Modifying its 2016 order, the Supreme Court in India has said that playing the national anthem in movie theatres is no longer compulsory.
NDTV reported the court as saying that people "do not need to stand up at a cinema hall to be perceived as patriotic... cannot be assumed that if a person does not stand up for national anthem, then he is less patriotic".
The order came on Tuesday in response to a request by government to reconsider its 2016 ruling that the national anthem had to be played mandatorily (and audiences stand) in movie theatres for "the love of the motherland".
According to the BBC, the original ruling had fuelled opposition and even led to some arrests of people who refused to stand for the anthem. The 2016 ruling also reportedly sparked concern people could be targeted for 'disrespecting' the national anthem.
One man in 2014, two years before the ruling, was beaten by a mob in Mumbai after his friend from South Africa refused to stand for the national anthem while, in October, a disabled man was reportedly assaulted for not standing.
Although cinemas in India regularly played the anthem in the 1960s and 1970s, the practice has declined over time. According to the BBC, states prior to the 2016 Supreme Court ruling had their own laws pertaining to the screening of the anthem in cinemas, but no uniform law across the country existed prior to that ruling.
*This post by HuffPost India has been altered by from its original form for HuffPost SA readers.