India, Aug. 21 -- Congress has reopened an 89-year-old compromise. After Parliament cleared amendments to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 - giving Vande Mataram the same legal standing as the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana - the party confirmed it would continue singing only the song's first two stanzas.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called this "anti-national". Congress called the BJP "fraudulent and fake nationalists".

Both the sides are, in effect, arguing over a decision the Congress Working Committee (CWC) took on October 28, 1937.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh set off the latest round by posting an excerpt from historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya's book, Vande Mataram - The Biography of a Song, on X. The exce...