Congress Hits Back at BJP MP Over National Anthem Claim: “Utter Nonsense”
Priyank Kharge rebukes BJP MP Vishweshwar Kageri’s claim that Jana Gana Mana was composed for the British.
BJP MP and former Karnataka Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri sparked outrage on Wednesday by claiming that India’s national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, was originally composed “to welcome the British”, while asserting there had been a “strong chorus” to make Vande Mataram the sole anthem instead. Speaking at an event in Honnavara, Uttara Kannada, to mark the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, Kageri told the audience, “Our ancestors decided that along with Vande Mataram, Jana Gana Mana—which was composed to welcome the British—should also be included.” The remark quickly drew a blistering fact-check from Congress minister Priyank Kharge, who branded it “another RSS WhatsApp history lesson” and “utter nonsense”.
Kharge fired off a detailed thread on X, reminding Kageri that Rabindranath Tagore wrote Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata on December 11, 1911—16 days before King George V’s Delhi Durbar—and first performed it on December 27 at the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta. “Tagore clarified in 1937 and again in 1939 that ‘adhinayaka’ refers to the Dispenser of India’s destiny and ‘could never be George V, George VI, or any other George,’” Kharge wrote, quoting the poet’s own letters. He urged every BJP-RSS worker to “revisit history” by reading the RSS mouthpiece Organiser’s 1947 editorials that had opposed both the Tricolour and Jana Gana Mana.
Historians have repeatedly debunked the British-welcome myth, pointing out that the song was published in January 1912 with explicit Bengali explanations hailing India’s eternal guide, not any monarch. The Constituent Assembly adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem on January 24, 1950, while granting Vande Mataram equal status as the national song—precisely the balanced approach Kageri claimed was forced upon “our ancestors”. The Congress promptly demanded an unconditional apology, accusing the BJP of “peddling disinformation to divide the nation on patriotic symbols.”
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By Thursday morning #WhatsAppHistory was trending nationwide, with thousands sharing Tagore’s original 1937 letter and old Organiser clippings that had called the anthem “anti-national”. As Karnataka heads into bypolls next week, the row has handed the opposition fresh ammunition to paint the ruling BJP as “anti-constitutional” ahead of Constitution Day celebrations on November 26.
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