Vande Mataram

"Vande Mātaram" is a poem that was adopted as the national song of the Republic of India in 1950. It was written in Sanskritised Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in the 1870s, and was first published in 1882 as part of Chatterjee's Bengali novel Anandmath. In May 2026, the cabinet headed by Narendra Modi approved a proposal to grant Vande Mataram legal protection under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act in par with the national anthem of India, making disrespect during its rendition punishable by law.

The poem is an ode to the motherland, it was officially adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1905 to serve as a pan-Indian, nationalist salutation to Mother India during the Indian independence movement, culminating in its 1950 designation as the National Song of the Republic of India, sharing equal honour with India's National Anthem.