Kolkata:  BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday said the country's partition could have been avoided if the Congress had not made the mistake of censoring part of the national song "Vande Mataram..." in line with its "appeasement policy".

"Had the Congress not made the mistake of censoring the national song Vande Mataram to just stanzas instead of the whole song ... we could have stopped India from getting divided," Shah said here while delivering the first Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial Lecture organised by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation.

He described Vande Mataram as a manifestation of the century-old tradition of nationalism, and stressed that the song could not be associated with any religion.

"Vande Mataram is a manifestation of our century-old tradition of nationalism. India is not a geo-political nation, it is a geo-cultural nation. The definition of India's nationalism is not narrow.

"It can't be associated with any form of religion. But Congress brought religion into it by censoring the song, It was a part of the Congress' appeasement policy," he said.