India, Feb. 16 -- It is indisputable that the world is becoming exponentially toxic, and the increasingly polluted environment is just one of the phenomena. Just this last week, our saffron-dyed government, which finds its origins in the anti-freedom and partisan movements that led to the partition of the Indian subcontinent, determined that the country was not divided enough. It has elevated the recanted verses of Vande Mataram to be sung in official settings and in schools before the National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana.

This mandate comes on the heels of the recent debate in Parliament over the song, in which the Hindutva brigade sought to legitimise the disputed stanzas that the Constituent Assembly had unambiguously rejected as contrary ...