Vande Mataram - Revision history

Jyoti: /* Administrative orders */

2025-12-22T18:52:09Z

‎Administrative orders

Pdewan: /* See also */

2025-12-19T22:11:31Z

‎See also

Jyoti: /* The dropped verses= */

2025-12-13T20:29:07Z

‎The dropped verses=

Jyoti: /* A history of Vande Mataram by Mahua Moitra */

2025-12-13T20:27:05Z

‎A history of Vande Mataram by Mahua Moitra

Pdewan: /* The debate */

2025-12-11T20:52:54Z

‎The debate

Show changes

Jyoti: /* Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’ */

2025-12-03T11:28:42Z

‎Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’

Jyoti: /* NATIONAL SONG */

2025-12-03T11:15:36Z

‎NATIONAL SONG

Jyoti: /* 2017, Dec: BSP mayor revokes the order */

2017-12-14T14:13:58Z

‎2017, Dec: BSP mayor revokes the order

Jyoti: /* Meerut Nagar Nigam */

2017-12-07T09:03:53Z

‎Meerut Nagar Nigam

Jyoti: /* Madras HC: Complusory in TN schools, offices */

2017-11-03T08:49:29Z

‎Madras HC: Complusory in TN schools, offices

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:52, 22 December 2025
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		+	=Deleted verses=
		+	[https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=09_12_2025_016_006_cap_TOI 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.
		+
		+	[[Category:Government\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:India\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Literature\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Pages with broken file links\|VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Poetry\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]

	=See also=		=See also=

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:11, 19 December 2025
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	[[Vande Mataram]]		[[Vande Mataram]]
		+
		+	[[Anandamath]]
		+
		+	[[Category:Government\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:India\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Literature\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Pages with broken file links\|VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]
		+	[[Category:Poetry\|V VANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAMVANDE MATARAM
		+	VANDE MATARAM]]

@@ Line 201: / Line 201: @@
 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 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

@@ Line 199: / Line 199: @@
 ''' 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 debate=
 ==Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’==

@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 =The debate=
 ==Nehru: ‘Its tune doesn’t suit orchestral or band rendering’==
-[https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/nehru-archive-vande-mataram-not-feasible-as-national-anthem-as-its-tune-doesnt-suit-orchestral-or-band-rendering-10380837/  ''The Indian Express'']
+[https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/nehru-archive-vande-mataram-not-feasible-as-national-anthem-as-its-tune-doesnt-suit-orchestral-or-band-rendering-10380837/  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”.
@@ Line 128: / Line 127: @@
 VANDE MATARAM]]
 [[Category:Poetry|V
 VANDE MATARAM]]

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 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
@@ Line 68: / Line 66: @@
 The Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss.
 =The legal position=
 ==Supreme Court declines to issue judicial directives==

@@ Line 128: / Line 128: @@
 "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.
 ==Compulsory in BMC schools==

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:03, 7 December 2017
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	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 .		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===
		+	[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/days-after-taking-over-from-bjp-meeruts-bsp-mayor-overturns-compulsory-vande-mataram-in-civic-body-meetings/articleshow/61935930.cms 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.

	==Compulsory in BMC schools==		==Compulsory in BMC schools==

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:49, 3 November 2017
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	A Madras High Court judge ordered Vande Mataram to be played and sung in a		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==
		+	[http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=HC-Vande-Mataram-does-not-need-law-to-31102017006035 Abhinav Garg, HC: Vande Mataram does not need law to command respect, October 31, 2017: The Times of India]
		+
		+
		+	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=		=Administrative orders=