Thread: Fatwa against singing Vande Mataram

Not just the Mullas, even honorary Englishmen like Qaid-e-Azam were againist Vande Mataram. Nehru, vis-a-vis Jinnah, did a nudge-nudge-wink-wink, all the while merrily in the business of off-shore drilling(Edwina, Naidu etc).


http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12...&counter_img=6

Jinnah wanted Cong to drop both the song and the flag

Sidharth Mishra | New Delhi

After the end of the First World War (1917), Congress took to playing to the tune of Muslim communalists. Unfortunately even the emergence of a charismatic and widely respected Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi at the helm of the leadership could not prevail upon the party to keep its focus on a nationalist anti-imperialist struggle. Gandhi to an extent is held guilty by some historians for allowing pan-Islamism to enter the Indian struggle.

Defining communalism, celebrated historian KM Ashraf said communalism was 'Mazhab ki siyasi dukandari' (political trade in religion).




Pan-Islamic movements of post World War period, Khilafat in its Indian avtar, largely rose out of the fear that the Muslim elite could face a similar fate in the colonial countries as the Ottoman emperor faced following the defeat of Turkey. Bipan Chandra writes in Freedom Struggle, "Caliph was looked upon by large sections of Muslims as their religious head. They felt that any weakening of the Caliph's position would adversely affect the position of the Muslims in other countries which were under the imperialist denomination. The result was birth of Khilafat Movement."


Evaluating the contribution of Khilafat, there is an understanding that the movement at best was Mohammed Ali's and Shaukat Ali's Mazhab ki siyasi dukan. If one needed further evidence, here is one. While joining Gandhi's non-cooperation, the Ali brothers gave a call, "that Muslims should not serve the British Indian Army."


A red-faced Congress gave it a national facade. First 50 members of All India Congress Committee issued a similar declaration but on a more secular line - that no Indian should serve a government, which degraded India socially, economically and politically. Later, the Congress Working Committee issued a similar statement.



The Ali brothers were arrested for sedition. They were released in the early part of 1920s, by which time the Khilafat issue was dead as the Caliph had been overthrown by a popular uprising led by Mustafa Kamal Pasha. He abolished the Caliphate and separated state from religion.



Unfortunately in India, with the Congress associating itself with the Khilafist cause, politics came to be inextricably associated with religion. The demands of Muslim orthodoxy and Congress' policy of appeasement turned into a major debate on the issue of Vande Mataram, which had by then established itself as an Indian nationalists' ode to the Motherland.



It had become a practice to sing the song at the start of Congress sessions ever since it met in Varanasi in 1905. In 1923 at Kakinada, the first virulent opposition to Vande Mataram arose from Mohammed Ali, who was felicitated at the session after his release from incarceration. Thereafter it was to become an integral part of 'Muslim grievance'.


Mohammed Ali's opposition to Vande Mataram would not have been the lone evidence to get the epithet of 'communal' from left-of-centre historians. Later, Jinnah in 1937 was to ask for abandoning both the national flag and the national song in his discussions with Jawaharlal Nehru. Thankfully the Congress Working Committee with Abul Kalam Azad and Subhas Bose on board managed to salvage the situation by adopting the first two stanzas of the song, which in fact was written as a hymn much before Bankim wrote his novel Anandamath on the 'sanyasi' uprising.



Jinnah's agenda made it abundantly clear that in his perception Indian Nationhood was not Muslim inclusive. The Muslim League's demand for a separate Muslim nation became strident with time. Congress with its policy of appeasement had lost the sinews to oppose it. Thus, the partition of the Indian Nation in 1947.

Monday, September 04, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

Islamic seminary tells parents to keep children from schools on 7th

LUCKNOW: A top Islamic seminary in India urged Muslim parents not to send their children to school on Thursday, the centenary of the adoption of the country’s national song, which exhorts people to bow to the motherland - an act forbidden by Islam. Officials at the Darul Uloom seminary in Deoband town said on Sunday they were not handing down any “fatwa,” or order, because the issue has already created a controversy. The controversy erupted after the federal government ordered that the first two verses of “Vande Mataram” be sung at all schools to mark 100 years since its adoption as the national song. “A devout Muslim cannot sing Vande Mataram because it asks a Muslim to bow before the motherland,” said Anjar Shah Kashmiri, a cleric at the seminary. ap

And singing as it is anti Islamic a thought!

But try not to sing the Pakistani national anthem in Pakistan. Then it becomes Islamic!

Deoband: Three days before the centenary celebration of Vande Mataram, the Muslims bodies seem to be taking a mid-path on the controversy.


The Darul Uloom Deoband -- a leading centre of Islamic learning -- steered clear of the issue, saying it has no 'role to play' in the controversy and it has been dragged into it 'unnecessarily'.


The Darul Uloom Deoband on Monday categorically stated that it had not issued any fatwa (decree) on Vande Mataram and nor directed Muslim children to skip classes on September 7 to protest against its mandatory recitation in the BJP-ruled states.


Accusing 'communal forces' of maligning the 130-year-old Islamic institution, Mohatamim (rector) Maulana Margoobur Rehman said that it had neither issued any fatwa nor appeal on this issue after the Human Resource Development Ministry issued a directive to all schools to recite the national song on September 7 which marks the centenary of the song.



"The Darul Uloom is being unnecessarily dragged into the Vande Mataram controversy," he said, adding that Muslims are true patriots and there was no need to questions their patriotism.


Terming it unfair to target the ulema of the Darul Uloom, Deoband without ascertaining facts on the issue, the Maulana said they did not wish to be party to any 'political controversy'.


"Ours is purely religious centre, concentrating on the teachings of Islam, which also supports peace and harmony," he added.


On the issue that taking of life insurance policy by a Muslim is 'un-Islamic act', he said the Darul Uloom has not issued any decree, but given its comments in the light of Islamic law.


"The fatwa cannot be forcibly implemented," he noted.


(With UNI inputs)

Looks like the daadiwallas(and they don't carry the 5 K's) are doing a Check-T-L-V Shoot on their previous stand.

Exactly... there are SOOOO many muslims who are saying Vande Matram is a nationalistic song and will always be.... I don't know why the media refuses to give these people the same amount of air-time as they give the extremists!!! Give the moderates a bigger voice people!!! and read the article I posted "Give Voice to Moderate Islam".....

Originally Posted by Tronic

Exactly... there are SOOOO many muslims who are saying Vande Matram is a nationalistic song and will always be.... I don't know why the media refuses to give these people the same amount of air-time as they give the extremists!!! Give the moderates a bigger voice people!!! and read the article I posted "Give Voice to Moderate Islam".....

Doeabndis are moderates. Islam is moderate. I concur.

Lull before the storm.

The PM hs warned that there will be spate of suicide attacks as per the Int reports that will target religious areas, nuke facilities, army camps etc etc.

Stand by!

SECOND EDITORIAL: India doesn’t need a Bande Matram criris

India hardly needs the new Bande Matram crisis brought on by the BJP in the provinces ruled by it. The party made the singing of the Indian ‘national song’ compulsory in all schools, including madrassas, on September 7, the centenary of the composition. Understandably, the Muslims of India have not taken to it kindly and are saying things that one never wanted to hear: that a Muslim owed allegiance only to Allah and not to a country identified as one’s mother.

A Muslim fundamentalist seminary in Uttar Pradesh has jumped into the fray by ruling that the national song is against Islam and has asked parents not to send their children to school on the appointed day. It is clear that the BJP extremists wanted the Muslims to react negatively to the order and thus isolate themselves further within the Indian society. What will be gained by this except disharmony and disorder? Bande Matram was raised to the level of a Hindu communal song (now it is India’s national song, together with Allama Iqbal’s Tarana) in 1905 during the Hindu protest against the partition of Bengal. Muslims always thought it was insulting to them and it remains a part of the Pakistan Movement as one of the divisive factors. That there were insulting verses in it was proved by the fact that, in 1937, Congress decided that only the first two stanzas would be sung. That is why it is deeply worrying that BJP actually wants Bande Matram to replace the national anthem written by Tagore! *
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...5-9-2006_pg3_1

lol... Bande Matram???

and besides... thats coming from Pak... they are generalizing all the muslims of India... it is Pakistan which is giving voice to the extremists, which is typical of them... but then why are Indians doing the same???