Discuss the constitutional tension between compelled expressions of national symbolism and the freedom of conscience, with reference to the Bijoe Emmanuel judgment and the 2026 amendment to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act.

National symbols command respect, but the Constitution protects the inner realm of belief. The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2026, which extends penal protection to the National Song, has revived the question the Supreme Court settled for the Anthem in 1986: reverence may be expected, but it cannot be extracted by criminal sanction.

The constitutional guarantees at stake

• Article 19(1)(a) protects expression and, by extension, the right to remain silent; Article 25 protects freedom of conscience [2].
• Article 51A(a) casts a duty to respect the Flag and the Anthem — a non-enforceable directive, not a penal command; it does not name the National Song.

The Bijoe Emmanuel doctrine

• Jehovah's Witness students who stood respectfully but did not sing the Anthem were expelled; the Court reinstated them, holding that no provision of law obliges anyone to sing the National Anthem [2].
• The ratio is narrow but firm: silence rooted in conscience is neither disrespect nor an offence — patriotism cannot be coerced.

The 2026 amendment and the friction it creates

• Substituted Section 3 punishes intentionally preventing the singing of the Anthem or the Song, or disturbing an assembly engaged in singing — up to 3 years' imprisonment, fine, or both, with a minimum one year on a subsequent conviction [1][3].
• The text targets obstruction, not abstention; the risk lies in administrative overreach, where a silent student may be construed as a "disturbance" — precisely the school-gate coercion Bijoe Emmanuel condemned [2].
• The Union's case is real: the Song, honoured as equal to the Anthem since 24 January 1950 and published in Bangadarshan in 1875, long lacked statutory protection [3][4]. Yet equal status must transmit the Anthem's limits too, not only its penalties.

Constitutional patriotism is sustained by persuasion, not prosecution. The judicious course is to read down "prevents" and "causes disturbance" to exclude respectful silence, and for executive instructions to say so expressly. Protecting both the symbol and the dissenter's conscience is how Article 51A and Part III are read in harmony.