President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday gave assent to a Bill that criminalises intentional disruption or prevention of the singing of the national song ‘Vande Mataram’, giving it the same legal protection currently accorded to the national anthem, a government statement said With the president’s assent, The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, 2026, has become a law.
Political Context
“Presently, there is no specific legal provision to prevent insults to the singing of ‘Vande Mataram’, which is honoured as the national song. Therefore, in order to prohibit any person from intentionally preventing the singing of the national song or causing disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing, it is proposed to amend Section 3 of the said Act to include the national song also within its ambit, so as to make such acts punishable,” the Bill had said. The president of the Constituent Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad, on January 24, 1950, stated that the song ‘Vande Mataram’ composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, which played a historic role in the Indian freedom struggle, shall be honoured equally with the national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and shall have equal status with it, the Bill further said. In an order dated January 28, the home ministry gave the first set of protocols for singing the national song, directing that six stanzas of it, having a duration of 3 minutes and 10 seconds, shall be sung at official functions such as the arrival of the president, unfurling of the national flag, and speeches of governors.
For the first time at the Independence Day function, Vande Mataram will be sung from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the Union Home Ministry said. The assembly where the national song is sung shall stand in attention, it said.
Earlier this year, the Union Home Ministry directed that all six stanzas of ‘Vande Mataram’ shall be sung first when the national song and the national anthem are played together.
