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Defence ministry issues Independence Day invites with Vande Mataram lyrics
The 77th Republic Day celebrations were organised around the theme of Vande Mataram, marking 150 years of the song
Invitation cards issued by the defence ministry for this year’s Independence Day ceremony at the Red Fort include the lyrics of Vande Mataram, which will be played for the first time at the annual celebrations during the hoisting of the national flag, officials aware of the matter said on Friday.
The cards carry the lyrics of all six stanzas of the national song, the officials said. The song will be played before the national anthem at the 80th Independence Day celebrations.
Top ministers, military officers, bureaucrats, diplomats, students, and special guests, who have excelled across fields, attend the ceremony and receive the invitation cards.
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Parliament passed a bill last week elevating the national song to the same status as the national anthem. The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, 2026, makes any obstruction or insult to the national song a criminal offence, with a jail term of up to three years and a fine for offenders. The law currently safeguards the national flag, the national anthem and the Constitution.
The move came amid celebrations for the 150th year of Vande Mataram, months after the Centre made the rendition of all six stanzas of the song mandatory, as against the decades-old practice of singing the first two stanzas adopted as the national song in 1950.
“People know the national anthem by heart, but few can sing the national song. The lyrics have been provided so that people can sing along,” said one of the officials cited above. The invitation cards also feature an image of Seva Teerth (housing the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Council Secretariat and the Cabinet Secretariat), and a list of fundamental duties. The invitation cards last year carried the watermark of Jammu and Kashmir’s Chenab bridge, depicting the rise of ‘Naya Bharat.’
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The 77th Republic Day celebrations were organised around the theme of Vande Mataram, marking 150 years of the song. The tableaux of the ministries and the states were based on the same theme.
The Indian Army marked the Vande Mataram milestone by organising band performances in 18 locations across the country. The places where military bands performed included Naihati in West Bengal, where Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who composed Vande Mataram in the 1870s, was born.
The success of Operation Sindoor was hailed at the Independence Day celebrations last year, three months after Indian forces hit terror and military targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 people.
