Vande Mataram 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. In 1950 (after India's independence), the first two verses of the song were declared the "national song" of the Republic of India, distinct from the national anthem of India, "Jana Gana Mana". The first two verses of the song are an abstract reference to one's mother and motherland, they do not mention any Hindu deity by name,
Romanisation of Bengali many different transcriptions. Even simple words like মন "mind" may be pronounced "mon", "môn", or (in poetry) "mônô" (as in the Indian national anthem, "Jana Gana Mana"). Often, different phonemes are represented by the same symbol or grapheme. Thus, the vowel এ can represent either (এল "elo" "came") or (এক "êk" "one"). Occasionally, words written in the same way (homographs) may have different pronunciations for differing meanings: মত can mean "opinion" (pronounced "môt"), or "similar to" ("môtô"). Therefore, some important phonemic distinctions cannot be rendered in a transliteration model. In addition, to represent a Bengali word to allow speakers of