During the Vande Mataram debate in Parliament Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to an October 1937 letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to Subhas Chandra Bose which expressed apprehension that the song could provoke Muslims. Later the same day, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi countered him by quoting additional lines from the same letter.Nehru’s letter, written on October 20, 1937, does express concern over the song’s appearance in Anandamath — the Bankim Chandra Chattopadhya book about a sansyasi rebellion against Mir Jafar and the British. But Nehru also states explicitly that the “present outcry” over the song is one “manufactured” by the “communalists”. He is also sharply critical of the Muslim League.Here’s what Modi and Priyanka said in Parliament, and what the letter says:What Modi said about Nehru’s letter to Bose The Prime Minister, who opened the debate in Parliament, said the Congress and Nehru “divided” the Vande Mataram under pressure from the Muslim League. This was a reference to the Congress resolution of October 1937 — the same month when the letter was written — that said only the first two stanzas of the song should be sung at gatherings.Modi said: “The Muslim League’s politics of opposition to Vande Mataram was intensifying, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah raised a slogan against Vande Mataram from Lucknow on October 15, 1937… Just five days after Jinnah’s opposition, Nehru wrote a letter to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, agreeing with Jinnah’s sentiment and stating that the ‘Anandamath’ background of Vande Mataram could Irritate Muslims,” Modi said.Modi quoted Nehru’s letter, which said: “I have managed to get an English translation of Ananda Math and I am reading it at present to get the background of the song. It does seem that this background is likely to irritate the Muslims.”Story continues below this adWhat Priyanka Gandhi said in Vande Mataram debateIn her counter, specifically in reference to the letter, Priyanka said Modi had read out only one line and ignored the rest.These are the other lines from the letter, which Priyanka quoted in the House: “There is no doubt that the present outcry against Bande Mataram is to a large extent a manufactured one by the communalists. At the same time there does seem some substance in it and people who are communalistically inclined have been affected by it. Whatever we do cannot be to pander to communalists’ feelings but to meet real grievances where they exist.”This is not the only reference to communalism Nehru makes. He speaks about how communal sentiments were taking hold in Bengal and that the Congress needed to bring Muslims within their fold to counter this.He writes: “Bengal, politically considered, has been almost entirely a Hindu province in the past, that is to say, Hindu Bengal has taken an active part in politics. This is not likely to remain so for long as more and more Muslims are becoming politically awake. The question therefore is how far the Congress can influence these Muslims and bring them within its fold. If we are unable to do so they will strengthen the communal elements. And then we shall have a dominating communal element in the politics of Bengal.”Story continues below this adNehru also refers to the Muslim League in the letter, criticising its “low type of communalism”.He writes: “The recent meeting of the Muslim League and the fulminations of Fazlul Huq there have shown the recrudescence of an intensive and low type of communalism. You may have to suffer for this in Bengal more than people in other provinces. But I do hope that you will be able to counter it by a wide appeal to the Muslim masses. There is no other way to meet it.”Context of the letterNehru’s letter was in response to a missive Bose had sent to him about Vande Mataram. On October 16, 1937, an essay was published in Visva-Bharati News by Krishna Kriplani which had some critical remarks about the song. Bose, who supported the song, wrote to both Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore about it. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s book, Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song, has excerpts of Bose’s letter to Tagore, which says, “While writing to you, I also plan to write to Jawaharlalji…n Bengal and among Hindus outside of Bengal great excitement has been caused and I write to you now because many friends advised me to do so.”Nehru too wrote to Tagore about Vande Mataram, who then replied that, “I freely concede that the whole of Bankim’s ‘Vande Mataram’ poem, read together with its context, is liable to be interpreted in ways that might wound Moslem susceptibilities, but a national song, though derived from it, which has spontaneously come to consist only of the first two stanzas of the original poem, need not remind us every time of the whole of it, much less of the story with which it was accidentally associated.”