A small but significant item of news came and went in the first week of this month without so much as a ripple. It should have dominated the front pages, prompted emergency debates, and made every Indian pause and reflect on the direction in which the world—and our own nation—are moving. Instead, it vanished beneath the weight of more sensational, less consequential stories.

The news was this: China's trade surplus crossed the one-trillion-dollar mark in the first eleven months of this year. That is approximately ?90 trillion—a figure so astronomical that even economists must pause and catch their breath. Put it in the language of the common citizen, and it becomes even more unbelievable: China exported goods worth over one trillion dollars more than what it imported.

A trade surplus of that magnitude does not arrive as a gift of the gods. It represents decades of systematic planning, rigorous implementation, and a national consensus on the primacy of economic growth and technological excellence. It symbolises the maturity of its manufacturing ecosystem, the discipline of its labour force, and the ambition of its leadership.

Most of my friends and readers missed this historic milestone. And why wouldn't they? Prime Minister Narendra Modi had kept the country busily occupied with something far more 'urgent': the so-called 150 years of Vande Mataram.

Yes—while China added a trillion dollars to its trade surplus, India spent ten precious hours of parliamentary time debating a 19th-century song.

Around the time this news appeared, I happened to watch a television programme hosted by Fareed Zakaria. His Maharashtrian parents were public intellectuals I deeply admired, and I have always read his columns with interest. Years ago, I reviewed his landmark book The Post-American World: And the Rise of the Rest, which presciently warned that Pax Americana—the unipolar system that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union—would not last long.

In the programme, Zakaria described in crisp detail how China is using drone technology for essential public services—delivering food, transporting medical supplies, supporting emergency infrastructure. He spoke of ongoing developments that will allow Chinese automobiles to lift vertically like helicopters, glide through airspace, and land precisely on compact surfaces. Meanwhile, China's artificial intelligence engine, DeepSeek, is being compared favourably with America's ChatGPT, and is already being used by industries and universities.

In other words, China is not merely catching up with the future—it is building it. Most Indians would have missed this reality because the government in Delhi was preoccupied with Vande Mataram's 150-year celebration—an anniversary that nobody except the ruling party was known to be waiting for.

The irony is painful. While China was testing flying cars, Indian passengers were stranded in airports, clutching tickets they had purchased, watching flights disappear or get indefinitely delayed. Aviation chaos spread across the country as Parliament spent ten hours discussing Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's composition—first set to tune by Rabindranath Tagore—at a time when far more urgent questions like the future of Tejas required national attention.

Meanwhile, the rupee continues its slow slide and may soon touch ?100 per US dollar. I sometimes wish Oman Tribune had not folded up; my weekly column in that paper fetched me payment in dollars. At today's conversion rate, that nostalgia has grown surprisingly stronger.

But jokes aside, a weakening rupee has consequences. It affects imports, fuel prices, education expenses abroad, manufacturing costs, and overall consumer inflation. Yet the government of the day believed that the 150th year of a song deserved more parliamentary attention than the state of the economy.

There was a time when Parliament mattered. The first two Lok Sabhas met for an average of 135 days a year. Legislators debated, argued, listened, negotiated and, ultimately, legislated. The House was a crucible of ideas. Fast-forward to the 17th Lok Sabha (2019–2024): it met for 55 days a year on average—less than half the time. Fewer sittings mean fewer debates, fewer laws scrutinised, fewer executive actions questioned, and fewer committees functioning. A shrinking Parliament signals a shrinking democracy.

And in the midst of this steady decline, the government managed to find ten full hours to discuss the history of Vande Mataram. Not unemployment. Not manufacturing slowdown. Not the closure of nearly 20,000 government schools in one of India's most populous states. Not the flight of capital. Not the decline of institutions. Yes, a song!

One must give credit where it is due: Modi is not an ignoramus. On the contrary, his political instincts are razor sharp. He knows precisely which topics divide people, and he knows how to keep those divisions alive. When he identifies a contentious issue to keep the communal pot boiling, he pursues it with determination.

I have observed political leaders for decades, in India and abroad. I have never heard a Chinese leader—be it Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao—blaming his predecessors for every misfortune in the present. The only world leader who matches Modi in this respect is Donald Trump, who attributes every American problem to his predecessor.

Culture wars are convenient. They require no economic vision, no administrative discipline, no investment in science, technology or education. They require only rhetoric and repetition.

Modi suggested that Vande Mataram was the one song that united people during the freedom struggle. This is simply not true. The freedom movement resonated with numerous chants, each born of different regions, groups and ideological energies: Jai Hind, popularised by Subhas Chandra Bose; Inquilab Zindabad, invoked passionately by Bhagat Singh and his comrades; Quit India; Bharat Mata ki Jai; Jai Bharat, and, yes, Vande Mataram.

To suggest that one slogan alone stirred the nationalist soul is to rewrite history through the lens of contemporary politics. Modi accused the Congress of "mutilating" Vande Mataram by adopting only the first two stanzas. This accusation is historically inaccurate.

He might wish to acquaint himself with the story of our national anthem before discussing mutilation. Tagore's "Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata" originally had five stanzas. On January 24, 1950, the Constituent Assembly adopted only the first stanza—the one beginning with "Jana Gana Mana"—as the national anthem. It was selected because it was concise, inclusive and suitable for formal use.

No one has ever accused the Constituent Assembly of disrespecting Tagore. Similarly, Vande Mataram's first two stanzas were selected by the Indian National Congress in 1937 because the later verses contain explicit references to Durga, Lakshmi and other deities. Leaders of the freedom movement—aware of India's religious diversity—feared that adopting the whole song might alienate non-Hindus.

Tagore himself recommended these two stanzas for their "unobjectionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland." Modi alleged that Nehru alone truncated the song. This is untrue.

The decision was part of a unanimous Congress Working Committee (CWC) resolution passed on October 30, 1937, in Calcutta. The participants included: Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad, Bhulabhai Desai, Jamnalal Bajaj, JB Kripalani, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Rajaji, Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan and Subhas Chandra Bose.

Mahatma Gandhi, though not a CWC member, was a special invitee and personally assisted in drafting the resolution. It was moved by Dr Rajendra Prasad and seconded by Sardar Patel. This is not mutilation. This is a consensus.

It is worth noting that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925—half a century after Vande Mataram was written—did not adopt it as its anthem. Instead, it chose "Namaste Sada Vatsale Matrubhume," written by Narhar Narayan Bhide. The RSS certainly sings Vande Mataram, but not Jana Gana Mana. Those curious can consult old issues of its mouthpiece, Organiser. I shall refrain—for want of space.

A brief word about Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. He was one of the earliest architects of the Bengal Renaissance—scholar, novelist, satirist, and administrator. His prose reshaped Bengali literature, and his ideas stirred new cultural self-awareness among Hindu Bengalis. But his vision of nationalism was not the inclusive nationalism that Gandhi or Nehru later articulated.

Bankim's 1882 novel Anandamath forms the backdrop of Vande Mataram. The novel depicts a band of ascetic warriors—the Sannyasis—fighting Muslim rule. Its pages describe Muslims as foreign invaders, violent oppressors, and enemies of Hindu civilisation. The novel ends not with a message of harmony but with a call to ascendancy.

To understand why Muslims found the song problematic, one need only turn to historical sources. Historians SM Burke and Salim Al-Din Quraishi, in their Oxford University Press volume, The British Raj in India: An Historical Review, write on page 317:

"Interestingly, the Government of India also viewed Vande Mataram with great disfavour. The Home Member (Sir Henry Craik) gave two reasons for objecting to the song. First, though the song itself is generally harmless, it originated as a hymn of hate against the Muslims."

They cite an exchange from Anandamath. Bhabananda sings Vande Mataram and declares: "The Hinduism of the Hindus cannot be maintained unless the bearded-drunkards are expelled."
Mahendra asks: "How will you expel them?"
Bhabananda replies: "By killing."

Craik's second objection was that the song had become the war cry of "terrorists" in Bengal, even though the phrase itself simply means "Hail Mother." Given such a history, the Congress leadership's desire to select only the nonsectarian stanzas becomes not just understandable but wise.

There was a time when Muhammad Iqbal, author of Sare Jahan Se Achha, might have been considered for national symbolism. His 1904 composition, Taranah-e-Hind (The Anthem of India), begins with: "Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamara." It is short, crisp and has only six lines.

Iqbal, like Jinnah, began as a nationalist. But he later became a proponent of the two-nation theory and, in 1930, famously articulated the idea of a separate Muslim homeland—a cornerstone of the 1940 Lahore Resolution. With that shift, his patriotic song lost consideration as a national anthem.

Bankim was not always a nationalist in the modern sense. In his early writings, he returned repeatedly to Europe's superiority in science, governance, and culture. He believed Europe represented "the more perfect type of civilisation," while India had suffered from "arrested development."

He admired Europe's inductive scientific method, its emphasis on systematic observation and experiment, and its ability to transform knowledge into power. In his words, Europe after the Renaissance had reached heights of achievement "way beyond anything ever imagined possible in early ages and other cultures."

One wonders what Bankim would have written today if he saw Chinese drones delivering groceries while the Parliament debated his poem. All this brings us back to where we began. China marches ahead—building, manufacturing, researching, innovating—while we debate century-old symbols.

Modi's genius lies not in governance but in discovering new fault lines to explore. Whether it is history, songs, statues, names of cities, or ancient grievances, he ensures the nation's political energy is spent not on the future but on the past.

But no country has ever become a global power through cultural quarrels. A great nation demands: better schools, not closed ones; better jobs, not slogans; better wages, not rhetoric; stronger institutions, not weakened legislatures; and scientific temper, not communal temperature.

Is it not time to stop arguing endlessly about songs and symbols? Is it not time to involve all Indians—Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, atheists, everyone—in building a nation worthy of its civilisational heritage and democratic promise?

India stands at a crossroads. One path leads to technological advancement, economic resilience, social harmony and institutional integrity. The other leads to distractions, polarisation and stagnation. If China can build flying cars, surely India can build a political culture that looks to the future. We need not sing in unison. But we must work in unison. Only then can every Indian—regardless of faith or identity—say with pride: "We built this India together."