The Khasi Students’ Union announced on March 20 that it would stage protests at schools and government functions where the full version of Vande Mataram is sung, becoming the latest voice in a growing chorus of resistance across India’s northeastern states against a Union Home Ministry order mandating the complete six-stanza rendition of the national song at all official events and school assemblies.
At the union’s 48th foundation anniversary, general secretary Donald V Thabah said the notification amounted to an attempt to impose Hindi and Hinduism. “Only the first two out of the seven verses are about India while the other verses are about Hinduism and the goddess Durga,” he said, linking the directive to earlier contentions over the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Uniform Civil Code. The union urged its members to report occasions where the full song is performed so that protests could be organised.
Two days earlier, on March 18, the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the national body of evangelical churches founded in 1951 and a Charter Member of the World Evangelical Alliance, issued a carefully worded statement from New Delhi. While affirming its “deep commitment to the nation” and expressing “full and unreserved respect” for Jana Gana Mana as “an inclusive expression of India’s unity,” the EFI acknowledged Vande Mataram’s role in galvanising people during the freedom struggle, but noted that concerns regarding several of Vande Mataram’s verses, particularly their devotional imagery, “have long been acknowledged in the national life, both during the freedom movement and in independent India.” Its General Secretary, Rev. Vijayesh Lal, stated that “expressions of patriotism carry their deepest meaning when they are freely embraced, in a manner that respects the faith and conscience of all.”
The day before, on March 17, Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma told his state assembly that Mizoram would accept Vande Mataram only up to its second stanza, consistent with the position taken by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. “The rest of the stanzas have religious connotations with praises of Hindu goddesses. That is why the issue has become controversial in Parliament,” he said. Lalduhoma added that he had not yet received a formal notification from the Centre, and that anything beyond the first two stanzas “would not be acceptable to the people or the state government.”
The Mizo Zirlai Pawl, Mizoram’s apex student body, had already warned on March 9 that making Vande Mataram mandatory in schools would be “inappropriate and insensitive” in a Christian-majority state. The organisation said schools and colleges should remain spaces for learning, and warned against what it described as the use of educational institutions to serve political or religious agendas.
On March 16, the Naga Students’ Federation submitted a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu through the Nagaland Governor and organised a protest rally in Kohima. The Senapati District Students’ Association and the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur also registered their opposition, saying the directive infringes on their right to religious freedom. Meghalaya’s Voice of the People Party legislator Adelbert Nongrum separately petitioned his state government against the order.
Nagaland had moved earliest among the state governments. Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio announced on March 4 that the matter would be referred to a select committee for legal examination after several MLAs raised objections in the assembly. MLA Dr Tseilhoutuo Rhutso pointed out that only the first two stanzas were adopted as the national song in 1950, and cited a 1986 Supreme Court observation that singing Vande Mataram cannot be made compulsory without potentially infringing Article 25(1), which guarantees freedom of religion. He argued that refusing to sing Vande Mataram does not undermine the Constitution or the sovereignty of India, and that patriotism is rooted in service, loyalty and adherence to constitutional values rather than in compulsory cultural expression.
The ruling Naga People’s Front was even more emphatic. It said the “forceful imposition of such a song is alien to us, unfriendly, and threatens the very ethos of very fundamental rights and duties guaranteed under the constitution of India,” and that the song’s “references to Hindu goddesses contradict monotheistic beliefs and the preaching of Christ.” The party also invoked Article 371A, the constitutional provision that safeguards Nagaland’s religious and customary practices, arguing that the directive cuts directly against protections the Constitution itself guarantees to the state.
All of this traces back to a Ministry of Home Affairs order issued on January 28 and formalised through guidelines on February 11, requiring the complete version of Vande Mataram to be sung before Jana Gana Mana at all government functions and school assemblies. The directive’s timing is linked to the BJP government’s effort to mark Vande Mataram’s 150th anniversary, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging in Parliament in December last year that the Congress had “removed important stanzas” from the song, thereby “sowing the seeds of partition.”
That history runs deep. Composed by Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterji and published in 1875, Vande Mataram served as an anthem of resistance during the independence movement but also became associated with Hindu nationalism. The Indian National Congress adopted only its first two stanzas in 1937 following concerns raised by Muslim leaders over the later verses referencing Hindu goddesses. After independence, Jana Gana Mana became the national anthem while Vande Mataram was designated the national song.
The matter is currently before a select committee of the Nagaland assembly, while other states continue to await further communication from the Centre. The Union Home Ministry has not yet responded publicly to the objections raised.
