Explained : Language, Gender, And The Politics Of Vande Mataram and Its Impact

Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued new guidelines regulating the singing of Vande Mataram, mandating its performance before the national anthem at official events. Disguised as a matter of protocol and respect, the guidelines turned the national song into a regulated nationalist ritual. This piece seeks to unpack the various obscured nuances behind the guidelines through the politics of language embedded in Vande Mataram, the coercive push towards performative nationalism, and the persistent imagination of the nation as a feminised “motherland.” 

Genealogy of Vande Mataram

Before delving into the further arguments around the implications and underlying intent of the guidelines, it is vital to be cognizant of the history around “Vande Mataram”.

Vande Mataram, which translates as “I respectfully salute you, Mother”, was dogged by one controversy or another from the day it was first printed in Banga Darshan (edited by Bankimchandra Chatterjee) in 1875. It was a strange composition in the sense that it was written in two languages. The song consisted of 4 stanzas, the first two in Sanskrit and the rest in Bengali. 

Interestingly, the song which is being celebrated as the symbol of contemporary national unity was composed by Bamkin as a “Bengal Anthem” and nothing more. The imagery of the countryside and references to the goddess Durga operated within the specific regional context of Bengal. The song was not popularised enough until the 1905 Curzon decision of partitioning Bengal. The song arose as a sign of national unity and masses were seen singing “Vande Mataram” against the agitation and suppression enforced by the British Army. Following this, Vande Mataram became the opening note of all the Congress gatherings, and “Congress” and “Vande Mataram” became inseparable. It was until the early 1930s when sections of Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, South Indians, secular groups and even Arya Samajis objected to the Congress’ decision of declaring “Vande Mataram” as the “National Song”. They argued that the alleged national song glorified idol worship by invoking exclusively Hindu deities, while portraying a regionally circumscribed imagination of the nation, simultaneously. Composed partly in Bengali and using allegory that figures Bengal as India, the song, they contended, expressed a regional rather than a pan-Indian aspiration.

Linguistic Structure and Social Hierarchies

The essence and idea of a song can vividly be understood by the linguistic discourse preferred in formulating the piece. As discussed earlier, the first two stanzas of the national song are written in Sanskrit and the last four stanzas in Bengali. The recent guidelines which seek to project the song as a symbol of national unity clearly overlook the fundamental linguistic diversity of the Indian State that cannot be confined to these two languages.

An epistemic analysis of the two languages, specifically Sanskrit, unambiguously provides the harsh reality of Indian society. Sanskrit as a language, has been evidently used as a method of coercion against the people from lower castes. The learning of the language was discriminatory in itself, allowing the upper castes to practise oppression over the lower castes and Dalits. Similarly, the last four stanzas of the songs are not composed in the colloquial Bengali speech. Instead, Bankim employs a sadhu bhasha–inflected, Sanskrit-heavy register that was characteristic of the educated, upper-caste bhadralok intelligentsia of late nineteenth-century Bengal. Therefore, the grammar of the song might appear Bengali in the context, the intellect of the same remains distant from the peasants, lower castes and working-class section of the society.

It becomes inevitable in the contemporary to neglect the linguistic framework, for a linguistic divide across the country is evidently visible. Citizens across the country, in numerous states, are being lashed out at for not preferring or pertaining to the language of a specific region. In such a move, by imposing a specific language song over its territory, the state is subtly attempting to widen the gap.

National Rituals and Political Affect

The guidelines also clearly mandate that all six stanzas of “Vande Mataram” be performed at official events, with the audience standing at attention. These directives are aimed at ensuring uniformity, extending protocols similar to those under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act to the national song. Such a directive may be read as carrying an undercurrent of forced nationalism. 

In the contemporary political order, nationalism across the States increasingly assumes hyper-nationalist forms. Within the contextual boundary of the Indian State, a steep rise of Hindu nationalism can be theorised ever since the right-wing party won the elections in 2014. As M. N. Roy sharply observed, nationalism remains a “selfish, narrow-minded, antiquated cult,” a characterisation that resonates with the present moment.

The whole act of mandating the standing at attention emerges less as an expression of organic respect and more as a performative assertion of nationalist triumph. Practices of forced participation often neglect the plurality of individual understandings of nationalism and patriotism. In this sense, the guidelines are a clear attempt to lessen the co-temporal epistemic differences between the ideas of nationalism and patriotism. The vocabulary of the State, its machineries and the fourth pillar of democracy are undertaking an endeavour to synonymize the terms “nationalism” and “patriotism”.

It remains a pertinent question whether the forced participation of people can genuinely foster respect or patriotism, particularly when the state itself actively marginalises citizens through the deployment of national symbols.

Gendered Imaginations of the Nation

A pivotal discussion that upthrusts every time alongside the discussion of Vande Mataram is the imagination of the geographical boundary as a female figure; specifically, imaging and terming the country and its geography as ‘mother’ and ‘motherland’, respectively. The meaning of “Mataram” in the song synchronizes with “one’s mother”. ”.

Though the imagery of Bharat Mata is quite prevalent and acceptable in the masses, the very ideological stances synthesizing the imagery are rarely clarified and interrogated. The multiple figurines portray the Bharat Mata as an image of an upper-caste, upper-class, ethnically northern Indian and sexually and morally ‘respectable’ woman. 

Further repeatedly framing the country as a motherland is not a neutral metaphor; it brings forth its attached politics. The feminisation of the country naturally demands the expectations of devotion, sacrifice, and unquestioning loyalty, borrowing from patriarchal ideas of motherhood where reverence is expected and dissent is seen as betrayal. This imagination prohibits the nation from having its political identity (which can be critiqued) but presents it as a moral figure to be worshipped.

More importantly, the compulsion to relate to the nation through a maternal figure assumes a shared affective register that does not account for histories of exclusion, violence, and marginalisation. Historically, the nation has not been nurturing or protective for many, and maternal imagination erases those lived realities. Therefore, a feminist engagement with nationalism must seek to enquire not only who is included in the idea of the nation, but also who is forced to love it and on what terms.

National Symbols and Democratic Pluralism

These lately released guidelines around Vande Mataram reveal a more profound change in the way the Indian State attempts to control affect, memory, and belonging rather than just a matter of procedure. When the symbols of the freedom movement are locked into specific state-approved interpretations, they lose their historical openness and further operate as tools of compliance. When national symbols are enforced instead of negotiated, they stop serving as places of shared imagination and instead turn into loyalty tests.

At stake, therefore, is the democratic capacity to disagree without being disowned. A plural society cannot sustain itself on compulsory reverence; rather it thrives through the continuous conversation and circulation of symbols, languages, and identities. To insist on uniform performances of nationalism is to misunderstand the very historical conditions under which anti-colonial unity was formed. If the nation is to remain a political community rather than a moral injunction, it must allow its citizens the freedom not only to love it differently, but also to question the forms through which that love is demanded.

Harsh Bodwal teaches Social Science and English at a CBSE-affiliated school and holds an MA degree in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His research explores how caste, patriarchy, and capital intersect with the various institutions to shape and often constrain democratic processes.