India / Jana gana mana and vande mataram have equal status centre says delhi high court

New Delhi : Rashtra Jana Gana Mana and national song Vande Mataram have the same status and citizens should give equal respect to both. The Central Government has said this while responding to a PIL filed in the Delhi High Court. It was demanded in this application that Vande Mataram should also get the same status and respect, which is given to the national anthem. Apart from this, a demand was also made to prepare guidelines regarding the respect of the national song. On this, the High Court had issued notices to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Law and sought their response.

It has also been demanded in this application that the Central and State Governments should be ordered to decide that Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram should be sung in schools and other educational institutions on every working day. Apart from this, according to the resolution passed in the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950, guidelines should be fixed for the respect of both. Petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay said that India is a union of states. This is not a federation. He said that we have only one nationality and that is Indianness. It is the responsibility of all of us to respect Vande Mataram.

Question in the application, how can anyone be hurt by Vande Mataram

He said that to keep the country united, it is the responsibility of the government to formulate a national policy so that Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram can be respected. The petitioner said that it is incomprehensible how Vande Mataram can hurt anyone's sentiments, while both have been chosen by the framers of the Constitution. He said that the spirit of the nation comes to the fore in Jana Gana Mana. At the same time, Vande Mataram is an expression of the character of the nation, its lifestyle. He said that it is necessary that every Indian should respect Vande Mataram. It cannot happen that someone refuses to sing Vande Mataram.

Tagore also sang Vande Mataram, sung many times in Congress session

Ashwini Upadhyay said in his application, 'Vande Mataram was the idea of ​​the whole country. This was the expression of the freedom movement. Vande Mataram was chanted in city-city rallies. At one time the British had banned it fearing the Jai Ghosh of Vande Mataram. Not only this, the revolutionaries were also put in jail for violating it. The application said, 'Rabindranath Tagore sang Vande Mataram in a Congress session in Calcutta in 1896. After this, in the Congress session in 1901, Dakshin Charan Sen also sang Vande Mataram. Not only this, in 1905, once again in the Congress session held in Banaras, Sarla Devi sang Vande Mataram. Lala Lajpat Rai published the newspaper with the same name from Lahore.