The debate consumed nearly 20 hours and reportedly incurred a fiscal expenditure of approximately ₹300 crore borne by the public treasury; the whole exercise was designed to validate and constitutionalise the song in future
THE special session of Parliament earlier this month commemorated the sesquicentennial of “Vande Mataram.” The deliberations on December 9-10 represented a notable departure from conventional parliamentary practices. Unlike typical sessions predicated upon specific parliamentary rules, legislative proposals, or voting procedures, this extraordinary gathering had no legislative agenda or intent to amend the legal status of “Vande Mataram.” Instead, it was expressly convened to facilitate prolonged deliberation, thereby adopting a format seldom utilised in the annals of Indian parliamentary history. This unique approach underscored the symbolic significance attributed to “Vande Mataram” and reflected an innovative engagement with parliamentary discourse beyond customary legislative functions.
To adequately contextualise the ongoing debate, it is imperative to first examine the prevailing legal framework governing national symbols in India. The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971—commonly identified as the National Anthem Act—was enacted on December 23, 1971, and delineates the obligations of individuals during the national anthem’s rendition. Specifically, this statute mandates that all those present stand respectfully when the national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana,” is played.
While the legislation encourages active vocal participation, it explicitly clarifies that refraining from singing does not amount to an act of legal disrespect. Notably, the Act’s scope is limited to “Jana Gana Mana” and the national flag; conspicuously, the patriotic song “Vande Mataram” is omitted from its ambit. Despite this legislative omission, contemporary social customs often extend comparable expectations of reverence to “Vande Mataram.” This evident legal lacuna engenders critical inquiry regarding the substantive rationale underpinning an extensive parliamentary discourse—a debate that consumed nearly 20 hours and reportedly incurred a fiscal expenditure of approximately ₹300 crore borne by the public treasury. Such an investment of legislative time and resources invites scrutiny into the practical and symbolic purposes served by deliberations on a matter not explicitly codified within the existing legal statutes.
The most compelling explanation lies in the strategic creation of authoritative parliamentary precedent. Before this event, no Indian legislative body had conducted a comprehensive deliberation on either the national anthem or the national song. The historical controversy surrounding Vande Mataram has persisted since 1896. By 1937, the Indian National Congress tackled this longstanding debate at its Faizpur session, deciding to officially adopt only the first two stanzas for recitation at party functions, omitting the final four verses.
This compromise received endorsement from both Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. However, this remained merely an internal organisational resolution of a political party, carrying no legal authority and representing no state institutional mandate.
Authoritative Reference Document
Even during the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly (1946-1950), the body entrusted with drafting India’s Constitution, Vande Mataram received no comprehensive parliamentary scrutiny. Rather, through an executive presidential proclamation issued on January 24, 1950, India’s inaugural President, Dr Rajendra Prasad, unilaterally conferred upon Jana Gana Mana the constitutional status of national anthem while simultaneously designating Vande Mataram as the national song. The Constituent Assembly ratified this pronouncement without substantive deliberation or documented opposition.
Within this historical framework, the 2025 parliamentary deliberations assume profound constitutional and political significance. For the first time in independent India’s legislative history, Vande Mataram became the subject of comprehensive parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses, with proceedings formally enshrined in the parliamentary archives. In subsequent legal adjudications, policy formulations, or constitutional interpretations of the national song, this legislative record will likely constitute the authoritative reference document—analogous to the manner in which Constituent Assembly debates continue to inform contemporary constitutional jurisprudence.
A meticulous examination of the parliamentary discourse delivered by both the governing coalition and the opposition benches reveals negligible substantive divergence between their respective positions. While most legislators adhered rigorously to their party’s prescribed ideological frameworks, their arguments ultimately converged upon shared foundational assumptions.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), consonant with its enduring Hindutva ideological orientation, consistently extolled Vande Mataram throughout the proceedings. Party representatives underscored the composition’s instrumental role in India’s anti-colonial struggle and articulated its significance as a symbolic nexus for the construction of what they characterised as a “New India.” The party’s rhetorical strategy emphasised historical continuity between the nationalist mobilisation against colonial rule and contemporary state-building initiatives.
Conversely, virtually all opposition formations abstained from contesting the composition itself. Their principal remonstration remained circumscribed to interrogating the exigency of convening such parliamentary deliberations in the first instance. In substantive terms, even political entities self-identifying as secular appeared to acquiesce to Vande Mataram’s legitimacy as an authentic articulation of patriotic sentiment, whilst simultaneously maintaining that no citizen should be subjected to compulsory recitation. From a juridical standpoint, the recitation of Vande Mataram remains legally non-obligatory, and the present parliamentary discourse made no explicit attempt to alter that constitutional status—at least not through formal legislative mechanisms.
The opposition’s acquiescence to the song’s patriotic legitimacy, coupled with their remonstration confined exclusively to procedural considerations, effectively ratified the ruling party’s discursive framing of the issue. The conspicuous absence of substantive ideological contestation suggests either authentic cross-party consensus or calculated political strategising designed to preempt accusations of anti-national sentiment.
Avoiding Any Faith-based Critique
Seven Muslim MPs participated in the parliamentary discourse, each allocated an average of five minutes for their interventions. In the Lok Sabha, contributors included Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Iqra Hasan of the Samajwadi Party, E T Mohammed Basheer of the Indian Union Muslim League, and Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference. In the Rajya Sabha, the speakers comprised Dr Syed Naseer Hussain of the Congress, Haris Beeran of the Indian Union Muslim League, and Chaudhary Mohammed Ramzan of the National Conference.
Dr Naseer Hussain advanced no religious or ideological objections to Vande Mataram whatsoever. Adhering strictly to the Congress party line, he dismissed the debate as procedurally unnecessary while simultaneously affirming the song’s historical significance in the independence struggle. The two Muslim League representatives similarly replicated the Congress position, conspicuously avoiding any faith-based critique—a striking departure given that the pre- Independence Muslim League had mounted precisely such theological opposition to Vande Mataram. This represents a profound historical rupture: contemporary Muslim League parliamentarians actively refused to invoke the very religious arguments their organisational forebears had championed as foundational to their political identity. Such calculated silence reveals the extent to which post-independence political imperatives have fundamentally reconfigured the boundaries of permissible Muslim political discourse in India’s parliamentary arena.
In a parallel trajectory, Samajwadi Party’s Iqra Hasan rendered the opening verses of the composition and extolled their poetic magnificence. She admonished the government that while it perpetually invokes these words, its conduct fails to embody the principles they articulate—a political rather than theological remonstration. Nevertheless, she too eschewed any faith-based objection. National Conference representative Chaudhary Ramzan’s intervention pursued a comparable course, centring on procedural considerations rather than doctrinal imperatives.
By stark contrast, the theological position of the Muslim community found its most lucid and uncompromising expression through Agha Ruhullah, the National Conference parliamentarian representing Srinagar, and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi. Had these two legislators not articulated their positions with such clarity and conviction, it remains entirely plausible that subsequent official historiography would have concluded that Indian Muslims harbour no religious objection to Vande Mataram—particularly given that approximately thirty-five Muslim parliamentarians across both chambers raised no substantive theological challenge throughout the deliberations.
Agha Ruhullah, a distinguished Shia religious scholar credentialed at the prestigious Qom University, declared with unequivocal clarity before the Lok Sabha that the recitation of Vande Mataram fundamentally contravenes the foundational tenets of Islamic monotheistic theology. He articulated the principled position that Muslims cannot venerate the nation as a divine entity, and that no legislative or social mandate transgressing essential Islamic theological precepts can be legitimately imposed upon the Muslim community. Any such imposition, he solemnly cautioned, would be met with principled resistance—even should that struggle extend across successive generations.
Similarly, Asaduddin Owaisi, while solemnly reciting the Islamic declaration of faith (shahada), invoked Qur’anic verses alongside constitutional provisions and historical precedents to establish the principled argument that a religious composition cannot legitimately serve as the criterion of patriotic allegiance. He further illuminated the anti-Muslim narratives embedded within Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anandamath, the literary source from which Vande Mataram originates. Both interventions now stand enshrined in the parliamentary archives, constituting the sole comprehensive articulation of Muslim theological objections within the official legislative record.
Structural Limitations
The divergent approaches among Muslim parliamentarians illuminate a profound tension within India’s secular democratic architecture. While legislators affiliated with national secular formations (Congress, Samajwadi Party, Muslim League) adopted positions consonant with party ideology— potentially at the expense of authentic community representation— independent voices, Owaisi and those possessing greater political autonomy, Ruhullah, articulated religious objections that resonated deeply with substantial segments of Muslim public consciousness. This divergence raises fundamental questions about the nature of minority representation within party-based parliamentary systems: to what extent can Muslim legislators authentically represent religious community interests when circumscribed by secular party discipline? The disjuncture between parliamentary Muslim representation and community sentiment may reflect structural limitations inherent in India’s party system rather than individual political compromise.
Within the contemporary Indian political discourse, a discernible pattern has emerged whereby ideological transgressions undertaken under the rubric of secularism receive disproportionately lenient scrutiny—particularly when such positions advance interpretations that marginalise or delegitimise Islamic theological perspectives and Muslim communal concerns. Kapil Sibal’s parliamentary intervention exemplifies this phenomenon: through his unqualified celebration of Anandamath’s literary merit and historical significance, whilst systematically eliding engagement with its problematic representational content, he effectively conferred legitimacy upon the textual source that constitutes the ideological foundation of Vande Mataram.
It is particularly noteworthy that while the ruling party systematically presented Anandamath in an affirmative light throughout the proceedings, not a single opposition parliamentarian interrogated whether the BJP endorses the novel’s deeply problematic characterisation of Muslims. Vande Mataram cannot be adequately comprehended in isolation from the ideological framework of Anandamath. The novel, situated within the historical context of the Sannyasi Rebellion of the late 18th century, constructs a narrative wherein Muslims (particularly Muslim rulers) are depicted as tyrannical oppressors while Hindu sannyasis (ascetics) are valorised as liberation fighters. The composition Vande Mataram emerges within this ideological milieu as a devotional hymn to the motherland, replete with explicitly Hindu religious imagery and theological symbolism.
The ideological disentanglement of the composition from its original literary provenance—notwithstanding the novel’s contested representation of Muslim communities—remained conspicuously uncontested by opposition formations throughout the parliamentary proceedings. This absence of critical engagement may assume considerable significance when this legislative record is subsequently invoked in future policy formulations or juridical deliberations. The archival documentation will ostensibly demonstrate substantial cross-party consensus regarding Vande Mataram’s national significance, while reflecting limited substantive engagement with the theological sensitivities and historical apprehensions that persist among segments of India’s Muslim citizenry.
The present analysis suggests that the 2025 parliamentary deliberations on Vande Mataram fulfilled multiple strategic objectives beyond their ostensible commemorative function. Principally, these proceedings established authoritative parliamentary precedent that may potentially facilitate future constitutional codification or institutionalised implementation of the national song. The existence of this comprehensive legislative documentation—evidencing overwhelming parliamentary endorsement alongside circumscribed dissent—furnishes a substantial political and juridical foundation for prospective policy initiatives.
Additionally, the debate functioned as a revealing political barometer, illuminating the circumscribed resistance within both secular and Muslim-affiliated political formations to the composition’s enhanced national status. The near-unanimity across partisan divides—with merely two Muslim parliamentarians articulating principled theological reservations—suggests that organised political opposition to Vande Mataram’s potential mandatory status has substantially diminished, at a minimum within parliamentary institutional frameworks.
Furthermore, the proceedings illuminated the structural constraints inherent in minority religious representation within India’s party-disciplined parliamentary architecture. The discernible divergence between parliamentary Muslim articulations and broader community sentiment on religious-national identity questions remains considerable, prompting scholarly inquiry into the adequacy of existing representational mechanisms for safeguarding minority religious prerogatives. It merits scholarly consideration that a principal objective of these parliamentary deliberations may have been the establishment of an authoritative legislative record. Prospectively, this documentation could be adduced as compelling precedent to accord Vande Mataram’s constitutional recognition or to mandate its recitation within specified institutional contexts (educational establishments, governmental ceremonies, civic occasions). Concurrently, the debate appears to have served an evaluative function, assessing the extent of residual resistance among Muslim political representatives and, by extension, within the broader Muslim polity to such constitutional developments.
Establishing Procedural Template
The ramifications extend considerably beyond the immediate question of Vande Mataram itself. These proceedings establish a procedural template for managing religious-national identity questions in contemporary India: through the construction of legislative precedent that bears the imprimatur of democratic consultation, while potentially circumscribing future dissent through the establishment of documented “parliamentary consensus.” When this archival record is invoked in subsequent contexts, it will demonstrate Muslim parliamentary participation, acknowledgement of expressed concerns, and overwhelming support among the nation’s elected representatives for Vande Mataram’s elevation—notwithstanding the persistence of unresolved theological reservations among substantial segments of the Muslim community.
The implications extend beyond Vande Mataram itself. This debate establishes a template for how religious-national identity issues may be managed in contemporary India: through the creation of legislative precedent that appears democratic and consultative, while potentially constraining future dissent by establishing “parliamentary consensus.” When this record is cited in future contexts, it will demonstrate that Muslim MPs participated, that concerns were heard, and that the nation’s elected representatives overwhelmingly supported the elevation of Vande Mataram—even if the underlying theological objections of significant portions of the Muslim community remain unresolved.
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Dr Tasleem Ahmad Rehmani is president of Muslim Political Council of India and a prominent political analyst. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily subscribe to them.
