Plea in SC conditions with six stanzas of Vande Mataram, “divisive religious war song”, step towards “theocracy”

A view of the Ministry of Culture’s tableau depicting vande mataram verses during the Republic Day parade at Kartavya trail in New Delhi on January 26, 2026. | Photo credit: ANI

The petition in the Supreme Court called the Vande Mataram hexagram a “divisive religious war song” and said that government regulations imposing “a sectarian prayer to a particular goddess of one particular religion as the National Anthem” violate fundamental rights of religion, attract criminal law and essentially change India’s order from a “secular republic” to a “theocracy”.

The suit, filed by BD Borkar, a Phule-Ambedkarite and a member of the Scheduled Caste Buddhist community of Maharashtra, represented by lawyer and advocate Mohan Gopal, said that the state coercion expressed in two consecutive government orders on January 28 and July 9 will lead to “unspoken but undeniable consequences of an irreversible and irreversibly deepening religious divide in India and the Indian conflict.” religion”.

Harmony crippled

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

The plea said that for 79 years, from independence till the issuance of these orders in 2026, the Union and state governments, public institutions and other groups have peacefully played and sung “non-Anandamath” two stanzas of Vande Mataram, composed by Chatterjee in the early 1870s.

“This non-theistic song extols the natural beauty of Mother Earth, describes the nation as a landscape, and pays homage to a deified homeland. The song was treated as the National Anthem during this period, even though it was not officially so,” the petition reads.

It states that a separate two-stanza view of the beauty of Mother Earth was 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 a two-stanza stand-alone version of Vande Mataram. It was first published in 1881. Anandamath presents an image of India quite different from that found in a stand-alone two-stanza song… Anandamath is a novel in which Hindu ascetics lead a violent center against the Muslims and destroy them in a religious war. Anandamath is a six-stanza war song in which the Hindu warriors pray to the goddesses Durga, Saraswati and Lakshmi as well as the earth as a goddess for victory over the Muslims,” the petition reads.

The petition demanded that the court intervene and quash the two orders and stop any way of forcing citizens, especially school children, to sing or play the Vande Mataram hexagram. He said that the court can order that only the standalone version of Vande Mataram of two stanzas be recognised, processed, performed and sung as the National Song.

On September 22, the Supreme Court orally observed that a democratically elected government could not compel those opposed to military service to sing or play any or all stanzas of Vande Mataram under penalty of penalty.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, while hearing a petition filed by Carnatic author and singer TM Krishna, said that while a democratically elected state can decide the length of the National Song, it cannot at any cost compel citizens to recite it.

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

Published – 02 Oct 2026 17:31 IST