Trivandrum: On the 80th Independence Day when the country witnessed controversies erupting over rendition of Vande Matram, Kerala University Vice-Chancellor Mohanan Kunnummal has triggered a fresh row. On Saturday, he remarked that people who oppose saying “Vande Mataram” “do not know who their mother is”.
He made the comment while addressing an RSS youth meet, ‘Sankalp 2026 Yuva Sangamam’, at Manivila in Thiruvananthapuram, reported India Today.
Speaking about the idea of Bharat Mata, he said the country is referred to as “Mother India.” He linked that symbolism to the use of “Vande Mataram”.
“These children have been placed in your homes for a developed India. The responsibility to raise them into brilliant children and exemplary citizens lies with every male and female head of the household,” he said, as quoted by India Today.
He explained that this responsibility applied particularly to women. He said it was so because India itself was regarded as a mother.
“That is why when we pray, we say ‘Vande Mataram’. It is our mother. That is why we say and sing ‘Vande Mataram’,” he said.
He then went on to add that those who opposed saying “Vande Mataram” were people who “do not know who their mother is”. He claimed that those who would understood what a mother meant would say the national song.
The remarks came amid an ongoing political row in Kerala over the role of university Vice-Chancellors and their alleged closeness to the RSS.
Student organisations SFI and KSU have accused Kunnummal of trying to push the RSS agenda at the University.
Meanwhile, row over Vande Matram rendition was also triggered involving Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi was seen gesturing towards the singers, in an apparent bid to stop them after the first two stanzas had been sung during Independence Day celebrations at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday, giving the BJP an opportunity to hit out at the grand old party for allegedly disrespecting the national song.
Congress, however, rejected claims that Sonia attempted to stop the rendition of Vande Mataram saying, “as the Congress president was standing for a long time, Soniaji was asking for a chair for him.”
