vivid imagery: the song’s first full rendition at the 1896 Indian National Congress session in Calcutta, its unyielding role in the 1905 Bengal partition protests where it “stood like a rock” amid efforts to fracture Bengal’s intellectual heartland. Modi lauded Bankim Chandra’s work—initially two stanzas in 1875, expanded in his 1882 novel Anandamath—as a “sacred war cry” that inspired not just political freedom but a spiritual purge of colonial vestiges. His delivery, lasting over an hour, was characteristically oratorical, blending poetic flourishes with pointed jabs to stir national pride while subtly priming the ground for Bengal electioneering, as treasury benches cheered chants of unity from “North to South, East to West.”
Yet, Modi’s speech pivoted abruptly to critique, framing the song’s history as scarred by “injustice” and communal compromise—a deliberate assault on the Congress era designed to portray the party as perpetually weak-kneed. He accused the pre-independence Congress of capitulating to the Muslim League’s 1937 opposition, invoking Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s reported anti-song slogans. Citing a selectively quoted letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to Subhas Chandra Bose dated October 20, 1937—three days after Bose’s own note suggesting discussion—Modi depicted Nehru as surrendering to “communalists” by advocating the song’s truncation to its first two stanzas, allegedly to placate Muslims and fracture a symbol of undivided patriotism. He extended this narrative to broader “Congress compromises,” linking it to the 1975 Emergency—a “dark chapter” when Vande Mataram’s 100th anniversary overlapped with constitutional suspension and the jailing of patriots. “When the Emergency was imposed and freedom suppressed, Vande Mataram rose to defeat those forces,” Modi thundered, positioning his government as the song’s rightful custodian, pledged to a self-reliant India by 2047. The intent was clear: exalt the anthem’s wholeness while indicting Nehru and Congress as architects of division, a targeted narration that risked reopening communal fault lines for short-term political gain.
Rising amid the chamber’s volatility, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra—making her first major Lok Sabha intervention since her entry—delivered a 45-minute address that blended profound respect for Vande Mataram with a forensic, evidence-based demolition of Modi’s claims, proving her effectiveness as a debater who could parry partisan attacks with unyielding facts. “This is not just a topic; it is a part of India’s soul,” she began, seamlessly tracing the song’s evolution to reframe it as a secular beacon: from its 1875 inception as two stanzas by Bankim Chandra, through its 1882 publication in Anandamath, to Rabindranath Tagore’s stirring rendition at the 1896 Congress session—a secular nationalist forum, not the “Hindu Sabha” gathering Modi implied. Gandhi vividly evoked its power in the 1905 Swadeshi movement, where Tagore himself led processions uniting students, farmers, and lawyers in a chorus that made the British “tremble,” underscoring the song’s role as a unifying force rather than a divisive relic.
Gandhi’s masterstroke came in directly confronting Modi’s core accusation of “appeasement,” where her command of historical detail turned the tide. Producing a meticulous timeline, she revealed the full 1937 correspondence context: Bose’s October 17 letter to Nehru proposing a Calcutta discussion and Tagore consultation, followed by Nehru’s October 20 reply—cherry-picked by Modi—insisting the “outcry” was “manufactured by communalists” with no intention of pandering. She amplified this with Tagore’s own note endorsing the first two stanzas, historically sung during the freedom struggle for their lack of communal undertones, while warning against misinterpreting later verses in a polarized time. Gandhi clinched her rebuttal by citing the Congress Working Committee’s October 28, 1937, resolution adopting those stanzas, endorsed by a pantheon including Gandhi, Bose, Nehru, Narendra Dev, Patel, and Tagore—a consensus reaffirmed in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly under Rajendra Prasad, with B.R. Ambedkar and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (a BJP icon) present and raising no objections. “Questioning this form is not just an insult to these giants but an assault on the Constitution,” she declared, flipping Modi’s hubris back on him: “Have you become greater than Gandhi, Tagore, Ambedkar, Azad, Patel, and Bose?” In defending Nehru, she highlighted his 17 years in jail for independence and his foundational contributions to institutions like ISRO, DRDO, IITs, AIIMS, and major dams—many now facing privatization—wryly proposing a “10-40 hour” Nehru debate to exhaust the “999 insults” and “close the chapter once and for all.” This not only neutralized Modi’s targeted smears but humanized Nehru as an architect of modern India, rendering the prime minister’s narrative impotent.
Gandhi’s effectiveness extended beyond rebuttal; she pierced the debate’s facade with piercing questions: “Vande Mataram lives in every particle of this nation; why debate what is etched in every Indian heart after 75 years of independence?” Alleging dual motives—Bengal poll rallying and tarnishing freedom fighters to distract from “real grievances” like unemployment, paper leaks, inflation, rupee depreciation, pollution, and women’s safety—she accused Modi’s policies of weakening the nation, even as allies whispered of centralized power’s perils. Her calm, evidence-based tone—punctuated by wry asides—earned nods from opposition ranks, including Samajwadi Party MP Awadhesh Prasad, contrasting sharply with the chamber’s chaos and highlighting her poise as a counterforce to Modi’s bombast.
The speeches, mere hours apart, spotlighted clashing strategies: Modi’s emotional mobilization through sweeping historical arcs, colonial vignettes, and Viksit Bharat visions, marred by omissions like Tagore’s curation of both Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana, or Mukherjee’s silent assent to the song’s form—lending a partisan edge to what should have been patriotic homage. His twofold aim—to revive the song’s “full” glory while indicting Congress’s “divisive” past—backfired under Gandhi’s scrutiny, alienating moderates by dredging up healed wounds amid opposition applause for her call to “close the chapter.”
Conversely, Gandhi’s precision over pathos—wielding documents like a prosecutor’s brief—proved devastatingly effective, neutralizing barbs without recrimination and reframing the debate as “event management politics” from election to election. Concise, verifiable, and forward-looking, her intervention echoed public anxieties over economic woes, making Modi’s oratory feel hollow by comparison. Post-debate, reactions amplified the verdict: Shiv Sena’s Shaina NC lauded Modi’s “patriotic discussion” but faltered in claiming Gandhi “lacked facts,” especially as Rahul Gandhi’s absence was overshadowed by her solo triumph; Congress deputy Gaurav Gogoi decried Modi’s history-rewriting as a “big sin,” aligning with Gandhi’s exposé. Viral videos, framed the session as a “Nehruvian legacy” route, with Gandhi’s words—”Vande Mataram is the cry of hope that your government is rejecting everyday”—resonating as a clarion call beyond the House.
As echoes fade, this Vande Mataram debate—part commemoration, part combat—mirrors India’s polarized discourse, but Gandhi’s rebuttal emerges as the defining moment, thwarting Modi’s targeted narration and reclaiming the anthem for unity. Modi’s vision stirs resolve; hers demands accountability now. In a Parliament for the people, the urgent question endures: Will it harmonize on jobs, prices, and justice, or linger in antiquity’s echo? For now, Vande Mataram endures—not as a political prop, but as the soul-stirring call Gandhi defended with facts that outshone fiction.
