Bankim Chandra Chatterjee Wrote Vande Mataram in 1875, Tagore Sang It at the 1896 Congress, and in 1950 It Received Equal Status With Jana Gana Mana

The Ministry of Culture set mass singing of the full Vande Mataram for 10:00 on the morning of 7 November 2025, in offices, schools and public places across India, in step with a ceremony at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi. The ceremony opened a commemoration that runs from 7 November 2025 to 7 November 2026. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) says the Prime Minister inaugurated it and that a commemorative coin and postage stamp were released.

The date was chosen because the government’s release says Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is believed to have written the song on Akshaya Navami, which fell on 7 November 1875.

A poem of 1875 and a novel of 1882

Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838 to 1894) was a Bengali novelist, poet and essayist. The PIB backgrounder of 6 November 2025 says Vande Mataram was composed on its own and later placed in his novel Anandamath. It dates the song’s first publication to 7 November 1875, in the literary monthly Bangadarshan, which Bankim founded and edited.

The same backgrounder puts the song in the March to April 1881 issue of the magazine, where Anandamath ran as a serial, and gives 1882 for the novel in book form. The Ministry of Culture’s release is less exact about the 1875 printing. It says only that the song first appeared in Bangadarshan as part of the serialised novel. Britannica, for its part, notes that the song became popular after the 1882 book and “may have been composed much before” it.

Sri Aurobindo supplies a contemporary check on the early date. In an essay on Bankim, reprinted in the Ashram’s collected works, he wrote: “It was thirty-two years ago that Bankim wrote his great song and few listened.” PIB dates the essay to 16 April 1907, which points back to 1875.

Britannica explains that the novel is set in the Sannyasi Rebellion and the Bengal famine of 1770, and that its rebel ascetics sing the poem to the motherland. Britannica reproduces Aurobindo’s English version, which opens “Mother, I bow to thee!” The poem has six stanzas.

1896: sung at the Calcutta Congress

PIB says Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram at the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta. That was the 12th annual session, presided over by Rahimatullah Sayani, according to the Congress’s own biography of him. Bankim had died two years earlier.

The accounts differ on the music. PIB says Tagore set the song to music. Britannica says Tagore “famously recited” it at the 1896 session, that it had been set to the raga Desh Malhar by 1905, and that “history does not record who composed the music.” A 1953 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting publication, as quoted by PTI, says the song was first sung at a political occasion at the 1896 Congress session and set to music by Tagore. Tagore’s part in the Swadeshi movement is covered in a separate profile.

1905: a slogan on the streets of Calcutta

PIB says the song became a political slogan on 7 August 1905, when thousands of students marched to the Calcutta Town Hall, where a meeting adopted the resolution boycotting foreign goods. That meeting is also the one described in the account of Lord Curzon and the partition of Bengal.

The backgrounder then lists dated events:

• October 1905: a Bande Mataram Sampradaya (society) was founded in north Calcutta. Its members sang the song in weekly Sunday processions (prabhat pheris), and Tagore sometimes joined them.
• November 1905: a school in Rangpur fined each of its 200 students Rs 5 for chanting Vande Mataram. The government of the new province of Eastern Bengal had issued circulars banning the singing or chanting of the song in schools and colleges.
• Later in 1905: at its Varanasi session, the Congress adopted the song for all-India occasions, PIB says.
• April and May 1906: the authorities banned public chanting at the Bengal Provincial Conference in Barisal and eventually closed the conference. A procession of more than 10,000 Hindus and Muslims, carrying Vande Mataram flags, followed on 20 May 1906.
• August 1906: Bande Mataram, an English daily, began under Bipin Chandra Pal, with Aurobindo joining later as joint editor. Aurobindo’s career after the paper is covered elsewhere.

PIB adds that the slogan was heard in Dhulia in 1906, Lahore in 1907, Tuticorin on 27 February 1908 and outside the Bombay police court during Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s trial in June 1908.

1937: two stanzas for national gatherings

The song attracted objections from some Muslim leaders because of its later stanzas, which invoke Durga. Britannica says the Muslim League objected to that. PTI reports that the League’s 1937 Lucknow session called the song “not merely positively anti-Islamic and idolatrous in its inspiration and ideas.”

The Congress Working Committee met in Calcutta on 26 October 1937. PTI quotes its resolution: “wherever Bande Mataram is sung at national gatherings, only the first two stanzas should be sung.” The Tribune dates the resolution to 29 October.

The Tribune, citing Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s book on the song, adds that Jawaharlal Nehru consulted Tagore beforehand. Tagore replied, as quoted there, that he had found no difficulty separating the first portion of the song from the rest of the poem and the novel, whose sentiments his monotheistic upbringing did not let him share. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Harijan on 1 July 1939, as PTI quotes him, “I would not risk a single quarrel over singing ‘Vande Mataram’ at a mixed gathering.”

The two-stanza decision is still discussed. This article gives the dated texts of the 1937 position and the 2026 order and leaves the judgment to the reader.

24 January 1950: the President’s statement

The song reached the Constituent Assembly before the Constitution was finished. On 31 July 1947, H. V. Kamath asked that Vande Mataram be included in the programme for the transfer of power. At 11 p.m. on 14 August 1947, the first item on the agenda was the singing of its first verse, which Sucheta Kripalani sang.

The decision on symbols came on the last sitting day, 24 January 1950. Rajendra Prasad, in the chair, said the question of a national anthem had been pending and that he would make a statement rather than seek a formal resolution. The Assembly’s final sittings give the wider setting.

The Debates record the operative sentence. The words and music of Jana Gana Mana are the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations in the words as the Government may authorise. Vande Mataram, the statement says, “has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom” and “shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it.” The record shows applause and no discussion afterwards. Members then sang Jana Gana Mana.

The phrase “national song” does not appear in the statement. PIB and the Ministry of Culture use it for Vande Mataram, and PIB describes the statement as having adopted the song as the National Song with equal status. Britannica calls the 1950 status unofficial, notes that the Constitution does not mention the song, and says its legal status is disputed. It reports that, in response to a 2022 plea in the Delhi High Court, the Union government held that citizens should show both songs equal respect but that this was not a legal matter. Prasad’s term as President began two days after the statement.

The 2026 protocols

DT Next, reporting on an order of the Ministry of Home Affairs dated 28 January 2026, says it set the first protocols for the National Song. The official version runs six stanzas and 3 minutes 10 seconds. The order says audiences stand when it is played, with an exception for newsreels and documentaries. The song comes first when it is played with the National Anthem, and school days may begin with community singing. Britannica says the official version now includes the stanzas that had been omitted.

The first two stanzas, which the Congress Working Committee chose for national gatherings in 1937, are therefore no longer the version the order names for official occasions.

What the commemoration includes

The PIB backgrounder sets out four phases: 7 to 14 November 2025, 19 to 26 January 2026, 7 to 15 August 2026 and 1 to 7 November 2026. Planned activities include programmes on All India Radio and Doordarshan, a global music festival, patriotic murals on highways, and 25 one-minute films on the song and Bankim’s life. The Ministry of Culture’s release says the Union Cabinet approved the nationwide celebrations on 1 October 2025 and that a National Implementation Committee approved the year-long programme on 24 October 2025.