Politics
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Kharge asks why full Vande Mataram waited years
The Hindu··23 Aug
On 22 August 2026, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief ministers had not sung all six stanzas of Vande Mataram in Gujarat and at the Centre. He was answering a BJP resolution that day which condemned the Congress Working Committee for restating its 1937 limit of the first two stanzas at party events.
Prism
What It Means For You
- If you attend a Congress programme, the party's stated practice remains the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram, as restated by the Working Committee.
- Anyone in a school or office that now uses all six stanzas should note the BJP's 22 August resolution defends that full text as the version it wants used.
- If you are unsure which law applies, the 2026 amendment on insults to national honour is the recent statute the row keeps citing.
What's Happening
- Saturday's BJP office-bearers' meeting passed the resolution on the same day Kharge asked why the full song had not been the practice in BJP-run governments until now.
- The immediate political trigger included BJP criticism of Kharge and Sonia Gandhi around Independence Day renditions and a Congress restatement of 1937.
- Kharge said changing the national song or anthem with each government would weaken respect for the pieces themselves.
How A 1937 Vote Still Frames Today's Song Row
- Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Vande Mataram. The later stanzas use Hindu goddess imagery, which is why some groups have long limited public singing to the opening verses.
- A Union Home Ministry notification earlier in 2026 treated the six-stanza text as the official version for the song's 150th year.
- Kharge's earlier line was that if the two-stanza form is an offence, the same charge would fall on Gandhi, Nehru and Patel, who used it.
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