Kolkata: Bengal education minister Bratya Basu on Thursday said the Centre’s ‘Vande Mataram’ circular was not aimed at glorifying it or its creator Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, but was more aimed at demeaning and belittling Rabindranath Tagore.“We (Trinamool) were very clear and candid on this issue. Chattopadhyay’s ‘Vande Mataram’ is revered in Bengal. But what the Centre did, in issuing the ‘Vande Mataram’ circular, was try to demean Tagore. It remains a historical fact that RSS and such rightist forces do not like Tagore. Through his writings and songs, Tagore always spoke of unity, not divisiveness, which they propound,” Basu told reporters on Thursday. “Tagore is interwoven in the Bengali soul. He is the country’s first Nobel laureate,” he added.BJP’s politics was not about confluence but about divisiveness, he said. “They will pit Bengali-speaking people against those speaking Hindi. They will pit Hindus against Muslims. They will pit Brahmins against Dalits, Adivasis against Kurmis. And now, they are stretching this to Chattopadhyay versus Tagore,” Basu added.State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said: “Their love for Chattopadhyay was apparent when they referred to him as Bankim Da. Maybe this is what they see as damage control.”The ministers’ statements came in the backdrop of Trinamool alleging that some parts of the third stanza in the original rendition of ‘Vande Mataram’, which first appeared in Anandamath, were changed in the central notification that was issued.“In an official notification, the MHA distorted the original lyrics of Vande Mataram penned by Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in Anandamath,” TMC said.
