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India issues official protocol for singing Vande Mataram before national anthem
Vande Mataram, which means ‘Mother, I bow to thee’ was composed by Bengali literary icon Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1875; Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore set it to music
- PUBLISHED: Wed 11 Feb 2026, 2:33 PM
The Indian government has mandated that a six-stanza, 3-minute, 10-second version of Vande Mataram, the national song, be played or sung at official events, including during the unfurling of the national flag, and functions where the president and state governors are presiding.
“Whenever the official version of the national song is sung, or played, the audience shall stand to attention,” said a note by the Home Ministry. “However, when in the course of a newsreel or documentary the national song is played as a part of the film, it is not expected of the audience to stand as standing is bound to interrupt the exhibition of the film and would create disorder and confusion rather than add to the dignity of the national song,” it added.
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Vande Mataram, the national song, will be played first, after which the national anthem (Jana Gana Mana) will be sung. The audience has to stand in attention during the singing, the government note said.
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It also directed schools to play the national song, besides popularising its singing along with the national anthem, and promoting respect for the national flag.
‘Mother, I bow to thee’
Vande Mataram (which means ‘Mother, I bow to thee’) was composed by Bengali literary icon Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and first published in a literary journal in 1875. Another legendary Bengali personality, Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Asian recipient of the Nobel Prize and who wrote Jana Gana Mana, set it to music.
But the song has had a controversial past, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress battling over it for decades. In December 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led a 10-hour debate in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, tracing its origin and its role in the freedom movement.
Modi accused the Congress of “betraying and sabotaging” the song by removing crucial verses. It was “a division and partition of the song”, which led to the Partition of the country, he said. “Vande Mataram was divided first, and then the country was divided,” he told the Indian parliament.
The Congress has also frequently accused the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of ‘avoiding’ the song for decades. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said it was "deeply ironic that those who today claim to be the guardians of nationalism – RSS and BJP – have never sung Vande Mataram.”
