Thiruvananthapuram, August 15: The Congress party’s decision to sing the full version of “Vande Mataram” during Independence Day celebrations at the AICC headquarters and in Congress-ruled Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana has provided opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan with a new opportunity to accuse the party of adopting a ‘soft Hindutva’ stance.
In a sharply worded social media post, Vijayan stated that Congress has once again revealed its political commitments, arguing that the party is drifting away from India’s secular nationalist tradition towards the RSS’s Hindutva agenda.
This controversy has also made its mark in Kerala, where the full version of “Vande Mataram” was sung at an official ceremony at the state forest department headquarters.
Political analysts noted that the song was heard in areas where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a strong presence in Kerala. During the Independence Day celebrations, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar led the singing of “Vande Mataram” at the Lok Bhavan.
Vijayan reminded that in 1937, the Congress Working Committee decided that only the first two stanzas of the song should be sung at national movement platforms due to its religious symbols. He pointed out that when the Constituent Assembly granted “Vande Mataram” the status of a national song in 1950, only the first two stanzas were to be sung.
He accused Congress of discarding its secular heritage by adopting the full version of the song. Vijayan also referenced the Supreme Court’s March 2026 ruling in the Mohammad Saeed Noori case, which clarified that singing “Vande Mataram” at government events is not mandatory.
He argued that there is no legal obligation to sing the song, and failing to do so under the center’s amended laws is not a punishable offense. In this context, he described the full rendition at official ceremonies as an attempt to appease the RSS and accused Congress of betraying the secular fabric of the nation.
The opposition leader went further, accusing Congress of mimicking the RSS’s stance in an attempt to compete with majoritarian politics. Vijayan asserted that the latest evidence suggests Congress has become the B-team of the RSS.
These comments have added another dimension to the escalating political conflict between the Congress-led government and the left in Kerala, with “Vande Mataram” unexpectedly becoming a contentious issue on the eve of Independence Day.
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