Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge appears to have discovered a wonderfully convenient defence for the controversy surrounding Vande Mataram: if what Congress leaders did on Independence Day was a crime, then Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee must also be booked. After all, Kharge argues, they too sang the same version of Vande Mataram.
What a spectacular argument. Unfortunately for the Congress president, there is one small detail standing stubbornly in the way of this piece of political ingenuity: the law has changed.
This is not particularly complicated. Laws are enacted precisely because Parliament decides that certain conduct should henceforth have legal consequences. One cannot defend an alleged violation of a law enacted in 2026 by producing a list of people who did something similar before that law existed. By that logic, every new criminal law would become unenforceable because someone, somewhere, had done the same thing before Parliament decided to prohibit it.
Perhaps the Congress president needs a refresher course in the elementary principle that criminal law is prospective.
The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2026, received Presidential assent on August 7. It extends to Vande Mataram the statutory protection already enjoyed by Jana Gana Mana. The amended Section 3 makes it an offence to intentionally prevent the singing of the National Anthem or National Song, or to cause disturbance to an assembly engaged in singing them. The punishment can extend to three years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.
Therefore, invoking Gandhi, Nehru or Patel does not answer the question of what the law says today. Nor does invoking Vajpayee magically transport the country back to an era when the present statutory provision did not exist.
Imagine applying Kharge’s logic to every other law.
If Parliament tomorrow strengthens punishment for corruption, should a politician be allowed to say: “But earlier politicians committed corruption and were not booked under this law”?
If Parliament introduces a new cybercrime provision, should a hacker accused after its enactment respond: “But people hacked computers before this law existed, so book them too”?
If Parliament changes the law governing election offences, should an accused simply produce a list of historical election violations and declare himself innocent?
Obviously not.
Yet when it comes to Vande Mataram, Congress seems to have discovered an extraordinary legal theory: history is apparently a defence against the present-day statute book.
It isn’t.
There is another rather curious feature of Kharge’s argument. If Congress genuinely believes that the conduct is perfectly legitimate, why does it need to invoke Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Vajpayee at all? Why not simply argue the facts and the law? Why turn the matter into a historical roll call?
Because the historical argument is politically convenient.
Congress knows that Gandhi and Nehru occupy an enormous place in Bharat’s national memory. By invoking them, Kharge attempts to shift the debate from what happened at the Congress headquarters on August 15 to what happened decades ago. It is classic political diversion: when the present becomes uncomfortable, take refuge in the past.
There is, of course, an important distinction that should not be deliberately blurred. The law does not say that every person who fails to sing every word of Vande Mataram automatically goes to jail. The statutory provision is specifically directed at intentional prevention of the singing or intentional disturbance of an assembly engaged in singing it.
That distinction matters. So does due process. Allegations must be investigated and proved; political accusations cannot substitute for evidence.
But that cuts both ways. Congress cannot manufacture a legal exemption for itself by arguing that earlier generations behaved similarly.
The controversy arose after visuals from the Congress headquarters Independence Day function triggered allegations that senior Congress leaders appeared to signal during the rendition of the full song. Congress denied that interpretation and offered its own explanation of what Sonia Gandhi was doing. A complaint has since been filed seeking action against Congress leaders, while police have indicated that the matter is under examination.
That is precisely where the matter should remain: facts, evidence, investigation and law.
But Kharge’s argument takes the debate somewhere else.
“Gandhiji did it. Nehru did it. Patel did it. Vajpayee did it. So book them too.”
Really?
Then perhaps Congress should also explain the date on which the alleged conduct occurred. Gandhi died in 1948. Nehru died in 1964. Patel died in 1950. Vajpayee died in 2018. The present amendment became law in 2026.
How exactly is one supposed to “book” the dead under a law that did not exist when they were alive?
This is not legal reasoning. It is political theatre dressed up as legal reasoning.
And there is an even larger irony. Vande Mataram is not some newly invented slogan of the present government. It was an integral part of Bharat’s freedom movement and was accorded the status of National Song in the country’s foundational constitutional era. The Constituent Assembly’s president, Rajendra Prasad, stated in 1950 that it should be honoured equally with the National Anthem.
Congress therefore cannot simultaneously claim ownership of the freedom struggle, celebrate its historical association with Vande Mataram and then behave as though any contemporary attempt to legally protect the song is somehow illegitimate.
If the party disagrees with the 2026 amendment, it is perfectly entitled to oppose the law politically and challenge it constitutionally. Parliament has made a law; courts can examine its constitutionality. That is democracy.
But until a law is struck down, it is the law.
This elementary proposition should not require a constitutional law lecture to a party president.
The Congress has spent days trying to turn a question of present conduct into a seminar on historical personalities. Kharge’s latest defence only makes the diversion more obvious.
Gandhi cannot be booked for a law enacted 78 years after his death. Nehru cannot be booked. Patel cannot be booked. Vajpayee cannot be booked.
But neither can their names be summoned from history as a magical “get out of jail” card for conduct occurring after a new law has come into force.
History explains the past.
It does not repeal the present.
And that, one would have thought, is a fairly simple fact even for the Congress president to understand.
