The Union Home Ministry has issued fresh guidelines mandating that ‘Vande Mataram’ be played before the national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, at all government functions and in schools across the country. The directive also requires everyone present to stand when the national song is played. Reported by NDTV.
Under the new rules, ‘Vande Mataram’ will be played at civilian award ceremonies, including the Padma awards, and at events attended by the President during arrival and departure.
The song will also be played in public spaces such as cinema halls, though standing will not be mandatory in those venues.
Significantly, all six stanzas of the song — including the four removed in 1937 — will now be played.
Last month, sources told NDTV that the government planned to extend protocols governing the national anthem under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act to ‘Vande Mataram’. Under this law, anyone who disrupts or prevents others from showing respect to the national anthem (and now the national song) can face up to three years in jail.
Political Row Over ‘Vande Mataram’
The directive, particularly the restoration of the four previously omitted stanzas, is expected to trigger political controversy. The issue sparked a sharp exchange last year between the BJP and the Congress.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had accused former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of aligning with Muhammad Ali Jinnah in opposing the song because it could "irritate Muslims". The BJP later shared letters written by Nehru to support its claim, leading to a heated exchange during a Parliament discussion marking the 150th anniversary of the song.
The stanzas removed in 1937 contain references to Hindu goddesses such as Durga, Lakshmi (Kamala), and Saraswati — a point that has added political sensitivity, especially with Assembly elections in Bengal expected in March or April.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge responded by saying it was "deeply ironic that those who today claim to be guardians of nationalism never sang 'Vande Mataram'..."
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also criticised the BJP in Parliament, accusing it of attempting to gain political advantage ahead of the Bengal elections. She alleged that the Prime Minister and the BJP were ‘selectively quoting Nehru’, referring to social media posts highlighting excerpts from his letters without context.
The History Behind the Song
‘Vande Mataram’ was written on November 7, 1875, by Bengali author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and later published in his 1882 novel Anandmath. The song became a powerful rallying cry during India’s freedom struggle against British rule.
Across six stanzas, Chatterjee personified India as a nurturing yet powerful mother figure. Early verses refer to the mother in symbolic and poetic terms, while the later stanzas make explicit references to Hindu goddesses such as Durga, Kamala (Lakshmi), and Saraswati, describing them as “pure and perfect without peer”.
In 1937, at the Faizpur session, the Congress — then led by Nehru — decided that only the first two stanzas would be used at national gatherings. The reasoning was that references to Hindu deities were viewed by some in the Muslim community as exclusionary.
The BJP has argued that removing the stanzas reflected what it calls the Congress party’s ‘divisive’ approach. The Prime Minister stated that dropping the verses "sowed the seeds of the nation's division", in reference to Partition.
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