Plea in SC terms six-stanza Vande Mataram a ‘divisive religious war song’, a step towards ‘theocracy’

A petition in the Supreme Court has termed the six-stanza Vande Mataram a “divisive religious war song”, and said government orders imposing a “sectarian prayer to particular goddesses of one particular religion as the National Song” violate fundamental rights of religion, attracts the criminal law and, basically, converts the Indian polity from a “secular republic” to a “theocracy”.

The plea filed by B.D. Borkar, a Phule-Ambedkarite and a member of the Scheduled Caste Buddhist community of Maharashtra represented by jurist and advocate Mohan Gopal, said a State compulsion expressed through two successive government orders on January 28 and July 9 would lead to the “unstated but undeniable consequence of irreversibly deepening communal division and conflict in India by outraging the religious and spiritual feelings of minority religions”.

Harmony mutilated

Mr. Borkar argued that the six-stanza version introduced by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in his novel Anandamath would promote enmity and conflict between different communities by advancing the supremacy of a dominant community. The fabric of unity and harmony would be mutilated forever, he said.

The plea said for 79 years, from Independence until the issuance of these orders in 2026, the Union and State governments, public institutions and other groups had peacefully played and sung the “non-Anandamath” two-stanza Vande Mataram authored by Chatterjee in the early 1870s.

“This non-theistic song lauds the natural beauty of Mother Earth, describing the nation as a landscape and pays tribute to a non-deified motherland. The song was treated in this period as the National Song even though not officially declared so,” the petition said.

It said the standalone, two-stanza paean to the beauty of Mother Earth was authored by Chatterjee, and was independent of the subsequent six-stanza version found in the novel.

Song vs novel

“The novel Anandamath was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee after he had composed the two-stanza standalone version of Vande Mataram. It was first published in 1881. Anandamath presents an idea of India entirely different from that found in the two-stanza standalone song… Anandamath is a novel in which Hindu ascetics wage a holy religious war against Muslims who are violently killed and destroyed as a people… The centrepiece of Anandamath is a six-stanza war song in which the Hindu combatants pray to Goddesses Durga, Saraswati and Lakshmi as well as the country as a goddess for victory over Muslims,” the petition said.

The petition sought the court to intervene to quash the two orders, and stop any manner of compelling citizens, particularly school children, from singing or playing the six-stanza Vande Mataram. It said the court could direct that the two-stanza, standalone version of Vande Mataram alone be recognised, treated, performed and sung as the National Song.

On September 22, the top court had orally observed that a democratically-elected government cannot compel conscientious objectors to sing or play one or all the stanzas of Vande Mataram under the threat of penal action.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, while hearing a petition filed by author and Carnatic vocalist T.M. Krishna, said that while a democratically-elected State could decide the length of the National Song, it cannot, at any cost, compel citizens to recite them.

The court had referred to its 1986 judgment in Bijoe Emmanuel versus State of Kerala, which had upheld the right to religious freedom, constitutional tolerance and silent objection.