The Supreme Court of India took to the center stage in the debate over the country's national anthem. In a ruling Wednesday, the court stated that the mandatory playing of the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, prior to any movie screening promotes “a sense of coercion” and is, "harmful towards promoting individual freedoms."

The move comes at a time of growing nationalist pride since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist party swept to power in 2014. The anthem was last ordered to be played in cinemas in 1962 but the practice was eventually discontinued. The latest ruling was issued in response to a petition by 78-year-old Shyam Narayan Chouksey who complained that the anthem should not be “sung before the people who do not understand it.”

As the court's order was delivered, justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy said: "People must feel this is my country and this is my motherland...They should not be coerced into any kind of behavior undesirable to them."

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This ruling is the result of a long controversy regarding the playing of India's national anthem in theaters. In 2015, a group of moviegoers were thrown out of a cinema because they had not stood for the national anthem, which sparked a national debate on the importance of the anthem in cinema halls. More recently, in late October, poet and disability campaigner Salil Chaturvedi, was assaulted by a couple in a Goa theater for not standing during the anthem; he is a wheelchair user.

According to The Economic Times of India, the ruling will be circulated to all Chiefs Secretaries of all the states, who will have a week to implement it, though standing up for the anthem is not mandatory in some states. The court also said the anthem should not be dramatized and that it shouldn't be exploited for commercial gain, and banned any reproduction on "undesirable objects or variety shows," according to The Economic Times.

The ruling immediately sparked strong reactions. The BJP spokesman, Manak Gupta, wrote on his Facebook page: "People can wait up to 2 hours outside cinema halls for a ticket but they can't stand for the national anthem for 2 minutes? It's as logical as asking to play the national anthem before eating at a restaurant, or every morning before entering the office, or at every toll booth on the highways.”