Vande Mataram Takes Centre Stage: 77th Republic Day Parade Celebrates India's National Song

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The 77th Republic Day parade on Kartavya Path was a grand celebration of India's national song, Vande Mataram, marking its 150th anniversary. The theme of this year's parade was 'Swatantrata Ka Mantra - Vande Mataram' and 'Samriddhi ka Mantra: Aatmanirbhar Bharat'. The parade featured over 2,500 artists performing a choreographed dance to a specially composed version of Vande Mataram by Academy Award-winning musician MM Keeravani. As part of the celebrations, paintings created by artist Tejendra Kumar Mitra in 1923 were displayed along the parade route. The paintings, originally published in the Bande Mataram Album, illustrated verses of Vande Mataram and were positioned along enclosure backdrops lining the parade route. The West Bengal tableau also featured a rendition of Vande Mataram, while Gujarat's tableau highlighted the link between the song, the Swadeshi movement, and the evolution of the national flag. The parade's focus on Vande Mataram comes at a time when the song has been at the centre of controversy. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress of demonstrating a "colonial mentality" by removing a portion of the song on religious grounds. The West Bengal tableau, titled 'Vande Mataram: The Soul of Bengal', highlighted the state's role in the freedom movement and featured representations of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, and Khudiram Bose. The parade also featured tableaux from other states, including Chhattisgarh, which focused on tribal participation in the freedom struggle, and the ministry of housing and urban affairs, which presented a floral tableau marking the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram. The ministry of culture's tableau, titled 'Vande Mataram: The Soul Cry of a Nation', traced the song's journey from composition to its role in the freedom struggle. The celebrations marked a significant milestone in the history of India's national song, which was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875 and later became a rallying call during the freedom movement. The song was adopted as India's national song by the Constituent Assembly in 1950 and has since become an integral part of the country's cultural heritage.