Modi Was “Economical With the Truth” in His Vande Mataram Speech in the Lok Sabha: Mridula Mukherjee

PM Modi was "economical with the truth" in his Vande Mataram speech in the Lok Sabha: Mridula Mukherjee, former Professor of History, JNU, former Director, Nehru Museum and Library, to Karan Thapar for The Wire

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One of India’s most highly regarded professors of history, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a former Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, says Prime Minister Modi was “economical with the truth” in his Vande Mataram speech in the Lok Sabha on Monday when he accused Jawaharlal Nehru of removing stanzas from Vande Mataram under pressure to appease Jinnah and thus put the country on what the PM called the path of “appeasement politics” that ultimately led to partition. Prof. Mridula Mukherjee says he is guilty of “not placing facts on the table as they should be”.



In the interview she has given Prof. Mukherjee explains in detail how and why Vande Mataram as the national song was restricted to just the first two stanzas, making it crystal clear that this happened on the advice of Rabindranath Tagore and it was a decision upheld on several occasions by Mahatma Gandhi.



Prof. Mukherjee says it’s inconceivable that Nehru could have put pressure on the Congress Working Committee when it met in October 1937 to do as he wanted regarding Vande Mataram. In the interview she explains in detail why she says this.



Prof. Mukherjee also points out that at a subsequent Working Committee meeting, two years later, in 1939, held in Wardha in Mahatma Gandhi’s presence, this decision was reiterated, thus making it clear it had the Mahatma’s support and endorsement.



I will stop there. There’s a lot in this interview that you should hear for yourself. Prof. Mukherjee has in detail pointed out that the Prime Minister has not placed the full facts on the table and when the full facts are appreciated the impression they leave is very different to that which the Prime Minister attempted to create. This is why she says the PM was “economical with the truth”.



Incidentally, I believe the phrase “economical with the truth” was used by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons to suggest that the speaker he was referring to had not told the full truth i.e. he had mislead or lied.



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