As per the plea, for nearly eight decades since Independence, India peaceably adopted a standalone two-stanza version of Vande Mataram. Written in the early 1870s, this version pre-dates the novel Anandamath written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the author of Vande Mataram.
The pre-Anandamath version pays tribute to the natural landscape without invoking any religious deity or sectarian conflict, the plea adds.
However, stanzas three to six embedded within Anandamath novel transform the song into a prayer to Hindu deities – Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati – to wage war against Muslims, who are depicted as foes in the novel.
“In Anandamath, ‘matram’ means goddess. ‘Vande Mataram’ and the text of the two-stanzas of the original standalone song are morphed by the plot of the novel into a violent war cry of soldiers of Goddesses and their prayer to Goddesses for victory in a religious war against fellow Indians,” the petition states.
As regards stanza 3, the plea states:
“In the stanza 3, of this six-stanza poem, the combatant Hindu Ascetics sing, “To thee I call, Mother and Lord! Thou who savest, arise and save! To her I cry who ever her foemen drove Back from plain and sea ..And shook herself free.” (Sri. Aurobindo’stranslation). References in this stanza to foemen” who the Goddess drove back from plain and sea and from whom she shook herself free” is a reference against Indian Muslims who are identified as foes in Anandamath.”