Plain-English renderings are mine.
India will not be held together by making one religion’s devotion the test of another citizen’s loyalty. The Sikh who will not worship the country as Durga is not breaking the union. The rulers who turn that refusal into disloyalty are.
ਅਵਲਿ ਅਲਹ ਨੂਰੁ ਉਪਾਇਆ ਕੁਦਰਤਿ ਕੇ ਸਭ ਬੰਦੇ ॥
ਏਕ ਨੂਰ ਤੇ ਸਭੁ ਜਗੁ ਉਪਜਿਆ ਕਉਨ ਭਲੇ ਕੋ ਮੰਦੇ ॥੧॥
ਲੋਗਾ ਭਰਮਿ ਨ ਭੂਲਹੁ ਭਾਈ ॥
ਖਾਲਿਕੁ ਖਲਕ ਖਲਕ ਮਹਿ ਖਾਲਿਕੁ ਪੂਰਿ ਰਹਿਓ ਸ੍ਰਬ ਠਾਂਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
aval alah noor upaaiaa kudrat ke sabh bande.
ek noor te sabh jag upjiaa kaun bhale ko mande.
logaa bharam na bhoolahu bhaaee.
khaalik khalak khalak meh khaalik poor rahi-o sarab thaa-ee. Rahao.
First, Allah brought forth the Light; through Kudrat, all beings came to be. From the One Light the whole world arose; who then is good and who is bad? People, brothers, do not lose yourselves in delusion. The Creator is within creation and creation within the Creator, pervading every place.
Bibhaas Prabhaati, Bani Bhagat Kabir Ji Ki, Shabad 3, Angs 1349 and 1350. The two opening lines are on Ang 1349; the Rahao lines are on Ang 1350.
Bhagat Kabir Ji does not begin public life with the flag, the state or the majority. The Shabad begins earlier, with the One Light from which every person arises. No government gives that worth. No majority may withdraw it.
That is where I have to begin when a Sikh’s silence is treated as a doubt about his loyalty.
The Sikh stands respectfully while Vande Mataram is sung. He does not interrupt anyone. He may love India, serve its people and defend them in danger. But he cannot sing words that identify the country with Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, or bow before the nation as a goddess. His Guru does not place him under that devotion.
Who, then, is dividing the country? Is it the citizen who will not worship, or the ruler who turns worship into a test of belonging?
A loyalty test made from devotion
Vande Mataram has a real place in the history of resistance to British rule. Many Indians sing it with sincere love. Nothing in this article requires contempt for them or denial of the song’s historical power.
The problem begins when the state moves from honouring that history to defining loyalty through the complete devotional form.
Orders issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 28 January 2026, and consolidated on 9 July, set out all six stanzas as the official version of the National Song. Akashvani then replaced the two-stanza version used since Independence with the full six-stanza version from 26 March. The later stanzas identify the Mother with Durga, Kamala or Lakshmi, and Vani or Saraswati; they speak of her image in temple after temple. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Vande Mataram “is a mantra” and embodies “devotion and spiritual dedication to Maa Bharati”. In the same address, he explained the later stanzas through Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga. [1]
The historic two-stanza practice was not created to insult the song. Rabindranath Tagore, who had sung Vande Mataram at the Congress in 1896, advised in 1937 that its opening part could be separated from the later passages whose religious setting he did not share. A Sikh who stands respectfully for the first two stanzas and remains silent for the rest is not rejecting the song. He is following the distinction that once allowed it to serve a country of more than one faith. [1]
The dispute then entered law. The Rajya Sabha passed the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill on 29 July 2026, the Lok Sabha passed it on 30 July, and the President assented on 6 August. The amended section 3 gives the National Song the same legal protection as the National Anthem against intentional prevention or disturbance. A person who intentionally prevents the singing, or disturbs an assembly engaged in it, may be imprisoned for up to three years, fined, or both. [1]
The words of the Act matter. It punishes obstruction and disturbance. It does not make respectful silence an offence. It does not say that every citizen must sing all six stanzas.
The Supreme Court had already drawn this distinction in Bijoe Emmanuel v State of Kerala. Three pupils stood respectfully while the National Anthem was sung but did not join in because of sincerely held religious belief. The Court held that their silence neither prevented the singing nor disturbed the assembly, and that they could not be compelled to sing. The 2026 amendment extends the same section to the National Song. No reported court decision has yet applied Bijoe Emmanuel specifically to Vande Mataram, but its principle strongly protects the citizen who stands respectfully and remains silent. [1]
Yet on 20 August, Home Minister Amit Shah called the Congress decision to retain the two-stanza practice “anti-national” and described it as open defiance of a law enacted by Parliament. The accusation went beyond the law he invoked. A silent Sikh is not violating the amended Act. [1]
The argument is no longer merely that a treasured song deserves respect. It has become this: the complete devotional form belongs to the nation, and the citizen who declines it is placed close to disloyalty.
I cannot accept that.
A Hindu citizen is free to see the land through Durga, Lakshmi or Saraswati. A Sikh is free not to. A Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, atheist or dissenting Hindu is free not to. The state may require lawful conduct. It may not demand the inner bow of conscience.
Respectful silence is not disloyalty.
The citizen who refuses another tradition’s worship has not rejected the country. He has refused to confuse country with Guru.
The larger claim behind the song
The dispute over one song would be less serious if it stood alone. It belongs to a larger account of India which the BJP and RSS state openly.
The BJP’s own statement of philosophy commits the party to “One Nation, One People and One Culture”. The RSS says that “this country belonged to the Hindus” and that the national identity of its people is “essentially Hindu”. Its official material says Muslims and Christians may join its work if they accept that wider account of ancestry, culture and motherland. [2]
In November 2025, Mohan Bhagwat stated the condition more plainly. Muslims and Christians may come to a shakha, he said, but must “keep your separateness out” and enter as “a son of Bharat Mata” and “a member of this Hindu society”. [2]
At the RSS centenary in October 2025, Narendra Modi spoke as Prime Minister and “as a swayamsevak”. He praised the RSS for having a “concrete roadmap” for the challenges facing the country and described its five resolutions as “foundational pillars for building a developed India by 2047”. [2]
The RSS and BJP are not the same organisation. That distinction should be kept. Their ideological and organisational relationship is nevertheless public, not imagined.
People may keep different places of worship and different religious names, but the deeper identity of the country is declared Hindu. Diversity is permitted after the majority has named the whole. That is inclusion on terms set by one community, not equal belonging.
A Sikh does not need Sikhi placed inside a Hindu civilisation in order to belong to India. A Muslim or Christian should not have to accept an RSS account of ancestry and culture before being trusted as national. Citizenship cannot depend on agreeing that the majority has the right to name everyone else.
The Constitution is not the Guru. But its civic promise recognises the same public necessity. It joins fraternity to the dignity of the individual and the unity of the country; it guarantees equality, prohibits religious discrimination and protects freedom of conscience.
In April 2026, the Supreme Court said that belonging to one nation cannot depend on selective inclusion or exclusion, and that an “us versus them” approach contradicts unity, dignity and equality. The order must also be stated fully. The Court dismissed petitions asking it to create new hate-speech offences or keep nationwide supervision, holding that legislation belongs to Parliament and that the existing criminal law already covers the field. In a connected appeal, it corrected the lower court on prior sanction but agreed that no cognisable offence was made out in the speeches attributed to Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma. [3]
I do not cite that judgement as a conviction of those leaders. I cite the constitutional standard the Court stated, together with its finding that the practical problem often lies in fair and faithful enforcement of the law already in force.
A union of many peoples is not strengthened when one people claims the right to define all the others. Unity allows difference to remain real. Uniformity allows difference only after it has surrendered.
When the idea enters law
Political language matters because it prepares people for legal distinctions which would once have looked unacceptable.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act created a special route to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 and meet the Act’s conditions. Muslims are excluded from that route. The rules are in force. [4]
The government’s defence should be stated fairly. The Act is presented as relief for persecuted minorities from neighbouring Islamic republics. It grants citizenship; it does not remove the citizenship of an existing Indian Muslim.
But those facts do not end the question. Parliament still chose religion as the basis for preference. Persecuted Ahmadi, Shia and other Muslim communities from the same countries receive no equivalent route. The Act did not create a general test based on persecution and then apply it equally.
A Sikh may benefit from the classification, but Sikh benefit does not make the principle just. A community can be placed on the favoured side of an unequal rule and still be required by Gurmat to see the inequality. A state may name six preferred religions in a statute. That does not make the hierarchy answer to Bhagat Kabir Ji’s One Light.
When the idea reaches enforcement
The same division becomes harder when it reaches the street.
In several BJP-governed states, homes and shops belonging to people accused after crimes, protests or communal incidents were demolished. State authorities said the structures were unlawful and that due process had been followed. Critics and affected families said the bulldozer was being used as punishment, often against Muslims, before any court had established guilt.
In November 2024, the Supreme Court drew the line. The executive cannot act as judge, punish an accused by demolishing a home or make a family bear collective punishment. Demolition of an unlawful structure must still follow law, notice and due process. [5]
That judgement did not declare every demolition communal or every structure lawful. It did something more basic. It refused to let accusation become punishment.
The April 2026 hate-speech judgement leaves a related responsibility with government. The Court declined to invent new offences or supervise the country indefinitely because the legal framework already contained remedies. That makes fair enforcement more important, not less. The law must be applied consistently whether the speaker belongs to the majority, a minority, the government or the opposition. [3]
The Union government did not direct every hateful speech. Delhi did not order every demolition. That is not the claim.
The question is what kind of country is being formed when national leaders repeatedly divide belonging, when religion becomes a basis for citizenship preference, and when punishment is celebrated before courts restore the limits of law.
A mob can burn a neighbourhood.
A government can teach the country which neighbours count less.
That is why power at the centre must be judged more severely than speech and violence outside government. The Union government has law-making power, money, agencies, platforms and nationwide reach. Division spoken from a street corner harms people. Division carried through state language and public power can reproduce itself in law, administration, election campaigns and ordinary prejudice at the same time.
What an election does not authorise
The BJP wins elections. Its governments have built roads, extended services, delivered welfare and gained the support of millions. Many people vote for it because of development, leadership, security, caste, local candidates or dislike of the opposition. Not every BJP voter supports Hindu majoritarianism.
All of that should be admitted, but it does not answer the argument.
An election gives a government authority to govern for a term. It does not give a party ownership of the nation. Welfare is a public duty. It does not give the government authority over the recipient’s conscience. A road, ration or electricity connection does not permit a government to tell the recipient which religious civilisation he must accept as his own.
Opposition parties have also used communal language, abused office and failed minorities. Their wrongdoing should be named in its own place. It does not acquit the government holding the greatest lawful power now.
Electoral victory can show that a project is popular. It cannot show that the project is just, or that it will hold a diverse country together.
When rule becomes a knife
Guru Nanak Sahib Ji gives a severe test of rule:
ਸਲੋਕੁ ਮਃ ੧ ॥
ਕਲਿ ਕਾਤੀ ਰਾਜੇ ਕਾਸਾਈ ਧਰਮੁ ਪੰਖ ਕਰਿ ਉਡਰਿਆ ॥
ਕੂੜੁ ਅਮਾਵਸ ਸਚੁ ਚੰਦ੍ਰਮਾ ਦੀਸੈ ਨਾਹੀ ਕਹ ਚੜਿਆ ॥
salok mahalaa 1.
kal kaatee raaje kaasaaee dharam pankh kar uddariaa.
koorr amaavas sach chandramaa deesai naahee kah charriaa.
This dark age is the knife; the rulers are butchers; Dharam has taken wing and flown. Falsehood is the moonless night; the moon of Truth is nowhere seen rising.
Majh Ki Vaar, Salok Mahalla 1, Ang 145, Guru Nanak Sahib Ji. These are the opening two lines of a six-line Salok.
This Salok is not permission to call every politician we dislike a butcher. It is a test of rule.
Does power protect citizens equally, or divide them into owners and guests? Does it protect conscience, or make majority devotion the test of loyalty? Does it apply law before punishment, or punish first and justify later?
The Salok becomes relevant when rulers call assimilation unity, obedience loyalty, and religious preference equal citizenship. It asks us to judge rule by what it does to the people placed beneath it.
Who is breaking India?
The rulers tell the country to watch the silent Sikh, the Muslim asking for equal citizenship, the Christian refusing a Hindu national identity, and the dissenter who will not join the chant.
The evidence directs the question back towards power.
The Sikh who stands respectfully but will not worship the nation as Durga is not breaking India. The Muslim who asks that citizenship law should not rank religions is not breaking India. The family asking that its home not be used as punishment is not breaking India.
The breaking begins when rulers make one culture the national owner and reduce everyone else to a conditional member.
This is not an argument against Hindu people. Hindu traditions are not one political block. Many Hindus reject Hindutva and resist the use of their faith as state identity. To treat every Hindu as an enemy would repeat the same collective thinking this article condemns.
The target is precise: the BJP and RSS political project where it uses state power to make a Hindu-defined civilisation the norm of Indian belonging.
Bhagat Kabir Ji’s question still stands over the whole argument. If all arose from the One Light, by what right does a majority turn the nation into its possession and leave others as tolerated guests?
India does not need every citizen to worship the same form. It needs rulers who protect the freedom of citizens to stand together without doing so.
The silent citizen is not breaking India.
The rulers who turn conscience into disloyalty are.
Verification and sources
The Gurmukhi, Ang references, Bani headings, attributions and quotation boundaries were checked against SearchGurbani and SriGranth. Professor Sahib Singh Ji’s Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan was consulted additionally for contextual sense. The English passages are learning renderings; they do not replace the Gurmukhi or the need to read the complete Shabad and Salok.
Cross-check: Every Gurmukhi line, Ang reference and attribution in this article can be checked at SearchGurbani and SriGranth.
Correction note: If a mismatch is found in the Gurmukhi, Ang reference, Bani heading, attribution, transliteration, English sense, legal description or source account, PanthSeva will correct it publicly, calmly and with a dated correction note.
1. Vande Mataram: Ministry of Home Affairs order dated 28 January 2026, setting out all six stanzas as the official version; Press Information Bureau, 25 March 2026, recording the 28 January guideline and Akashvani’s switch to the full six-stanza version from 26 March; Ministry of Home Affairs consolidated order, 9 July 2026; Prime Minister’s address, 7 November 2025; Rabindranath Tagore’s 26 October 1937 letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, reproduced and sourced to the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru in The Wire’s historical account; PRS Legislative Research on the passage dates and effect of the 2026 Bill; the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act 2026, Act No. 11 of 2026, assented to on 6 August 2026; Bijoe Emmanuel v State of Kerala, (1986) 3 SCC 615, which held that respectful silence neither prevents singing nor disturbs an assembly; the Supreme Court’s later recognition that the right to silence is implicit in Article 19(1)(a) in its 3 January 2023 judgement; and Amit Shah’s remarks reported by The Indian Express, 21 August 2026. The Act punishes intentional prevention of singing or disturbance of an assembly; it does not create an offence of respectful silence. No reported post-amendment judgement has yet applied Bijoe Emmanuel specifically to Vande Mataram. A second and subsequent conviction carries a minimum one-year term.
2. BJP and RSS national identity: BJP, “Cultural Nationalism”, including “One Nation, One People and One Culture”; RSS, “Basic FAQ on RSS”, which says “this country belonged to the Hindus” and that national identity is “essentially Hindu”; Mohan Bhagwat’s November 2025 remarks reported by The Indian Express, saying Muslims and Christians may attend a shakha only after leaving their separateness outside and entering as members of Hindu society; and the Prime Minister’s RSS centenary address, 1 October 2025, in which he spoke “as a swayamsevak”, praised the RSS for a “concrete roadmap”, and described its resolutions as “foundational pillars for building a developed India by 2047”.
3. Constitutional belonging and hate speech: Constitution of India as in force in 2026; and Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v Union of India, Supreme Court of India, 29 April 2026. The Court rejected the request for new court-made offences and continuing nationwide supervision, held that existing criminal law substantially occupied the field, and said failures often lay in application and enforcement. In the connected criminal appeal concerning speeches attributed to Anurag Thakur and Parvesh Verma, it corrected the law on prior sanction but agreed that no cognisable offence was made out. See especially paragraphs 62 to 76, 87 to 98, 136 to 138, and 165 to 169.
4. Citizenship: Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 and Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024, official Government of India texts.
5. Demolition as punishment: In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, Supreme Court of India, 13 November 2024, 2024 INSC 866, together with the Court’s nationwide due-process directions and Reuters’ report of the judgement.
Current legal and political claims were checked to 1 September 2026.
The Constitution, statutes, court judgements and political documents identify public claims, law and conduct. They do not govern the doctrinal judgement.
That judgement remains answerable to Shabad Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
Strong disagreement is welcome. Contempt is not.
Bhul chuk maaf karni Ji.
Gurjit Singh Sandhu
PanthSeva
London