Vande Mataram
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
The source of the first section
INDIA 2012
A REFERENCE ANNUAL
Compiled by
RESEARCH, REFERENCE AND TRAINING DIVISION
PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
NATIONAL SONG
The song Vande Mataram, composed in sanskrit by Bankimchandra Chatterji, was a source of inspiration to the people in their struggle for freedom. It has an equal status with Jana-gana-mana. The first political occasion when it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. The following is the text of its first stanza :
Vande Mataram!
Sujalam, suphalam, malayaja shitalam,
Shasyashyamalam, Mataram!
Shubhrajyotsna pulakitayaminim,
Phullakusumita drumadala shobhinim,
Suhasinim sumadhura bhashinim,
Sukhadam varadam, Mataram!
The English translation of the stanza rendered by Sri Aurobindo in prose1 is :
I bow to thee, Mother,
richly-watered, richly-fruited,
cool with the winds of the south,
dark with the crops of the harvests,
The Mother!
Her nights rejoicing in the glory of the moonlight,
her lands clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom,
sweet of laughter, sweet of speech,
The Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss.
The Complete Vande Mataram from Anandamath
Indpaedia is grateful to Perplexity AI for this section. If you notice any errors, please point them out by sending a message to our Facebook page, the link to which is provided at the top of this page.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee included the full version of "Vande Mataram" in his 1882 novel Anandamath. This hymn, originally composed around 1875 and expanded for the book, totals 11 stanzas in a mix of Sanskritized Bengali. The first two stanzas form India's National Song, but the complete text invokes Bharat Mata as Durga with martial imagery tied to the Sannyasi Rebellion narrative.
Bengali Script, Devanagari, Romanization, and English Translation
বন্দে মাতরম্ ।
वन्दे मातरम् ।
Vande Mataram.
I bow to thee, Mother.
সুজলাং সুফলাং মলয়জশীতলাম্ । শস্যশ্যামলাং মাতরম্ ।
सुजलां सुफलां मलयजशीतलाम् । शस्यश्यामलां मातरम् ।
Richly-watered, richly-fruited, cool with the rays of the mountains; dark with crops, Mother!
শুমলঙ্গিতশীতলতরং কর্ণলীনং কর্ণলয়কল্লোলিনীং ।
शुमलङ्गितशीतलतरं करणलीनं करणलयकलोलिनीम् ।
Fragrant breezes blowing softly, resounding with the music of streams flowing!
তরলতরলতরলতরালং । সরলাং সরলাং সুন্দরাং ভরদভরসাগরাং ।
तरलतरलतरलतरालम् । सरलां सरलां सुन्दरां भरदभरसागराम् ।
With rippling waves of liquid beauty, simple, straightforward, beautiful, ocean of compassion!
তুমি বিদ্যা তুমি ধর্ম্ম তুমি হৃদি তুমি মর্মৎবিদ্যা ।
तुमि विद्या तुमि धर्म्म तुमि हृदि तुमि मर्मत्वविद्या ।
Thou art knowledge, thou art duty, thou art heart, thou art soul, thou art the knower of the heart.
তুমি মঙ্গলা তুমি মঙ্গলকরী তুমি সর্বজনপ্রিয়াং ।
तुमि मङ्गला तुमि मङ्गलकरी तुमि सर्वजनप्रियाम् ।
Thou art the auspicious one, thou art the bringer of good fortune, beloved of all!
বাহুতে পদ্দলং বিশালং সরলাং সুন্দরাং ত্রিভুবনমঙ্গলাং ।
बाहुते पद्धलं विशालं सरलां सुन्दरां त्रिभुवनमङ्गलाम् ।
With arms extended wide, vast, simple, beautiful, auspicious to the three worlds!
সপ্তকোটিকণ্ঠকলরূপে করুণারঙ্গরূপিণীং ।
सप्तकोटिकण्ठकलरूपे करुणाङ्गरूपिणीम् ।
Resounding with the song of seventy million voices, embodiment of compassion!
সকলকরুণারঙ্গরূপিণীং সকলশ্রীবরদাং ।
सकलकरुणाङ्गरूपिणीम् सकलश्रीवरदाम् ।
Form of all compassion, granter of all boons!
তুমি মাতৃভূমি তুমি শক্তি তুমি দুর্গা দশপ্রহর শঙ্খধরী ।
Thou art Mother Earth, thou art Power, thou art Durga, bearer of ten arms with conch!
জয়ত্বং জয়ত্বং জয়জয়ত্বং । বন্দে মাতরম্ ।
जयत्वं जयत्वं जयजयत्वम् । वन्दे मातरम् ।
Victory, victory, victory to thee! I bow to thee, Mother.
Context in Anandamath
In the novel, the hymn appears during a monk's vision amid famine and rebellion, portraying the motherland as both nurturing and warrior goddess. Later stanzas shift from geographic praise to deification,
A history of Vande Mataram by Mahua Moitra
Mahua Moitra's Vande Mataram Speech Transcript
Dec 8, 2025
Speech delivered by Mahua Moitra in the Lok Sabha in Dec 2025 (References to other issues have been deleted)
Origins of the Song
Shri Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s two-stanza hymn, Vande Mataram, was first published in the literary journal ‘Bongo Dorshon’ on 7th November, 1875. At that time, there were no patriotic societies or nationalist organizations in India, except for the Indian League in Calcutta, which was founded by patriotic Bengalis – Shishir Ghosh, Anand Mohan Bose and Surendranath Banerjee, to rally public support against British colonial rule.
Freedom Struggle Role
The British banned the use of this slogan ‘Vande Mataram’ under the sedition laws and banned singing it in any public place. When India’s youngest freedom fighter, Bengal’s brave son, Khudiram Bose was led to the gallows in 1908, he had Vande Mataram on his lips. When in 1927 Ram Prasad Bismil walked to the gallows in Gorakhpur jail, when Ashfaqullah Khan walked to the gallows in Faizabad jail, they all had Vande Mataram on their lips.
Bengal's Sacrifices
Out of 585 total prisoners in Andaman Cellular Jail – Kaalapani – between 1909 and 1938, 68 per cent, 398 were Bengalis. The second largest contingent was from Punjab, 95 revolutionaries. Why did you not rename the Cellular Jail after Barin Ghosh, after Ullaskar Dutt’s daughter, after Indu Bhushan Roy?
The hymn Vande Mataram did not gain much popularity till it was included in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandmath in 1882 when it was published. Now, when he published it, he added four extra stanzas to it. The first two stanzas which he had written in 1875 were a lyrical ode to the motherland. It says, ‘giver of bliss, beauty’. The version in the novel which he incorporated in 1881-82 had a different tone than that of the original poem. The figure of sweetness and light was now endowed with a fearsome acoutrim and trappings of war, almost. But this was in keeping with the narrative of the novel
Bengal-Centric Roots
It is important to note here that in the next four stanzas that he wrote, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay used the words sapta koti – which means seven crore. Seven crore in the 1871 Census was the population of undivided Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Assam. So, this means that the novel, the hymn was about Bengal, and the mother he refers to is also in Bengal’s concept, and Bengal’s context. This was not originally written as a pan-national nationalist pan-India song. It was not. Let’s be very clear about that.
Tagore's Role
So, how did it become this nationalist song? How does A.R. Rahman sing it in 1997? It was none other than the Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore who composed the first musical score of the song based on ‘Desh Ragini’ around 1885. Rishi Bankim liked the song and the tune so much, he himself included it in the third edition of his book Anandmath in 1886. Tagore in 1937 writes to Nehru that the privilege of originally setting its first stanza to the tune was mine when the author was still alive. Bankim died in 1894. He says, I set it to tune while Bankim was still alive and I was the first person to sing it. So, Tagore was the first person to sing it publicly before the public gathering of the Kolkata Congress in 1896. So, Tagore sets the tune and he sings it publicly in the presence of Rahimtulla Sayani, Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee.
Swadeshi Movement
The song gained mass popularity only after 1905, when the Swadeshi Movement as a reaction to Lord Curzon’s partition of Bengal took place. Itinerant singers sang it in Prabhat Pheris every morning to raise national consciousness. Rabindranath Tagore himself on Raksha Bandhan day, October 16, 1905, led the famous anti-partition protest where Hindus and Muslims tied Rakhis on each other and said Vande Mataram.
Pan-India Spread
The song was sung again during the Congress session in Banaras in 1905 by Tagore’s niece Sarala Devi Chaudhurani who replaced the sapta koti, the 7 crore, with triksh koti which means 30 crore, which is the population of India in the last census of 1901. So this is the first time that the song is gathering a pan-national appeal. Gandhiji in the Indian Opinion paper wrote in December 1905 that this song is so popular just as we worship our mother so is this song a passionate prayer to India the God continued to use the refrain Vande Mataram almost as a slogan in some of his own songs. Many of his own songs use the term Vande Mataram. The Swadeshi agitation of 1905 and 1908 saw Vande Mataram as a clarion call. The great Tamil poet Subramania Bharati translated it in Tamil in 1905. It began to be sung in meetings and processions all over India from coastal Andhra Pradesh from Vijayawada to the canals and cantonments of Punjab after Jallianwala Bagh where they did not think of it as a Bengali Sanskrit hymn but a
Now we come to tumi dharma. When Rishi Aurobindo translated the verses of Vande Mataram into English in Karmayogi in 1909 he translated dharma as conduct not religion.
Ma Shakti, Ma Bhakti
Bahute tumi ma shakti hridoye tumi ma bhakti. Rishi Bankim said faith should be in your heart and strength should be in your arms.
Truncated Song Defence
And let me for once and for all debunk the ruling party’s false claim that a truncated song is always an insult. Jana Gana Mana was originally written as a Brahmo hymn in 1911 and post consisted of five stanzas. It was called Bharat Bhagya Vidhata. Remember that the Brahmo Samaj was formed by Dr. Raja Ram Mohan Roy … Jana Gana Mana is also a truncated song.
The dropped verses
The core allegation is that key stanzas of "Vande Mataram" were deliberately dropped in 1937 from the original six-verse poem when the first two stanzas were officially adopted as the national song. It is contended that these omitted verses contained references to Hindu goddesses such as Durga and Lakshmi, which gave the song a religious character perceived as alienating by Muslim communities at the time. This exclusion is alleged to have been driven by considerations to address minority sentiments, mainly during the era when communal tensions were rising in the Indian socio-political landscape. Critics assert that the removal diluted the essence and soul of the song, weakening its unifying power and sowing seeds of division that contributed to communal discord and the eventual partition of India. The allegation holds that the decision reflected a divisive mindset that compromised the song’s original spirit of inclusive patriotism.firstpost+3
In rebuttal, it is clarified that the omission was a historical decision aimed at striking a balance between the diverse religious and cultural sentiments within the country during a tumultuous period. The decision to adopt only the first two stanzas was made by political leaders after considerable debate about the song’s impact on national unity. Advocates for the two-stanza adoption maintain that the chosen verses—focusing on love and devotion to the motherland—embody a more universal and inclusive message that transcends religious boundaries. Officials and scholars explain that the background of the novel "Anandamath," where the song first appeared, did contain some elements that could cause discomfort among communities who felt the religious imagery might exclude them, so the exclusion was a pragmatic choice rather than a rejection of the song’s significance. Some letters and statements from historical figures at the time reflect concerns that the full song might irritate minority communities, justifying a selective adoption without intent to undermine national pride or patriotism. The rebuttal emphasizes the continuing relevance and immortality of the song’s adopted verses as a symbol that unites all citizens.moneycontrol+3
Facts from various independent and historical sources shed light on this issue and its evolution. "Vande Mataram" was penned around 1875 and first published in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel "Anandamath" in 1882. It quickly became a leitmotif of India’s freedom struggle, inspiring countless freedom fighters and political activists. The song’s use in public protests and nationalist meetings underlined its potent symbolic value. However, in the fraught political environment of the 1930s, concerns about communal harmony led to adopting only the first two verses as the national song by the Indian National Congress in 1937. This adoption was later formalized by the Constituent Assembly of independent India in 1950, which also officially declared "Jana Gana Mana" the national anthem. The omitted verses contain much more religious imagery than the adopted ones, explaining the sensitivity around them.newsonair+3
The claim that Rabindranath Tagore wanted certain verses of "Vande Mataram" dropped, which is often cited in rebuttals to the allegation that important stanzas were omitted for political reasons, has some basis in historical correspondence and context from the late 1930s. The facts from various historical sources and letters reveal a nuanced situation.
In 1937, the decision was made by the Indian National Congress to adopt only the first two stanzas of "Vande Mataram" as the national song, dropping the remaining stanzas that contained references to Hindu goddesses such as Durga and Lakshmi. This move was motivated by concerns that the full version's religious imagery could alienate Muslim communities and other minorities, thereby undermining a unified national identity during a period of heightened communal sensitivities.
Correspondence from Jawaharlal Nehru, particularly a letter to Tagore in 1937, acknowledged that the novel "Anandamath" (where "Vande Mataram" originated) and the full song were "bound to irritate Muslims," pointing to the religious connotations in the omitted stanzas. Tagore himself reportedly was part of discussions and committees involving other prominent leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose that recommended this selective adoption to emphasize inclusivity. Public historical accounts indicate that Tagore supported the idea of adopting only the first two more secular stanzas, which focused on patriotic devotion rather than religious symbolism.
This decision, while pragmatic for the political realities of the time, remains controversial. Some see it as a necessary step for national unity, while others view it as a dilution that compromised the song's original spirit. The fact that Tagore was involved in consultations endorsing the truncated adoption is presented by supporters of the decision to counter claims that the verses were dropped purely out of political expediency or communal bias.
Terming Congress the “proud flagbearer” of the national song, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said ‘Vande Mataram’, which was first publicly sung by Rabindranath Tagore at Congress session in 1896, awakened the collective soul of the nation and became the rallying cry for the freedom struggle. He alleged R S S never accepted the song and has stuck to its “Namaste Sada Vatsale” despite the national song’s universal reverence.
In summary, the factual historical record shows that Tagore, among other leaders, was aware of the sensitivities posed by the full text and supported a selective inclusion of verses to foster unity across religious lines in pre-independence India. This explains the reference in rebuttals that Tagore wanted the verses dropped, framing it as a thoughtful contribution to national harmony rather than an arbitrary act.moneycontrol+3
In conclusion, the allegations claim that important verses were deliberately and unjustly dropped to pacify religious sensitivities, a move blamed for weakening national unity and contributing to historical partition. The rebuttal stresses that the decision was a pragmatic step aimed at inclusiveness and maintaining harmony in a diverse nation. The facts show a complex legacy of "Vande Mataram," a song deeply embedded in India’s struggle for freedom and identity, whose adoption in its current form was influenced by the socio-political context of the 1930s. Understanding this controversy requires appreciation of the historical circumstances, the efforts to balance diverse communal interests, and the enduring symbolic power of the national song.
The debate
Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’
VIKAS PATHAK, November 24, 2025: The Indian Express
On June 21, 1948, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was then a minister in his Cabinet, that Vande Mataram is not feasible as a national anthem “chiefly because of its tune which does not suit orchestral or band rendering”.
Nehru told Mookerjee that “Jana Gana Mana, on the other hand, has already been greatly appreciated in foreign countries as well as in India and the music of it has a great appeal to people who hear it in India or abroad”.
“Vande Mataram is of course intimately connected with our entire national struggle and we are all emotionally attached to it and will continue to be so attached. It will, in any event, remain as a famous national song, but I personally think that a song which represents poignant longing for freedom is not necessarily a song which fits in with the achievement of freedom. Jana Gana Mana has an element of triumph and fulfilment about it. But the main consideration is the music,” he wrote.
Nehru was replying to Mookerjee’s letter that in view of strong feelings expressed in several quarters over the Cabinet’s provisional decision to adopt Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem, the government should issue a press statement.
Asserting that there was “no misunderstanding” on the matter, Nehru told Mookerjee, who later founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, that “Our decision was that Jana Gana Mana should be used officially as an anthem till such time as a final decision is made by the Constituent Assembly”.
This letter is among 77,000 pages and 35,000 documents made publicly and freely available online by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF) on The Nehru Archive, a 100-volume archive launched recently to mark the 136th birth anniversary of India’s first PM.
From his correspondence with his Indian and foreign contemporaries to his views on the Sino-Indian border war, ties to the United States, and a range of policy issues, the archive is a “final authoritative and authenticated resource” on Nehru.
On May 28, 1949, Nehru delivered an address to Indian soldiers 16 months after Pakistan invaded Kashmir with the intent to annex it. “Every nation has to pay the price of freedom by blood, sweat and tears. We have paid the price for our freedom in blood but now we have to build up the country with our sweat and tears. India is determined to defend Kashmir until the threat to the State’s peace and security is removed beyond its boundaries,” Nehru said, while praising the Indian Army, saying it had raised India’s prestige in the world.
On Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s 75th birthday on October 31, 1950, Nehru sent a message to Gujarat Congress president Kanhaylal Desai, saying, “I should like to pay my homage and affection to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the occasion of his completing his 75th year. Few persons can have such a long and notable record of service to their credit as Sardar Patel has had.”
Similarly, Nehru wrote to former Ireland president Sean T O’Kelly on February 8, 1963, regarding the 1962 Sino-Indian war, referring to “the shock caused to us by this invasion by a country we have tried to be friendly with”. “This betrayal has driven us to military conflict, which is distasteful to us, but you will no doubt fully appreciate that we had no choice. No country can submit to compulsion exercised through military force. We are, therefore, determined to face this situation,” Nehru said.
On November 24, 1958, Nehru wrote a letter to American children who had come to the Indian High Commission in the US to send him birthday wishes, saying: “I hope that when you grow up, you will not become rigid and stand-offish and will remember that people of all countries, even though they differ, are members of the same human family. It is, perhaps, good that they differ in many ways, because if everyone was alike, the world would become a very dull place.”
Nehru delivered a speech in Chicago on October 27, 1949, in which he said, “President (Harry) Truman had described my visit as a voyage of discovery. I wish it to be a discovery of a more intimate kind, an understanding more of the mind and spirit of America than merely of formal things. It is important that India should know America and in the reverse process that America should know India. My object is that there should be both understanding and cooperation between India and America.”
When the Congress’s then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kailas Nath Katju visited an R S S camp, Nehru wrote to him on February 21, 1963, to admonish him. “The general principle of Congressmen associating themselves with communal organisations like the Jana Sangh and other organisations which differed completely from the Congress was discussed. It was decided that no Congressman should associate himself with any function organised by these organisations. I have read the note sent by you. I think you were not right in attending the camp of the R S S.”
In a message to the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) on May 7,1963, Nehru spelt out his vision on education. “Unfortunately educational matters are often considered by politicians on the political plane. This makes them political issues and the educational aspect is not considered objectively and dispassionately. It is true that it is not always easy to separate them.
Nevertheless it is desirable and such questions should be considered by educational experts. In doing so, we have to keep the end in view,” Nehru said. “This is not merely training for the job, although that is often necessary, but rather training for life and also training for a particular kind of society that we aim at.”
The archive has been put in place by an organisation called OIJO, which runs The Indian History Collective, on a contract from the JNMF, a private entity whose chairperson is Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh was actively involved in the process.
Historian Madhavan Palat, who is JNMF secretary and The Nehru Archive editor, told The Indian Express, “This saves the labour of going to a library, locating the volumes required, and searching the indexes of the volumes. Each word is searchable in the archive. This phase has been about putting the Selected Works of Nehru in the archive. In the next phase, we will make it complete work to the extent possible. Every text will be as it is in the original, and will be digitised. We will also access photos, audio and video material, his books and also his Hindi writings from all sources possible.” Palat refrained from setting a date for the completion of the next phase.
Historian Aditya Mukherjee said the archive is a resource not just for the historian but also for journalists and citizens. “It is aimed not just at the academic researcher but also the journalist – you can check whenever there is a controversial claim about Nehru. The venom in the social media needed to be at least challenged by providing genuine material. Let the public decide,” he told The Indian Express.
While the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML), administered by the Centre, also has a Nehru Portal that was created to mark his 125th birth anniversary, what marks out The Nehru Archive, Mukherjee says, is the “finesse” with which it has done its work, making each document searchable and downloadable.
The coordination of the data entry work was done by two researchers who studied history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jahanvi Sodha and Pranav Pandey, over the course of a year beginning November 14, 2024.
“The ideation was going on from June 2024, and the announcement was made on November 14, 2024. From then onwards the actual work began… The idea was to separate each letter, each note, each press conference of Nehru. So we copy-pasted each document separately. We created meta data with tags – 30,000 tags were created, and then attached to the relevant speeches and documents,” Sodha told The Indian Express.
The JNMF had received government funding when the Congress was in power, the last of which came in 2013-14, when it received Rs 5 crore for Nehru’s selected volumes. The JNMF also built the planetarium at Teen Murti Marg in 1983, but gave it to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library – now the PMML – in 2004-05.
The JNMF’s office is also housed on the PMML premises. In 2018, the government sent it a notice regarding its occupation of the premises. The JNMF moved the courts, and the Delhi High Court stayed the eviction notice.
“The archive is a goldmine for foreign policy. Nehru’s visits abroad, his notes when he visited countries like the Soviet Union, China or the US, can be accessed in it. One can read about the first general elections and Partition. The thing has been designed after studying the best archives of this kind, like Wilson Archives and Churchill Archives. It would be superior, not less,” Aditya Mukherjee said.
The legal position
Supreme Court declines to issue judicial directives
See also National Anthem: India
The court referred to the The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights as it refused to take up up the plea regarding the national song
THE SUPREME Court on 17 Feb 2017 declined to entertain a plea for issuing judicial directives to play ‘Vande Mataram’, observing that laws did not recognise the concept of national song. “There is no concept of a national song,” a bench led by Justice Dipak Misra observed while hearing a PIL, which urged the court to issue guidelines on the lines of its directions on playing of the national anthem.
The court referred to the The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and constitutional provisions relating to fundamental rights as it refused to take up up the plea regarding the national song. “Article 51A only mentions the National Flag and the National Anthem. The Article does not refer to a national song…Therefore, we do not intend to enter into any debate as far as a national song is concerned,” the bench, also comprising Justices R Banumathi and Mohan M Shantanagoudar said.
The bench also refused to entertain for now PIL petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay’s request to make rendering of the national anthem compulsory in offices, courts, legislative houses and Parliament. However, it agreed to examine other prayers in the petition, including making the national anthem compulsory in schools. “Barring the singing of the national anthem on schools on every working day, other prayers stand rejected,” said the bench, while issuing a notice to the Centre on this aspect.
Madras HC: Complusory in TN schools, offices
R. Sivaraman, HC judge wants Vande Mataram sung in T.N., July 26, 2017: The Hindu
Schools, colleges, universities, factories to play and sing the song that ‘instilled confidence’ in people
A Madras High Court judge ordered Vande Mataram to be played and sung in a
HC: Vande Mataram does not need law to command respect
The song Vande Matram commands respect and love, and doesn't require any “crutches“, the high court has observed, dismissing a PIL that wanted official recognition to treat it on a par with the national anthem.
“It needs no elaboration that Vande Mataram is inseparably linked with the freedom struggle as is noted by the committee and the respondents as an eternal song... It is acknowledged that this song has become synonymous with valour, dedication and love for one's motherland,“ a bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar observed.
In the process, HC dimissed a petition that contented that the song Vande Mataram has been given an equal status as the national anthem Jana Gana Mana by the Constituent Assembly of India in January 1950.
Petitioner Gautam Morarka argued that even the Constituent Assembly acknowledged that the song Vande Mataram had played a historic part in the struggle for India's freedom movement and has to be honoured equally as the national anthem.
The PIL said it sought HC's intervention, saying no set of rules regarding its rendition as well as the protocols to be followed regarding its singing have been framed, for which directions are needed under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. The Act came into effect to prevent disrespect and insults to national symbols.
However, HC noted the findings of a committee set up in this regard which concluded that the song Vande Matram “does not require any crutches to hold its own in the heads and hearts of India's citizenry .“
Administrative orders
Meerut Nagar Nigam
Meerut mayor: Singing Vande Mataram must | Mar 30 2017 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Meerut mayor Harikant Ahluwalia has passed a resolution that all Nagar Nigam board members will have to sing Vande Mataram or she will not be allowed to enter the board meeting room or participate in its proceedings, reports Sandeep Rai. The resolution will need the government's nod.
The announcement led to protests by a few Muslim board members, who quoted an SC order that says singing of Vande Mataram is not mandatory .
2017, Dec: BSP mayor revokes the order
Piyush Rai, December 6, 2017: The Times of India
One of the first decisions BSP's Sunita Verma has taken as Meerut's new mayor is to overturn her BJP predecessor's decision to make the singing of 'Vande Mataram' mandatory at municipal corporation board meetings.
The move provoked protest by some opposition members, but Verma was unfazed.
"The municipal board's constitution states the national anthem will be sung, not 'Vande Mataram'. There should be no controversy... only 'Jana Gana Mana' will be sung at the start of every board meeting," she said. BJP's city unit chief Karunesh Nandan Garg said the party would "fight the move inside the board and outside". "If the mayor tries to dictate terms... we will... find ways to make sure our corporators sing the national song on roads in protest," he added.
Sunita Verma’s oath-taking disrupted
Tearing down of Bahujan Samaj Party banners and chanting of Vande Mataram by BJP councillors set the tone for turbulent times ahead in Meerut municipal corporation during the oath-taking ceremony of BSP’s mayor Sunita Verma. BJP councillors ran amok and stood on their chairs, not allowing the divisional commissioner to administer the oath to the new mayor for some time.
To ensure that Verma toed the line of previous mayor from BJP Harikant Ahluwalia who had made the recital of the song mandatory after BJP came to power in UP this year, 36 elected BJP representatives in the house of 90 started singing Vande Mataram the moment she reached the dais. However, the mayor and non-BJP councillors kept sitting during the song. The BJP councillors also raised slogans of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.
Compulsory in BMC schools
Richa Pinto, `Vande' singing to be must in BMC schools, August 11, 2017: The Times of India
A BJP corporator's proposal making it compulsory for students of all civic schools here to sing `Vande Mataram' was passed at a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) general body meeting.
The proposal, which calls for `Vande Mataram' to be sung in schools at least twice a week, will now be sent to civic chief Ajoy Mehta for administrative approval.
“A song as such will only increase patriotism in the minds of children. Therefore, I strongly felt BMC should consider this proposal,“ said Sandeep Patel, BJP corporator from Goregaon.The proposal received a nod from the Shiv Sena, the ruling party in BMC.
The move was opposed in the BMC by Samajwadi Party -the move, it said, would amount to worship of the motherland, and added that Muslims didn't worship anyone but Allah.
SP's Rais Shaikh and six corporators demanded a poll over the issue but it was not considered.
Deleted verses
Chandrima.Banerjee, Dec 9, 2025: The Times of India
On Nov 7, as the country marked the 150th anniversary of its national song, Vande Mataram, PM Modi revisited an old debate. He said “important stanzas of Vande Mataram… a part of its soul, were severed (by Congress)”. On Monday, defence minister Rajnath Singh told Lok Sabha that the song was meant to stand equal to the national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, but was sidelined over time. These remarks have pushed an old question back into the spotlight: why does India sing only the first two stanzas? The answer lies in a compromise — one shaped as much by political compulsions as by competing sentiments over what could truly unify a diverse nation.
But compromises don’t usually make anyone happy. When Congress was looking for a song that could become the national anthem, Vande Mataram was “possibly the most widely known national song in India”. While it was an easy frontrunner, some members of the Muslim community thought the invocation to the goddess in the song was a form of idolatry that their religion wouldn’t allow. At that point, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then president of Congress, wrote to Subhas Chandra Bose that the opposition to Vande Mataram was largely “manufactured by communalists” and that “whatever we do cannot be to pander to communalist feeling but to meet real grievances where they exist,” according to ‘Vande Mataram: The Biography of a Song’, by historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya.
Nehru is then said to have asked Rabindranath Tagore what should be done. “I freely concede that the whole of Bankim’s ‘Vande Mataram’ poem, read together with its context, is liable to be interpreted in ways that might wound Moslem susceptibilities,” Tagore wrote to Nehru in 1937. “But a national song... which has spontaneously come to consist only of the first two stanzas of the original poem, need not remind us every time of the whole of it.”
The argument made sense to the Congress Working Committee. It said that the first two stanzas are “a living and inseparable part of our national movement”, and “the other stanzas of the song are little known and hardly ever sung”. And, so Vande Mataram was accepted in that form, Bhattacharya wrote.
However, the strongest voices on either side of the debate were unhappy even though the moderates on both sides saw it as a path that served the larger purpose — of bringing people together.
What Did The Majority Want?
It was Tagore who had set the first section of the song to music when Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was still alive (Bankim died in 1894), and it was Tagore who first sang the song at the Congress session in Calcutta in 1896. But his opinion, that the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram resonated with everyone in India, sparked a debate.
Nehru defended the Congress committee’s decision. And then Mahatma Gandhi wrote a confidential draft statement which was circulated among the Congress committee members in 1939. In it, Gandhi said, “The Congress, anticipating objections, has retained as national song only those stanzas to which no possible objection could be taken … But except at purely Congress gatherings it should be left open to individuals whether they will stand up when the stanzas are sung.” He simply didn’t want the song to be a point of controversy.
Months later, in his paper Harijan, Gandhi wrote that it “never occurred” to him that it was a Hindu song or meant only for Hindus. But given that a dispute had come up, “I would not risk a single quarrel over singing Vande Mataram at a mixed gathering.”
In the same spirit of accommodation, in 1939, the Ravi Shankar Shukla govt of the Central Provinces entered into an agreement with Liaqat Ali Khan, then secretary of the Muslim League, which said that govtaided schools or local govt bodies would not force anyone to recite Vande Mataram.
These concessions didn’t go down well with political leaders, Bhattacharya wrote. C Rajagopalachari, who would later be the only Indian governor-general India had, wrote to Vallabhbhai Patel in 1939 that “these concessions will not save the situation” but that he was “in entire agreement” with the formula. Likewise, G B Pant, who would go on to become the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, wrote to Nehru that same year that the new formula was “alright so far as it goes”.
The Muslim Stand
Opposition to the song had been expressed in the early years of the Swadeshi movement, and had become enough of a concern for Muslim journals and periodicals to start writing about it by the 1920s. One said it was “pushing Muslims towards idolatry”, another said chanting Vande Mataram was “forbidden for the Muslims”, and yet another said Bankim’s works had “unjustly stigmatised the Muslims”, Bhattacharya wrote in his book.
But why did things come to a head in 1937? Politics, mainly. After the Muslim League did terribly in the 1937 elections, even in Muslim-majority areas, there was a search for a cause that could “rally a Muslim support base”, historian Tanika Sarkar wrote in ‘Birth of a Goddess’. And focusing on the “communal elements in the song” served that purpose.
So, when Congress ministries in state legislatures started singing the song across the country, the Muslim League issued a resolution saying it was “subversive of the growth of genuine nationalism in India”, lawyer and scholar AG Noorani wrote in ‘Vande Mataram: A Historical Lesson’. State units of the Muslim League, too, blamed Congress for trying to “foist” the song on Muslims, Bhattacharya added. And against the backdrop of this back and forth, the 1937 debates took off. Muslim League president Muhammad Ali Jinnah was opposed to the idea of even the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram being adopted as the national song — “Muslims all over have refused to accept the Vande Mataram or any expurgated edition of the anti-Muslim song as a binding national anthem,” he wrote to Nehru in 1938.
But there were several Muslim politicians and academics who felt differently.
In 1939, Bihar’s then education minister Dr Syed Mahmud said that while the govt of Bihar would not make singing the song compulsory, it did think that the first two stanzas were not objectionable. Congress leader Rafi Ahmed Kidwai pointed out that Jinnah’s problems with the song only began in the late 1930s and were not because he thought it was “anti-Islamic”. And in Bengal, lawyer and writer Rezaul Karim argued that the Vande Mataram controversy was a way “to bring the Muslims out of the freedom struggle” — the song “gave language to the dumb, courage to the faint-hearted”, he wrote in his 1937 book ‘Bankimchandra O Muslim Samaj’ (Bankimchandra and Muslim Society).
What Would Bankim Have Wanted?
“Idolatry is anti-science,” Bankim wrote in an 1874 essay ‘Bange Deb Puja (Deity Worship in Bengal)’. “Wherever idolatry prevails, knowledge does not advance… Idolatry is against the growth of the human self.” So, Bankim may not have been thinking of the mother figure of Vande Mataram in the idolatrous terms that some in the Muslim community had a problem with and some in the majority valorised.
It’s possible that Vande Mataram was not written in one go. He had written the poem around 1875, and then woven it into his novel ‘Anandamath’ in 1881.
In a purely literary sense, there is evidence that Bankim wanted to “separate the first two stanzas which he had written earlier, around 1875, from the part written later”, according to Bhattacharya — because when he introduced the poem into ‘Anandamath’, the first two stanzas were within quotation marks, and the rest was without. This distinction was important, Bhattacharya added, “because it was the latter part which contained those explicitly Hindu and idolatrous imageries which were objected to by many outside the Hindu community”. These distinctions did not appear in the third edition onwards.
A Debate That Keeps Coming Up
When the Constituent Assembly sessions were drawing to a close, President Rajendra Prasad told the assembly, “it has been felt that, instead of taking a formal decision by means of a resolution, it is better if I make a statement (about the song)”.
‘Jana Gana Mana’ would be the national anthem, and “the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and shall have equal status with it,” he said to a round of applause.
The song endured. But since then, there have been intermittent debates about whether people should be made to sing it.
In the 1970s, there was a controversy over singing the song in Mumbai’s municipal schools. In 1998, schools in Kerala’s northern districts defied the state govt’s instructions to recite Vande Mataram on Independence Day. The same year, there were protests by Muslim bodies in Uttar Pradesh over the state govt’s directive to recite Vande Mataram in schools. And then in 2017, after Madras high court said Vande Mataram must be sung in all schools and colleges of the state once a week, besides the protests in Tamil Nadu, there was some political uproar in Maharashtra as well.
See also
National Anthem, India: Jehovah’s Witnesses
Vande Mataram
