Since the ascent of the Narendra Modi government, Vande Mataram has been politically repurposed within a wider project to reshape India into a Brahminical Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation). The state-sponsored commemoration of Vande Mataram–150 exemplifies this ideological agenda.
Published Nov 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Nov 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM
BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh announced that singing Vande Mataram would be made mandatory in all educational institutions—an act that converts a cultural symbol into an instrument of ideological conformity.
Synopsis: Contrary to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who sought clemency from the British and later collaborated with them, Rabindranath Tagore embodied the ethical conscience of India’s freedom struggle. Thus, Jana Gana Mana represents a cosmopolitan, inclusive nationalism, while Vande Mataram, particularly in its later context, enshrines a sectarian and Brahminical vision of the nation.
The year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, composed by the Bengali Hindu nationalist poet and novelist, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, in 1875.
Though celebrated as a patriotic hymn during India’s anti-colonial struggle, the text and the novel, Anandamath (1882), in which it appears, are deeply imbued with anti-Muslim sentiment and pro-British undertones.
Recognising these problematic dimensions, in 1937, leading Congress figures—Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and Subhas Chandra Bose—resolved that only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram should be sung publicly. This resolution was later endorsed by the Constituent Assembly.
On 24 November 1950, Dr Rajendra Prasad, President of the Assembly, officially announced that Jana Gana Mana by Rabindranath Tagore would be India’s National Anthem, while Vande Mataram would hold the status of National Song with limited use.
The ideological debate between Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram thus symbolises two contrasting visions of the Indian nation: one secular, inclusive, and pluralistic; the other religious, exclusionary, and majoritarian.
Since the ascent of the Narendra Modi government, Vande Mataram has been politically repurposed within a wider project to reshape India into a Brahminical Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation). The state-sponsored commemoration of Vande Mataram–150 exemplifies this ideological agenda.
The campaign gained further traction when Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, Member of Parliament from Uttara Kannada, publicly derided Jana Gana Mana, falsely claiming it was composed to glorify King George V, and asserting that Vande Mataram should have been India’s true anthem.
Despite issuing an apology following widespread criticism, neither the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nor its ideological affiliates withdrew the underlying propaganda.
As West Bengal, the home of Tagore, approaches crucial elections, the BJP has tactically avoided direct attacks on Tagore himself but has intensified an indirect ideological campaign aimed at discrediting Jana Gana Mana and, by extension, Tagore’s inclusive humanism.
During the launch of Vande Mataram–150, Prime Minister Modi stated: “The omission of key lines from Vande Mataram in 1937 sowed the seeds of division in the country. That divisive mindset still challenges us today. The soul of Vande Mataram was split in 1937. This generation must understand why injustice was done to the song that embodied the spirit of nation-building.”
Subsequently, BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh announced that singing Vande Mataram would be made mandatory in all educational institutions—an act that converts a cultural symbol into an instrument of ideological conformity.
This controversy is nothing new. Similar debates have arisen in the past as well, prompting several scholarly studies that examined the truth behind them. These studies are publicly available.
For example, those interested may refer to:
Kageri’s remarks reflect a persistent misinformation campaign popularised through right-wing media and “WhatsApp University.” Numerous historians and commentators have disproved this claim, forcing Kageri to retract his statement.
Yet, the myth continues to circulate, requiring a careful reassertion of historical facts.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)—poet, philosopher, and Nobel laureate—was a humanist nationalist who envisioned India as a moral and spiritual civilisation, not a religious or racial one. Tagore had earlier set to music the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram, sung at the 1896 Congress session.
In 1911, during King George V’s visit to India, Tagore was requested to write a welcome song for the British monarch. He refused. Instead, another poet, Rambhuj Chaudhary, composed the loyalist hymn, Badshah Hamara, Jahanpana Hamara, Sarkar George Pancham, Shahenshah Hamara, which was performed at the Congress session.
At the same time, Tagore wrote Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jay He, not as a royal encomium but as a spiritual invocation to the “Dispenser of India’s Destiny”—Bharata Bhagya Vidhata.
Only the first stanza of this five-verse composition was later adopted as the National Anthem. The song celebrates the enduring, eternal unity of India’s diverse regions and peoples, not any temporal sovereign.
Misinterpretations of the text appeared even during Tagore’s lifetime. In letters written in 1912 and later in 1939, Tagore categorically rejected the notion that Bharata Bhagya Vidhata referred to King George. In a 1939 letter to Pulin Bihari Sen, Tagore wrote that assuming the song praised the British monarch “is an insult to both poet and poem.”
The Supreme Court of India (2005) reaffirmed that Jana Gana Mana is addressed to the eternal spirit guiding India’s destiny, not to any earthly ruler.
Tagore’s larger corpus—especially his 1901 poem, Where the Mind is Without Fear—reveals his commitment to universal humanism beyond religion or nation. His political actions further confirm this: he opposed the 1905 Partition of Bengal, actively participated in the Swadeshi movement, and in 1919 renounced his knighthood in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Contrary to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who sought clemency from the British and later collaborated with them, Tagore embodied the ethical conscience of India’s freedom struggle. Thus, Jana Gana Mana represents a cosmopolitan, inclusive nationalism, while Vande Mataram, particularly in its later context, enshrines a sectarian and Brahminical vision of the nation.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–1894), serving as an officer under British rule, composed Vande Mataram around 1875. The initial 12 lines, written in Sanskrit, evoke the natural beauty of the motherland—“Sujalaṃ suphalaṃ, malayaja-shītalaṃ”—without overt religious connotation.
However, when Chatterjee incorporated the hymn into his novel Anandamath, he appended 15 additional lines, transforming the song into a religio-mythical invocation and conflating the motherland with the aggressive Goddess Durga and Kali. The Motherland became personified as a militant goddess, calling upon her sons to destroy her enemies.
In the first 12 lines, India is portrayed as a smiling, compassionate, secular mother—Jagaddhātrī, the nurturer of the world. But in the following fifteen lines, that same mother transforms into Kali and Durga, a warrior goddess eager to destroy enemies.
In the first 12 lines, apart from the use of Sanskrit, there are no explicit religious symbols. However, in the next 15 lines, deities such as Durga and Kali—symbols of Brahminical Hinduism—make their appearance.
In the third and fourth stanzas, religious symbolism becomes more pronounced, with verses like:
“Tum hi Vidyā,”
“Tum hi Dharma,”
“Tum hi Hṛidi,”
“Tumī Marma.”
Here, the mother ceases to be the universal mother of all and instead becomes a fierce Brahminical Hindu goddess.
In the fourth stanza, she is praised as “From you alone comes our strength, and in every temple we see only you.” Thus, the once secular mother becomes confined to a particular religion and its temples.
Most significantly, the mother is no longer merely compassionate. She now becomes:
“Twam hi Durgā Dashapraharana Dhāriṇī,”
—meaning “You are Durgā, the bearer of ten weapons.”
In this form, she transforms into a battle-ready Raṇa-Kali, a mother eager for the destruction of enemies.
Therefore, the newly added 15 lines not only symbolise religion but also warfare. But why does the Jagaddhātrī mother turn into the enemy-destroying Durga Dashapraharana Dhariṇi? Who are these enemies she seeks to annihilate?
To understand this transformation, one must study Anandamath, its historical context, and the personal and political background of its author.
Although set against the backdrop of the Sannyasi- Fakir Rebellion (1770–75)—a historical peasant uprising in which Hindu sannyasis and Muslim fakirs jointly resisted both the Nawab of Bengal and the East India Company—Bankim’s Anandamath rewrites the event as an exclusively Hindu monastic rebellion against Muslim tyranny, conspicuously exonerating the British.
The anger is not just against the Muslim Nawab but also against ordinary Muslims, equally famished and impoverished under the dual tyranny of the Nawab and the British.
The novel’s characters repeatedly refer to Muslims as “enemies of God,” while praising the British as benefactors of “Sanatan Dharma.” At one point, a monk declares:
“The English are not our enemies; may they be victorious. Our war is against the Muslims.”
By the novel’s conclusion, divine prophecy decrees that the British will rule Bengal and protect Hindu dharma, rendering colonial domination a divinely sanctioned order. As noted earlier, British agrarian and administrative policies implemented through Muslim Nawabs caused the devastating Bengal famine.
Yet in the novel, not a single critical word is directed against the British. When the Muslim Nawab joins forces with the British army, the rebel leader orders his followers: “The British are not our enemies—may they be victorious!”
At the end of the novel, a divine voice proclaims that since the Muslims have been destroyed, the mission is fulfilled. Bengal will now be ruled directly by the British through divine grace, ensuring that Hindus suffer no harm. The heavenly voice declares that the rebellion’s true purpose was to bring British rule to Bengal.
When the protagonist laments that though Muslim rule has ended, Hindu rule has not been restored, the divine voice consoles him: there is no need to worry—British rule respects Sanatana Dharma, and under it, Hindus will enjoy material prosperity.
Thus, what is today celebrated as a symbol of patriotism—the song “Vande Mataram” and the novel Anandamath itself—was in fact originally composed to endorse and legitimise direct British colonial rule.
British authorities, who censored or punished anti-colonial literature such as Dinabandhu Mitra’s Neel Darpan (1860), praised Anandamath as a “religiously inspired work seeking the end of Muslim rule and the consolidation of British sovereignty” (Government Gazette, 1883).
Even conservative historian RC Majumdar later acknowledged that:
“Bankimchandra made patriotism a religion and religion a form of patriotism, personifying the nation as Goddess Kali.”
Thus, Anandamath performed a dual ideological function: legitimising colonial authority while fusing nationalism with religious revivalism—a synthesis that continues to animate right-wing Hindutva discourse.
During the national movement, Vande Mataram coexisted with other slogans such as Allahu Akbar, reflecting moments of Hindu–Muslim unity. However, as communal polarisation intensified under British “divide and rule” policies, the song was gradually appropriated by Hindu revivalists.
Similarly, songs like Sāre Jahān Se Achchā Hindustān Hamārā by Allama Iqbal, Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna by Ramprasad Bismil, and the revolutionary slogan, Inquilab Zindabad, by Bhagat Singh were all expressions of patriotic fervour in the freedom movement.
However, due to the British policy of “divide and rule,” Hindu and Muslim communal politics began to crystallise within India’s national movement after 1909.
Between 1905 and 1947, the slogan Vande Mataram continued to be raised at Indian National Congress sessions as a symbol of the aspiration for freedom. But Hindu communal forces used the same slogan as a means to mobilise Hindus against Muslims during communal clashes. Thus, questions began to be raised—albeit quietly—about the song’s full text and its ideological connection with Anandamath.
The idea of envisioning the nation as a deified mother figure or as a goddess of freedom resonated deeply with Hindu religious imagination and aided political awakening. Yet, for Muslim nationalists, it created a profound religious conflict.
In Islam, no being other than God may be worshipped or bowed to, and idolatry (vigraha ārādhane) is strictly forbidden.
Thus, for Muslim patriots, accepting Vande Mataram—a song that venerates the nation as a goddess—became a matter of theological discomfort and political unease.
Hindu communalists, both then and now, interpreted Muslims’ refusal to sing Vande Mataram on religious grounds as a rejection of the Indian nation itself, branding them “traitors.”
In 1937, Savarkar of the Hindu Mahasabha declared October as Vande Mataram Day, calling upon all “true Indians” to celebrate it nationwide—much like the appeal made by Modi in the present day.
In 1937–38, after deliberations involving Nehru, Patel, and Bose, and consultation with Tagore, the Congress resolved that only the first two secular stanzas of Vande Mataram should be sung publicly. Thus, this was not merely Nehru’s caution or personal decision. It was a collective resolution accepted by leaders whom today’s right-wing ideologues often claim to admire — including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose.
In fact, even Bose, when he formed the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army) in Singapore, refused to adopt “Vande Mataram” as the soldiers’ anthem, because of its religious overtones. Instead, he approved “Jana Gana Mana”, Tagore’s composition, as the national song of the provisional government of free India.
Moreover, the INA adopted an entirely new army song, written by Colonel Abid Hasan Safrani, titled “Shubh Sukh Chain ki Barkha Barse” — a song that expresses hope for a peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious future, completely free of any religious symbolism.
This choice reflected Bose’s clear vision of a secular and inclusive Indian nationalism, one that could unite Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and all Indians alike under a single tricolour flag — without invoking any sectarian imagery.
This decision was reaffirmed by the Constituent Assembly in 1950, with even pro-Hindu leaders such as Sardar Patel, Govind Ballabh Pant, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee concurring.
After independence, Vande Mataram and Anandamath continued to be used by the Sangh Parivar and its affiliated political forces as tools for promoting communal politics. But it strengthened its voice because the secular opposition to the communal agenda was also compromising.
In 1983, a Congress MLA from West Bengal (then in the opposition) introduced a private member’s bill urging the state government to officially promote Anandamath on a wide scale. The ruling Left Front government took a defensive stance, expressing concern that such a move might create communal tensions.
However, the government did not ideologically or historically repudiate the underlying communal narrative of Anandamath or Vande Mataram. Some Left parties opposed the proposal, while others abstained from the debate.
Later, in 1998, when the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power at the Centre, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh unilaterally made the singing of Vande Mataram and Saraswati Vandana mandatory in schools and colleges, without placing the issue before the state cabinet.
During Vajpayee’s visit to Uttar Pradesh, the controversy exploded into a major political issue. To contain the fallout, the BJP suspended a junior minister, Ravindra Shukla, and withdrew the programme.
Thus, even in post-Independence India, Vande Mataram—originally a literary and cultural creation—continued to serve as a political and communal symbol, repeatedly invoked in attempts to define nationalism in sectarian terms rather than in the inclusive, plural spirit envisioned by the freedom movement’s secular leaders.
The contest between Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram is far more than a musical or literary dispute; it represents the struggle between two visions of India.
The state’s current glorification of Vande Mataram at its sesquicentennial marks a conscious attempt to overwrite India’s secular, constitutional nationalism with a theological nationalism that sanctifies religious identity over civic equality.
Thus, the song’s 150th anniversary compels us to ask: Is it a celebration of the Mother of Ganarajya (Republic), or of the Mother in Ganavesha? (RSS Uniform)?
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
