Personal choice - where art thou?

"Islamic group bans Vande Mataram, BJP fumes"

The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind on Tuesday supported a decree against the national song Vande Mataram on the grounds that some of its lines were "against the religious principles of Islam".
The move drew fierce criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which termed the move "anti-national".

One group says it is against the religion to sing a song which was the source of inspiration for our freedom movement. It forbids its people to continue to sing "Vande Mataram" since Muslims are not "supposed" to bow to anybody except Allah. Another group fumes at this statement, says that such resolutions should not be allowed and decides to enforce the song on the people by putting up posters of "Vande Mataram" all over the place. All of a sudden it becomes a "Hindu-Muslim" issue.

But if we really think about this, how does it matter whether a person sings Vande Mataram or not? Why should saluting to the motherland become anti-Muslim or anti-Allah? Fine, maybe it does. It still doesn't have to be enforced on all Muslims, does it? Can't it be left to the discretion of the individual?
And then again, even if such a resolution has been passed and is followed ardently by all Muslims, does it really matter? How does a group of people refusing to sing Vande Mataram become anti-national? As it is, isnt the song sung only on rare ocassions? Why should it become a raging issue and become part of the front-page news almost everyday? Its all a political power play and a tactic to grab public attention but how many people will recognize this?

Then, one thinks, is this the only ocassion when such a power play became front-page news? Is this the only time when politics interfered in the personal choices of the people? No. One gets reminded of the moral-policing event by political groups which became extremely sensational news. The political groups decide it is against Indian culture for women to go to pubs and therefore starts a movement against them (which "incidentally" takes the form of assualt on the women which is very much part of our Indian culture, I suppose).

Personal choice, in principle, seems to be disappearing from our society. A person is not completely allowed to decide how he wants to live his/her life. At every step in life, one is faced with a set of rules to follow. Yes, there need to be some rules in society so that chaos is avoided. But isn't society interfering too much off-late? A student cannot wear the dresses of his/her choice to college because it is against "college-rules". I was always under the impression that college is supposed to educate, not enforce. Something terribly wrong and against the rules of society must be going on if a man and a woman are seen together. There has to be something wrong if an elderly man is not staying with his children. Everybody around has to interfere and know what is the reason.

Somethings have to be left to a person's volition. But that doesn't seem to be happening. Where is our personal freedom lost?