Vande Mataram

The story

"Vande Mataram" is a poem written in Bengali, with many Sanskrit words, by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, one of the first graduates of Calcutta University, who served the colonial government as a Deputy Collector and later a Deputy Magistrate. The idea is generally believed to have come to him around 1876, while he was still a government official; he wrote it at Chinsura (Chuchura), in a house of the Adhya family near the Hooghly river. At the time the administration was promoting "God Save the King" as an anthem for its Indian subjects, which Indian nationalists disliked. The poem was published in 1882 in his novel Anandamath, set during the Sannyasi Rebellion of the previous century, and Jadunath Bhattacharya was asked to set a tune for it soon after it was written.

The song gained political weight when Rabindranath Tagore sang it at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1896. Dakhina Charan Sen sang it at the Calcutta session of 1901, and the poet Sarala Devi Chaudurani at the Benares session of 1905, the year the Congress adopted it as a pan-Indian salutation to the motherland. By then it was a marching song of political activists. The colonial government banned the novel and made singing the song in public a crime; many activists were imprisoned, and crowds sang it again and again in front of officials. Lala Lajpat Rai named a journal after it in Lahore, Hiralal Sen's 1905 political film ended with the chant, and on 20 May 1906 more than ten thousand Hindus and Muslims marched together under Vande Mataram flags in Barisal. In 1907 Bhikaiji Cama raised an early version of India's national flag in Stuttgart with the words written across its middle band. Matangini Hazra is said to have spoken them as her last words when she was shot by the police.

Later stanzas name Hindu goddesses, Durga among them, and in 1937 this became a matter of dispute. Asked by Congress President Subhas Chandra Bose, Tagore replied that the core of the poem was a hymn to Durga, fitting in the novel but not in a parliament meant for all religious groups. On the recommendation of a committee including Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bose and Tagore, and with the support of Gandhi and Nehru, the Congress adopted only the first two stanzas in October 1937, and anyone who objected was left free to sing another song. The All-India Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah opposed the song entirely that year. In January 1946 at Guwahati, Gandhi urged that the new greeting "Jai Hind" should not replace Vande Mataram.

The colonial ban was lifted at independence in 1947. On 24 January 1950 the Constituent Assembly, with Rajendra Prasad presiding, declared "Jana Gana Mana" the national anthem and ruled that Vande Mataram, for the part it had played in the struggle for freedom, should be honoured equally with it. The Constitution itself names no national song. Whether the poem first meant Bengal or all India is debated: Sri Aurobindo called it the "National Anthem of Bengal", while most parties and historians stress its pan-Indian role.

The disputes over its status continued. In July 2017 the Madras High Court ordered it sung weekly in Tamil Nadu's schools, then in November 2017 left the matter to the state government. In November 2022 the Union government told the Delhi High Court that the anthem and the national song stand on the same level. On 6 February 2026, for the poem's 150th anniversary, the Ministry of Home Affairs fixed an official rendition of 3 minutes 10 seconds and endorsed the full six stanzas at formal state events, and in May 2026 the Union Cabinet approved bringing the song under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

The poem has been set to more than a hundred tunes, many in classical ragas; the oldest surviving recordings date from 1907. Hemant Kumar's setting for the film Anand Math, sung by Lata Mangeshkar, came second in a BBC World Service poll of the world's best-known songs in 2002, and the All India Radio version, often credited to Ravi Shankar, is in raga Desh.

What it says

A hymn of praise to the motherland, pictured as a mother. The first two stanzas evoke the beauty of the land without naming any deity. The later stanzas identify the mother with Hindu goddesses, Durga and Lakshmi among them. The mood is reverent and stirring.

The words