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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 new rules also make it compulsory for everyone present to stand when the national song is played.

Under the updated protocol, ‘Vande Mataram’ will now be performed at civilian award ceremonies such as the Padma awards, as well as at official events attended by the President, including during arrival and departure. However, the directive does not require the song to be played in cinema halls.

Significantly, the government has said that all six stanzas of the song will be rendered, including the four that were dropped in 1937 by the Congress. Last month, sources had indicated that the Centre was considering extending provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, which currently apply to the national anthem, to the national song as well. Under this law, disrupting or preventing respect for the anthem (and now the national song) can attract a jail term of up to three years.

Political Flashpoint Revived

The move is expected to reignite political tensions between the BJP and the Congress, which clashed sharply over the issue last year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had accused former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of aligning with Muhammad Ali Jinnah in opposing the song on the grounds that it might offend Muslims. The BJP later cited Nehru’s letters to support its position, intensifying the debate during a Parliament discussion marking the 150th anniversary of the song’s composition.

The controversy centres on the four stanzas removed in 1937, which contain references to Hindu goddesses such as Durga, Lakshmi (Kamala), and Saraswati. The Congress had argued at the time that these explicit religious references were not acceptable to sections of the Muslim community and could be seen as exclusionary.

The BJP maintains that the deletions reflected divisive politics, with the Prime Minister stating that dropping the verses “sowed the seeds of the nation’s division,” alluding to Partition. The Congress, in turn, has accused the BJP and the RSS of politicising the issue.

Party president Mallikarjun Kharge remarked that it was ironic for those claiming to champion nationalism to question others’ commitment to the song. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also accused the BJP of selectively quoting Nehru’s writings for political gain, particularly with elections in West Bengal on the horizon.

A Song Rooted in the Freedom Struggle

‘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 movement. Across its six stanzas, Chatterjee depicts the nation as a divine mother figure, nurturing yet fierce, blending imagery of natural beauty with spiritual symbolism.

While the opening verses offer poetic praise to the motherland, the later stanzas explicitly invoke Hindu deities, which became the focal point of political debate decades later. In 1937, the Congress decided that only the first two stanzas would be used at official gatherings.

With the Centre’s latest directive restoring all six verses to official events, the long-standing debate over history, faith, and nationalism appears set to resurface once again.