Then came Panditji’s plain-speaking to the teachers and students of AMU: ‘‘I am proud of our inheritance and our ancestors who gave intellectual and cultural preeminence to India. How do you feel about this past? Do you feel you are also sharers in it and inheritors of it and, therefore, proud of something that belongs to you as much as to me? Or do you feel alien to it and pass it by without understanding it or feeling that strange thrill that comes from the realisation that we are the trustees and inheritors of this treasure?’’

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Why these apparently unconnected references to Mahfouz and Nehru in a column on Vande Mataram? Dear readers, the answer lies in the interesting debate on Indian nationhood that has been provoked by the current unfortunate controversy over our national song. And I wish to join this debate squarely through a series of articles in this space. In a way, I have already begun the series with my column last week. In particular, what has provoked me is an article in The Hindu last week (’A souvenir, not an emblem’; September 6) by Malini Parthasarathy, its part-owner and one-time executive editor. Known for her leftist leanings, she writes: ‘‘The anthropomorphic depiction of the Indian nation that Vande Mataram evokes—Bharat Mata, with its allusions to Durga—is more suited to a context of cultural nationalism. The new Indian nation that came into being in 1947 was the product of a mass struggle of people of diverse identities, belonging to different communities and regions. This recognition brought forth an open acknowledgment from the makers of modern India that the national ethos that would power the new nation would be only civic and territorial in nature, with civic identity rather than any affiliation being given primacy in the new structure. It was acknowledged that all communities were equal stakeholders in the new democratic republic. It was therefore clear that symbols such as Vande Mataram that had strong overtones of cultural nationalism could not have a place among the official symbols of India’s nationhood.’’ (Italics mine.)

... contd.