Parliament on Thursday passed a Bill that makes any insult to the national song Vande Mataram a punishable offence with Lok Sabha clearing the legislation amid pandemonium.
The amendments moved by the Opposition were rejected by the House and the Bill was passed by voice vote. This is the first Bill to be passed by both Houses in the ongoing session, which has seen frequent disruptions by the Opposition over the NEET paper leak issue.
The government said the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill 2026 will grant status to Vande Mataram on par with national anthem Jana Gana Mana. It seeks to make any insult to Vande Mataram a criminal offence.
Responding to a brief debate in the Lower House in which only two members participated, Minister of State for Home Nityananda Rai said the Congress should have given Vande Mataram its due respect during its 76 years of rule, but instead it resorted to appeasement politics.
“The Narendra Modi government is now giving the national song its due respect which it deserves. For Ek Bharat, Shreshtra Bharat, we need complete (all six stanzas) Vande Mataram song,” Rai said as he concluded his brief reply to the Bill with a chant of Vande Mataram. Sambit Patra of the BJP said the Congress in its 76 years of rule did not give Vande Mataram the respect it deserved as a national song.
Earlier, DMK member K Kanimozhi opposed the Bill, saying it is a “Hindutva agenda” brought masquerading as nationalism. “It is against federalism. You cannot impose nationalism by bringing a law, the song goes against the secularism of the country. The founding fathers had the wisdom to stop only with two stanzas, but today you are trying to polarise the country by making it compulsory and making it a criminal offence if we do not sing all the six stanzas,” she said.
The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act currently prohibits intentionally preventing the singing of the national anthem or causing disturbance to any assembly engaged in such singing. These offences are punishable with imprisonment up to three years, a fine or both. A second and every subsequent conviction is punishable with imprisonment of a minimum of one year. The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill 2026 extends these provisions to Vande Mataram.
A Raja of the DMK later tore some document and threw it towards the Well. Amid sloganeering after the passage of the Bill, Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day.
Disruptions continue
Both Houses witnessed repeated disruptions amid Opposition protests over the crackdown on student protesters during the July 20 march and the alleged theft of donations at the Ram Temple. The Rajya Sabha took up the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill 2026 a day after it was passed by the Lok Sabha.
During the debate, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge accused the government of bringing the amendment only to pacify agitating students rather than address the root causes of paper leaks. He argued that the legislation failed to explain how examinations would be conducted in a manner that would prevent future leaks.
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