Lucknow, Dec. 23 -- The decision of the Congress to truncate Vande Mataram under its appeasement policy led to cultural division and the Partition of the country, chief minister Yogi Adityanath said in a discussion in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly on Monday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the national song. Urging members to read Anandmath authored by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Adityanath said respect for Vande Mataram is not merely an emotional expression. "It also instils in all of us a sense of our national duties towards constitutional values," he said. The compromise on Vande Mataram by the Congress was not out of respect for religious sentiments, but the first and most dangerous experiment in the party's appeasement politics, which fuelled separatism, he said. "Till Muhammad Ali Jinnah was in the Congress, Vande Mataram faced no opposition. After leaving the Congress, he used the national song as a political tool for the Muslim League, deliberately giving it a communal angle; the song remained the same, only the agenda changed," the chief minister said. "In the Congress session held in Lucknow in 1935, Jinnah opposed Vande Mataram. In October 1937, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a letter to Subhas Chandra Bose stating that some stanzas of the song needed to be removed. It was a move to "appease" the Muslim community. On October 26, 1937, Congress truncated the song under the guise of harmony, sacrificing national consciousness," he said. Despite protests by patriots, Congress prioritised vote-bank politics over the nation, he added. On March 17, 1938, Jinnah demanded the song's complete alteration, and the Congress did not resist, Adityanath said, adding that this set the stage for growing separatism and the first compromise on cultural symbols, ultimately contributing to India's Partition. The chief minister emphasised that opposition to Vande Mataram was political, not religious. The song featured in all the sessions of the Congress from 1896 to 1922, he said. Leaders like the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and other senior Congress leaders belonging to the Muslim community had said that Vande Mataram was not against Islam, he remarked. "Mohammad Ali Jauhar first opposed the song in a Congress session held in 1923. When Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sang Vande Mataram, Jauhar left the dais. Congress bowed to pressure and by 1937 only two verses of the song were allowed in Congress sessions," he said. "The truncated version recognised by the Constituent Assembly in 1950 reflected this legacy of appeasement. Vande Mataram is more than a song; it is the soul of India. From the 1905 Bengal anti-Partition movement to the freedom struggle, it inspired the freedom fighters." "Rabindranath Tagore called it the soul of India, Aurobindo Ghosh called it a mantra, it featured on the first tricolour hoisted abroad by Madam Bhikaji Cama. Madan Lal Dhingra's last words were also Vande Mataram," Adityanath said. "When the centenary of Vande Mataram arrived, the same Congress party that had once given this song that awakened the soul of the nation a place on its platform, was in power. However, it then imposed a state of Emergency on the country and stifled the Constitution," he said. 'As Vande Mataram completes 150 years, India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, is moving towards a 'Viksit Bharat' with confidence. The dream of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the immortal creator of the national song, is being realised by the new India," he said....