Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (December 8) spoke at length in Parliament about the history of Vande Bharat to commemorate the 150th anniversary of India’s national song.

Years after its publication, the song was adopted as a rallying call in the Indian Independence movement, but it also became a subject of controversy. Its selection as the national song, and not the national anthem, has of late become a subject of political debate , but the issue was raised even in the early 20th century.

Origins of Vande Mataram

According to the late historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, the song was written in the early 1870s. An expanded version was included in the novel Anandamath (1881). It was set in the early 1770s, against the backdrop of the Fakir-Sannyasi Rebellion against the Nawa

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