Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Re: [IAC#RG] Insult to the nation

Its a very good question.

The Vande Mataram is not a protected song under the "Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971" unlike the Jana-Gana-Mana and the Tricolour.


On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Harpal Selhi <drharpal@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry for being naive, is there a clause for national song like national anthem and national flag?

Regards

Harpal

Next time you are driving, keep this in mind:

"Honk if you love Jesus, text if you want to meet him!"


Sent from my iPhone

On 14-May-2013, at 9:47, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:

Sack MPs who don't respect National Song 

No matter what his reservations may have been against the National Song, by disdainfully walking out of Parliament when Vande Mataram was being played, BSP leader Shafiqur Rahman Barq has insulted the country. Such an affront to the nation, that too delivered inside the hallowed halls of Parliament — the sanctum sanctorum of democracy, cannot be tolerated. Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has taken note of the incident, but the matter must not be allowed to rest there. The offending MP's membership to the lower House must be cancelled and his political boss would do well to severely reprimand him. Not only has Mr Barq committed sacrilege, he has shown no remorse for his despicable behaviour. Instead, the little known MP from Moradabad has defended his actions in the name of 'religious freedom' and 'secularism'. That the two have absolutely nothing to do with respecting one's motherland is clearly a concept that is alien to Mr Barq, who has argued that since rendering Vande Mataram is the equivalent of paying 'homage to a Hindu idol', he, as a true Muslim, cannot 'worship' anyone else apart from Allah. The fallacious nature of his argument apart, the fact remains that Mr Barq had no business dragging his religious beliefs into Parliament, where he has come not as a representive of a religious community. Moreover, if he really felt so strongly about the National Song, he had other ways to register his concern. He could have, for instance, stood aside while the song was being played. But by walking out, Mr Barq sought cheap publicity through the use of his religious identity. But this is not the first time that Mr Barq has played the Muslim card; he had opposed the BSP's 'Jai Bhim' slogan too.

This is also not the first time that Vande Mataram has been criticised for being 'anti-Islamic'. This manufactured controversy goes back to the turbulent decades of the 1930s and 1940s when the country's emergent Muslim leadership was seeking to consolidate its own political base vis-à-vis that of the Congress. By that time, Vande Mataram — Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay's powerful paen to the motherland which had bound the national conscience, Hindus and Muslims alike, during the 1905 Bengal partition — was already being sung at the opening of all Congress sessions. However, when the party wanted to make the song the national anthem, some Muslim leaders objected. In 1937, a sub-committee that included Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose reviewed the song, and for the first time in the 1938 Haripura session, only the first two stanzas were played. Even that did little to placate the likes of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who demanded the song be scrapped.

But while that did not happen, Vande Mataram has remained the favourite punching bag of communal leaders. In 2006, the song's centenary celebrations were hampered after some Muslims complained against a Union Government directive asking all schools to sing the song on September 7. A supine Congress leadership in New Delhi buckled before them, as it had earlier. The question now is: Will it be any different this time around or will Shafiqur Rahman Barq get away with his shocking irreverance?

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/insult-to-the-nation.html



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