By K Raveendran
The Supreme Court’s hearing on Vande Mataram has exposed the question at the centre of the Modi government’s new law: when does honouring a national symbol become an obligation to voice beliefs a citizen does not hold? The court has given no final answer. Its decision to examine the consequences of refusing to sing, however, places individual conscience squarely in the path of the government’s attempt to give the national song legal protection comparable to the national anthem.
The distinction matters because the law and the singing protocol do different things. An amendment to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act extends criminal protection to Vande Mataram. The government’s protocol calls for its full, six-stanza version at specified official occasions and places it before Jana Gana Mana when both are performed. Preventing a rendition or disrupting an assembly is different from standing quietly while others sing. If officials, organisers or police treat silence as an offence, a law directed at obstruction becomes an instrument of compulsion.
That is why the court’s reference to Bijoe Emmanuel v State of Kerala is consequential. In 1986, it protected three schoolchildren who stood respectfully for the national anthem but declined to sing because of their religious convictions. They did not disrupt the ceremony. The judgment established that respect for a national symbol cannot be measured solely by whether a person joins the chorus. At this week’s hearing, the bench indicated that the same principle should govern the new law and agreed to examine whether a conscientious refusal could attract criminal consequences. It has yet to rule on the challenge.
The government can reasonably expect dignity at public ceremonies and protect a song that carries a powerful association with the independence movement. Those aims do not settle how far the state may go in prescribing participation. A person who prevents others from singing interferes with their freedom and with the event. A person who remains respectfully silent does neither. Treating both as threats to national honour would turn an observable act of disruption into a judgment about an individual’s inner loyalty.
The dispute is sharpened by the choice of the full song. For decades, public use commonly centred on its opening two stanzas. The later verses’ references to Hindu deities have made compulsory rendition objectionable to some citizens, including those who revere the song’s historical role. The state need not agree with every religious reading of a national work. It does need to recognise that a citizen may hear a devotional affirmation where another hears a poetic image. A secular republic gains little by asking authorities to decide whose interpretation is sincere enough to excuse silence.
Nor should religious belief become the only acceptable ground for declining to sing. Bijoe Emmanuel arose from a religious objection, but the broader question concerns freedom of conscience. An atheist, a person of another faith or someone with a principled objection to compelled speech should not have to invent a theological explanation to receive constitutional protection. The relevant conduct is whether that person respects the occasion and allows others to participate, not whether an official approves of the reason for remaining silent. That standard also protects the national anthem without placing it at the mercy of competing religious doctrines.
There is a practical cost to giving the national song and anthem parallel ceremonial treatment at every designated event. A brief oath-taking, including that of a chief justice, serves a precise constitutional purpose. Adding a full rendition of Vande Mataram and then the anthem could make the accompanying ritual substantially longer than the oath. Duration alone is no constitutional objection; solemn occasions often take time. Yet protocol should serve the act being performed. When compliance dominates a short ceremony, organisers may become more concerned with auditing voices than with the office and duties at stake.
Karnataka has already shown how quickly the issue can become a partisan contest. Its Congress government directed the use of two stanzas at state functions, while BJP and JD(S) legislators continued singing the full version during Assembly proceedings. Each side can present its choice as fidelity to national honour or constitutional pluralism. The spectacle nevertheless reduces a shared symbol to a test of political alignment. The harder task is to frame rules that let the song be honoured without requiring every participant to demonstrate allegiance in the same way.
The court’s restraint is therefore as significant as its warning. It has not decided that the government lacks authority to set an official version or ceremonial order. It has signalled that such authority does not automatically carry the power to punish a conscientious objector. Its eventual judgment will need to distinguish clearly between preventing a performance, disturbing it and declining to join it. That clarity matters beyond a courtroom: vague expectations are often enforced at a school gate, a workplace ceremony or a police station before a constitutional challenge can be heard.
The government, too, has a choice while the case proceeds. It can make clear that the amended law addresses obstruction and disruption, and that respectful silence carries no penalty. Such guidance would preserve ceremonies without making citizens guess whether they risk prosecution for following their conscience. It would also leave room for disagreement about the full song without declaring either its admirers or its objectors less Indian. A national symbol draws much of its strength from willing attachment. The court’s pending decision will test whether the law protects that attachment or mistakes compulsory performance for it. (IPA Service)
