Vande Mataram is the national song of India. It was composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in a mixture of Bengali and Sanskrit. Vande Mataram comes from a poem from Bankim Chandra's 1882 novel Anandamath. The first political occasion where it was sung was the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. In 1950 (after India's independence), the song's first two verses were given the official status of the "national song" of the Republic of India, distinct from the national anthem of India, Jana Gana Mana.
In 2003, BBC World Service conducted an international poll to choose ten most famous songs of all time. Around 7000 songs were selected from all over the world. According to BBC, people from 155 countries/island voted. Vande Mataram was second in the top 10 songs.
Here is a Raag Des composition sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Below you can find the lyrics and several translations of Vande Mataram.
Here is the translation in prose of the above two stanzas rendered by Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. This has also been adopted by the Government of India's national portal. The original Vande Mataram consists of six stanzas and the translation in prose for the complete poem by Shri Aurobindo appeared in Karmayogin, 20 November 1909.
An ode to the Motherland, it was written in Bengali script in the novel Anandmath. The title 'Vande Mataram' means "I bow to thee, Mother" or "I bow to thee, Mother". The "mother goddess" in later verses of the song has been interpreted as the motherland of the people –– Banga Mata (Mother Bengal)and Bharat Mata (Mother India), though the text does not mention this explicitly.
It played a vital role in the Indian independence movement, first sung in a political context by Rabindranath Tagore at the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress. It became a popular marching song for political activism and Indian freedom movement in 1905. Spiritual Indian nationalist and philosopher Sri Aurobindo referred it as "National Anthem of Bengal". The song and the novel containing it was banned by the British government, but workers and general public defied the ban, many went to colonial prisons repeatedly for singing it, and the ban was overturned by the Indians after they gained independence from the colonial rule.
On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly of India has adopted "Vande Mataram" as national song. On the occasion, the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad stated that the song should be honoured equally with the national anthem of India, "Jana Gana Mana". However the Constitution of India does not have any mention of "national song".
The first two verses of the song are an abstract reference to mother and motherland, they do not mention any Hindu deity by name, unlike later verses that do mention goddesses such as Durga. There is no time limit or circumstantial specification for the rendition of this song unlike the national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" that specifies 52 seconds.
Parts of the Vande Mataram was chosen as the national song in 1937 by the Indian National Congress as it pursued independence of India from the British colonial rule, after a committee consisting of Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Bose, Acharya Deva and Rabrindanath Tagore recommended the adoption. The entire song was not selected by Hindu leaders in order to respect the sentiments of non-Hindus, and the gathering agreed that anyone should be free to sing an alternate "unobjectionable song" at a national gathering if they do not want to sing Vande Mataram because they find it "objectionable" for a personal reason. According to the gathered leaders, including the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, though the first two stanzas began with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland, in later stanzas there are references to the Hindu goddess Durga. The Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah opposed the song. Thereafter, with the support of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru, the Indian National Congress decided to adopt only the first two stanzas as the national song to be sung at public gatherings, and other verses that included references to Durga and Lakshmi were expunged.
Rajendra Prasad, who was presiding the Constituent Assembly on 24 January 1950, made the following statement which was also adopted as the final decision on the issue:
... The composition consisting of the words and music known as Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations in the words as the Government may authorise as occasion arises; and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it. (Applause). I hope this will satisfy the Members.
—Constituent Assembly of India, Vol. XII, 24-1-1950[47]
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Singing oneness!