Indian Muslim leaders resist pressure to chant Vande Mataram
Jamiat chief says Muslims cannot recite song equating nation with goddess, as Parliament debates Hindu nationalist song amid growing pressure on minorities
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A fierce national debate has erupted in India over Vande Mataram, a Hindu nationalist song increasingly used as a test of loyalty, after a prominent Muslim scholar declared that India’s Muslims will not abandon their faith under pressure to recite it.
The statement from Maulana Arshad Madani, president of the influential Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, comes amid a renewed political push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to elevate the song to a symbol of unquestioned patriotism.
The controversy underscores widening religious and ideological divisions in India as Hindu nationalist groups intensify efforts to enforce cultural conformity.
Madani said Muslims respect the country but cannot recite verses that ascribe divine status to the nation — a form of worship known as shirk (associating partners with God), strictly prohibited in Islam.
“Loving the country is one thing, worshipping it is another,” he said, asserting that the Constitution protects religious freedom under Articles 19 and 25 and that no citizen can be compelled to chant a religious or political slogan.
The dispute resurfaced in India’s Parliament this week during a 10-hour discussion led by Prime Minister Modi to mark the 150th anniversary of the song, originally written in 1875 by Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Modi accused opposition parties, including the Congress, of “dividing the song” in 1937 by removing verses equating India with Hindu goddess Durga, claiming the move “contributed to the Partition.”
Opposition leaders rejected the framing, accusing the government of weaponizing nationalism to polarize ahead of elections.
Asaduddin Owaisi, an opposition MP, warned that forcing citizens to chant Vande Mataram imposes the ideology of Hindu nationalism over India’s secular constitutional foundation. “If Vande Mataram becomes a test of loyalty, India abandons the ideals of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Tagore,” he said.
Human-rights groups say coercion around national slogans has become a flashpoint in recent years, with multiple attacks and arrests reported across India for refusing to chant Vande Mataram or Jai Shri Ram, another Hindu nationalist slogan.
Analysts warn this trend reflects a broader tightening of space for dissent and religious diversity under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
For India’s 200 million Muslims, the controversy represents a growing fear that patriotism is being redefined through a religious lens, eclipsing constitutional principles of pluralism. As Madani put it, “We will accept death, but we will never accept shirk.”
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