Vande Mataram, its six stanzas and a settled question

The January 28, 2026 order of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), directing that all six stanzas of Vande Mataram be played at official functions, with everyone present required to stand at attention, is not an act of patriotism. It is constitutional vandalism dressed up in national pride. To understand why, we need to go back to 1937, look at what the Constituent Assembly decided, and remember what the Supreme Court of India had said in the landmark case, Bijoe Emmanuel and Ors. vs State of Kerala and Ors. (1986).

1937 settlement is not weakness, but wisdom

In October 1937, the Congress Working Committee had met in Calcutta. What happened there was not appeasement, as some now claim. Dr. Rajendra Prasad moved the resolution while Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel seconded it. Mahatma Gandhi was there as a special invitee. The resolution was unanimous. They recognised “the validity of objections raised by Muslim friends to certain parts of the song” and concluded that “the first two stanzas alone, accepted as the national song at national gatherings, are in no sense objectionable”.

This was not cowardice. It was common sense. The later stanzas of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s poem (Vande Mataram) call out, by name, the Hindu goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. One verse literally describes the motherland as “Tvam hi Durga dasa-praharana-dharini (You are Durga, wielder of the 10 weapons”).

Think about what it means to force a Muslim civil servant, a Christian schoolteacher, a Sikh soldier, a Buddhist monk, or an atheist scientist to stand at attention while these verses are sung. That is not fostering unity. That is imposing a religious test in a secular republic.

Even Rabindranath Tagore supported keeping it to two stanzas. The whole freedom movement — from the moderate to the radical, from the secular to the devout — agreed that the first two stanzas captured the song’s spirit without hurting anyone’s faith. This was not a fringe decision. It was the collective wisdom of the people who fought for India’s freedom.

On January 24, 1950, President Rajendra Prasad announced that Jana Gana Mana would be the National Anthem, and that Vande Mataram would “be honoured equally” with it. But here is what matters: the Constituent Assembly adopted only the two-stanza version as the National Song. Those four other stanzas were not accidentally forgotten. They were deliberately left out because our founders understood something crucial: a secular republic cannot make verses devoted to specific gods and goddesses into official symbols.

In the Constitution, Article 51A(a) tells every citizen “to abide by …the National Flag, and the National Anthem”. If one notices carefully, the National Song is not mentioned. When Parliament added fundamental duties through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976, it specifically listed the Flag and the Anthem. It did not include the Song. This was not an oversight. This was a choice. The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, protects the National Anthem, the Flag, the Constitution. It does not cover Vande Mataram. There is no legal penalty for not singing it, not standing for it, or not showing it any particular respect. This is not accidental. The constitutional framework deliberately treats the anthem (which is secular and inclusive) differently from the song (which has religious elements that need to be carefully limited).

The case about the right not to sing

In July 1985, Bijoe, Binu Mol, and Bindu Emmanuel, three children in Kerala, were expelled from school. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Every morning during assembly, they stood respectfully while the National Anthem played. But they did not sing it, because their faith did not allow it. They did not cause trouble. They did not disrupt anyone. Then a State Minister got involved, and they were sent out. While the Kerala High Court said the expulsion was fine, the Supreme Court said absolutely not.

In his judgment, Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy said the expulsion violated their fundamental rights to free speech and freedom of religion. Then he wrote something that should be carved in stone: “Proper respect is shown to the National Anthem by standing up when it is sung. It will not be right to say that disrespect is shown by not joining in the singing.”

The Court went further. “It will not be right to say that disrespect is shown by not joining in the singing.” ‘Standing respectfully but staying silent does not break any law’. The children’s right to remain silent, which is itself part of free speech, was constitutionally protected. Justice Reddy quoted an American judge, Justice Robert H. Jackson, from a case, West Virginia State Board of Education vs Barnette (1943): “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” That star has not stopped shining.

Now, consider what the MHA order does. It mandates the playing of the complete six-stanza version at civil investitures, presidential events, and flag ceremonies. Everyone must stand at attention. Schools must start the day with community singing of the National Song. And, yes. It includes the four stanzas that the Constituent Assembly deliberately excluded. The stanzas invoking Durga with her weapons, Lakshmi with her blessings and Saraswati with her knowledge. The logic is simple. If the Court said that you cannot force people to sing even the National Anthem (which has constitutional protection under Article 51A and legal protection under a specific Act), then you certainly cannot force them to sing the National Song (which has neither constitutional mention nor legal protection). What is forbidden for the greater must surely be forbidden for the lesser.

But this order does something worse. It is not just asking people to stand. It is making them participate, even passively, in singing explicitly religious verses. Consider the position of a Muslim bureaucrat compelled to stand at attention as “You are Durga, wielder of the ten weapons” echoes through the hall, or a Christian child in a school assembly where Hindu deities are invoked. That is not a formality. That is a wound to conscience.

That is exactly what Article 25 of the Constitution protects against. India’s founders were not naive. They were building something extraordinary: a constitutional order that could hold together a civilization of staggering diversity. They understood what we seem to have forgotten. Real patriotism does not require everyone to pray the same way.

The first two stanzas — “Sujalam, suphalam, malayaja sheetalam” — celebrate our motherland’s rivers, fruits, cool breezes, moonlit nights. They belong to every Indian, regardless of faith. The later stanzas are beautiful devotional poetry, but they are addressed to specific deities of one religious tradition. To mix them together and force everyone to participate in both is to break the republic’s founding promise.

What this is really about

Nobody is questioning whether Vande Mataram deserves respect. Of course it does. Its first two stanzas lit the fire of resistance against colonial rule. People sang them in streets and in jail cells, Hindus and Muslims together, as a battle cry for freedom.

The real question is simpler: Can the government force citizens to participate in religious observance by calling it patriotism? Any honest reading of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s judgments gives you the answer. No. Bijoe Emmanuel is not some dusty old precedent. It is alive. It stands for something essential — in a constitutional democracy, the right to disagree, even silently and respectfully, is not treason. It is freedom itself.

The MHA order overturns the 1937 settlement. It ignores what the Constituent Assembly deliberately chose. It disregards Article 51A. It sidesteps the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act. It violates the principles in Bijoe Emmanuel. And it does all this through executive order, without any law being passed, without any constitutional amendment, without any court approval.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional sky, it is this. The Republic belongs equally to all its citizens. To those who sing and to those who, for reasons of conscience, stand in respectful silence. To put out that star in patriotism’s name is to betray the very idea of India that its founders fought to build. The Constitution does not demand that we all worship the same way. It demands that we are all equal citizens. Those are not the same thing, and no amount of forced standing can make them so.

Sanjay Hegde is a Senior Advocate designated by the Supreme Court of India