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The Life and Times of Bharat Mata
Nationalism as Invented Religion
Sadan Jha
Maye ji ki paon ki chamari phat gayi thi. Lahu se pair lathpath ho gaye the .... Maye ji ka dukh dekh kar,
Ramkishan babu ka bhakhan sunkar aur Tiwari ji ka geet sunkar wah apne ko rok nahi saka tha. Kaun
sambhaal sakta tha us taan ko? .... Ganga re Jamunwa ki dhar nayanwa se neer bahi. Phutal bharathiya ke
bhag bharathmata royi rahi.... Wah usi samay Ramkishan babu ke paas jaakar bola tha –“Mera naam suraji
main likh lijiye.
(The mother’s feet were torn and bloodied. After seeing the mother’s agony, listening to Ramkishan babu’s
words and hearing Tiwari ji’s songs, he could not stop himself. Who could resist that pull? …. Tears flowing
from her eyes like the waters of the Ganges and the Yamuna. Mother India sorrowing over the fate of her
children…. Straightaway he went to Ramkishan babu and said, “Put my name on the Suraji list.”)
-- Phaniswarnath Renu, Maila Anchal, 1953, p.35
T
he image of the certain Swami Ramtirth, including a the second subtext, however, the body
suffering mother, found in passport-size photograph of the man; of the nation has been defined in a
these lines from the popular and c) the photograph of RSS very systematic and anatomical
Hindi novel, Maila Anchal, is supremo Rajju Bhaiya and the fashion. The cultural signifiers of the
undoubtedly the most central among announcement of an upcoming mass visual image have been provided with
those visualisations which have meeting in New Delhi. a set of concrete meanings and
shaped and reshaped national In the central image, we see a contexts. The quotation says:
identities, spanning both pre- and post- woman occupying the map of the I am India. The Indian nation is my
colonial India. As we see in the above- nation, giving the nation as body a body. Kanyakumari is my foot and
quoted example, the crucial aspect of very tangible female form. We have the Himalayas my head. The Ganges
this image of the nation as body is that here an image which takes its meanings flow from my thighs. My left leg is
the body involved is neither from a wide range of cultural signifiers: the Coromandal Coast, my right is
anonymous nor abstract. It is a familiar the smiling face of the goddess the Coast of Malabar. I am this entire
one, revered and adored, one which standing in front of her lion, looking land. East and West are my arms.
evokes profound memories, and one directly into the gaze of onlookers. In How wondrous is my form! When I
which, at this narrative moment, is in walk I sense all India moves with me.
grave distress. Even in deep pain, this When I speak, India speaks with me.
body commands respect. What is also In India, the imaginary I am India. I am Truth, I am God, I am
worth pointing out is that this body is bonding between nation Beauty.
presented as perishable, in the most and citizen is often There is an interesting
literal sense of the word. mediated in and through contradiction here between the first
We have a number of instances and second subtexts of this frame.
religion. Unfortunately,
where the anthropomorphic form of Note the use of masculine gender in
the nation, Bharat Mata, has been in the dominant the words in bold face that follow:
shown along with India’s discourse of recent “Jab main chalta hoon to sochata
cartographic form, its map. 1 A decades, the complexity hoon ki pura Bharatvarsh chal raha
popular wall calendar of the Hindu of the relationship hai. Jab bolta hoon to sochata hoon
right wing organisation, the Rashtriya ki pura Bharat bol raha hai.” The
between nation and earlier subtext has given us to believe
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is one
such example (see figure 1). We can religion has been that that the body of the nation is
divide this poster into three main reduced to an analysis of female; however, the second subtext
subtexts. These are a) the central communalism. makes it very clear that the body in
image; b) a quotation attributed to a consideration is male.
34 MANUSHI
in the Indian context. He suggests that
it would be “impossible to gather up
the heterogeneous modes of seeing
the nation in the subject centered
meaning of the word ‘imagination’. For
the nation in India was not only
‘imagined’, it may have been darshan-
ed as well.”2 Unfortunately in the
dominant discourse of recent decades,
the complexity of the relationship
between nation and religion has been
reduced to an analysis of
communalism. An alternative way to
examine the multilayered discourse on
the relationship between religion and
nation is via an understanding of some
of the representational sites where
nationhood and religious practice
meet.
The imageries of Bharat Mata
provide one such location. From
Abanindranath Tagore and Anand
Coomaraswami’s treatments, to the
calendars of the RSS, there has always
been a celebration of the nation’s
female body – and of her citizens’ male
gaze. Nor has Bharat Mata failed to
find a place in the plethora of “invented
traditions” that abound in the popular
religious space.3 Her temples have
even been accorded room in at least
two of India’s holiest sites of
pilgrimage, Haridwar and Benaras.
The Icon in History
The genealogy of the figure of
Bharat Mata has been traced to a
satirical piece titled Unabimsa Purana
(‘The Nineteenth Purana’), by Bhudeb
Figure 1: Bharat Mata in RSS calendar art Mukhopadhyay, first published
anonymously in 1866. Bharat Mata is
The third subtext puts the poster to the Christian or Common Era identified in this text as Adhi-Bharati,
in a contextual frame. This is an calendar perhaps simply because it the widow of Arya Swami, the
announcement of the arrival of R.S.S. would be more expedient. embodiment of all that is essentially
supremo, Rajju Bhaiya in New Delhi. Religion and Nationhood ‘Aryan’. The image of the
His schedule has been announced The Bharat Mata icon and its dispossessed motherland also found
according to the Vikram Samvat, various scopic regimes are, obviously, form in Kiran Chandra
despite the fact that this calendar is quite mythical. In India, the imaginary Bandyopadhyay’s play, Bharat Mata,
not in general use. This would lead bonding between nation and citizen is first performed in 1873. The play
one to suppose that the objectives of often mediated in and through religion. influentially entered into nationalist
this poster go much further than its Writing on “Nation and Imagination”, memory in its early phase.4
temporal frame, that is the provision Dipesh Chakrabarty has questioned The landmark intervention in the
of information about a public event. the use of the word ‘imagination’ for history of this symbol was Bankim
A concession is, however, also made the phenomenon of ‘seeing the nation’ Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Ananda
No.142 35
Math. In this classic text, the figure of offers in her four hands… What [the] mother bore a child to the
the mother has an evolutionary [Tagore] sees in Her is made clear foreign lord, and he was pleased
biography marked in three phases. The to all of us. Spirit of the there at, and deemed that she (for it
journey takes place from the figure of motherland, giver of all good, yet was a girl) should be a young
‘mother as she was in the past’ to eternally virgin.... The misty woman after his own heart, even as
‘mother in the present’ who still lotuses and the white light set Her the daughters of his own people,
retains the power to transform herself apart from the common world, as and she should be fair and wealthy,
into ‘mother as she will become in the much as the four arms, and Her and a bride for a son of his people.
future’. In her present form she is Kali, infinite love. And yet in every However, when this child was born,
supposedly haunting the cremation detail, of “Shankha” bracelet, and the mother was roused from her
grounds and dancing on Shiva’s close veiling garment, of bare feet, dream.
chest, signifying the reversal of order and open, sincere expression, is But, the girl grew strong, and
and suggesting a parallel between the she not after all, our very own, would carry little of her father’s
land of Bharat and a cremation ground. heart of our heart, at once mother tyranny, and she was mother to the
The final image is that of Durga, the and daughter of the Indian land, children of the children who came
ten armed mother, the symbol of even as to the Rishis of old was before her, and she was called the
power with all her shining weapons. Ushabala, in her Indian girlhood, mother by all…” Her children rose
Such representations suggest a daughter of the dawn?6 in revolt against their father but
nascent nationalism in the process of From Goddess to Mother were subdued. The mother helped
widening its popular appeal by The post-swadeshi period her children this time and she left
appropriating prevalent religious witnessed another shift in imaging the foreign lord, and when the
culture. Jasodhara Bagchi also points India, from goddess-figure to foreign lord would have stopped it,
out that Ananda Math was Bankim’s housewife and mother, as seen in a she was not there, but elsewhere;
response to the positivist ideology short story entitled Bharat Mata by and it seemed that she was neither
of order and progress.5 Anand Coomarswami. This is a story here, nor there, but everywhere.
Very soon the terms of of “a tall, fair and young woman”. She And the writer concludes
engagement and iconographic was “wealthy and many had sought philosophically, “And this tale is yet
vocabulary shifted to the form of the her hand, and of these, one whom she unfinished; but the ending is not afar
goddess. The artist Abanindranath loved least had possessed her body off, and may be foreseen.”7
Tagore portrayed Bharat Mata as for many years; and now there came Ninety years after its publication,
Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity another and stranger wooer with this story, read from a post-colonial
and wealth, clad in the apparel of a promises of freedom and peace, and location, is perhaps not very exciting.
vaishnava nun. For Sister Nivedita protection for her children; and she Yet, while its personification of the
here is “a picture which bids fair to believed in him, and laid her hand in nation is one to which we are now
prove the beginning of a new age in his.” accustomed, the shift that has taken
Indian art.” She says: The story goes on: place here, from nation as goddess to
In this picture...we have a Some other children were roused a more earthly figure is crucial. A
combination of perfect refinement against him, by reason of his parallel can also be observed in Sri
with great creative imagination. robbing them of power and Aurobindo’s ways of looking at
Bharat Mata stands on the green interfering with the rights and laws Bharat Mata. Writing in 1920, he
earth. Behind her is the blue sky. that regulated their relations to each remarks,
Beneath the exquisite little feet is a other; for they feared that their …the Bharat Mata that we ritually
curved line of four misty white ancient heritage would pass away worshipped in the Congress was
lotuses. She has the four arms that for ever. But, still the mother artificially constructed, she was
always, to Indian thinking, indicate dreamed of peace and rest and the companion and favourite
the divine power. Her sari is severe, would not hear the children’s cry, mistress of the British, not our
even to Puritanism, in its enfolding but helped to subdue their mother…The day we have that
lines. And behind the noble waywardness, and all was quiet undivided vision of the image of
sincerity of eyes and brow we are again. But, the wayward children the mother…the independence,
awed by the presence of the broad loved not their new father and could unity and progress of India will
white halo. Shiksha-Diksha-Anna- not understand their mother. be facilitated.
Bastra, the four gifts of the The turning point of the story But Aurobindo warned that the
motherland to her children, she comes when vision had to be one that was not
36 MANUSHI
divided by religion. He concluded, times. Here, India’s most celebrated unchanged in the visual registers are
…if we hope to have a vision of rivers become the bearers of the goddess-like qualities of Bharat
the mother by invoking the indu’s prosperity and wealth. A similar Mata.
mother or establishing Hindu thought is evident in M.F. Husain’s Temples to a New Deity
nationalism, having made a sketch, specially created for The The institutionalised entry of the
cardinal error we would be Times of India’s special issue for the icon into the domain of religious
deprived of the full expression of fiftieth year of Indian independence practice goes back to the 1930s. In
our nationhood.8 (see figure 2). 1936, a Bharat Mata temple was built
India of the Villages In the 1920s, Bharat Mata’s in Benaras by Shiv Prashad Gupt and
Sumitranandan Pant’s famous representations take on sharper was inaugurated by none less than
poem, Bharat Mata, provides a political overtones. The inclusion of Mahatma Gandhi. The temple contains
different vision of romantic political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, no image of any god or goddess. It
nationalism. Here the image of Bharat and of scenes such as those of Bhagat has only a map of India set in marble
Mata is a rural one; Mother India is a Singh in prison, began to redefine the relief. Mahatma Gandhi said, “I hope
woman of the soil, worn with constructs of suffering in the semiotic this temple, which will serve as a
centuries of suffering, dispossessed space. A tendency can be seen to cosmopolitan platform for people of
and an alien even in her own home. In push Bharat Mata into the all religions, castes and creeds
its original, this poem employs the background, making her a kind of including Harijans, will go a great way
metaphors of the Ganges and the inspirational force for political in promoting religious unity, peace and
Yamuna as rivers of tears, figures. Another significant change love in the country.” 10 In the
symbolising the pain of the nation. In in the semiotic field was the Mahatma’s speech we see a concern
a post-Independence version, introduction of the tricolour flag. for the universal mother, not restricted
however, lines were added to reflect However, unlike in the literary to the mother that is India but the
the buoyant, resurgent mood of the treatments, what remained mother that is the earth.
The Times of India A little under fifty years later,
Swami Satyamitranand Giri founded a
Bharat Mata temple in Haridwar. The
consecration of this temple took place
on 15 May1983, followed six months
later by an ektamata yajna, a sacrifice
for unity, involving a six-week, all-India
tour of the image of the goddess. Both
these events were organised by the
Vishva Hindu Parishad. Unlike its
Benaras precursor, this temple
contains an anthropomorphic statue
of its deity. Here, Bharat Mata holds
a milk urn in one hand and sheaves of
grain in the other, and is accordingly
described in the temple guide book as
“signifying the white and green
revolution that India needs for
progress and prosperity.” The guide
book also tells us that, “The temple
serves to promote the devotional
attitude toward Bharat Mata,
something that historians and
mythological story teller may have
missed.”11
I look at these two temples as a
Figure 2: M.F. Hussain’s Golden Jubilee vision of Independent India process of the institutionalisation of a
particular form of nationalism. These
No.142 37
satire on the Boticelli Venus, depicted
Nehru as an elderly and avuncular
cherub, drawing a cover over the nude
form of the nation. (see figure 3). The
cartoon, with all its wit, can hardly be
termed asexual and this goes against
all stereotypical treatments of the
nation symbol.
Such cartoons provide a
counterfoil to images of Bharat Mata,
such as those here discussed, whose
symbolic value depends heavily upon
the religious vocabulary and practices
of this country. Heterogeneous modes
of engagement with the
representations of nation similarly
demand a search for non-modular and
fragmentary forms of the ways in which
the nation has been produced,
circulated and consumed.
Endnotes
1
See, Ramaswami, Sumathi. “Visualising
India’s Geo-Body: Globes, Maps,
Bodyscapes”, Sumathi Ramaswami (ed.),
Contributions to Indian Sociology, New
Series, vol.36, nos.1&2, January-August
Figure 3: Cartoonist Shankar’s take on socialism and Mother India 2002, pp:151-190.
2
The Times of India Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Nation and
Imagination”, Studies in Histroy, vol.15, no.2,
shrines to Bharat Mata frame not of Vaishano Devi, one of the most 1999, p.204.
merely the gaze of onlookers (as do popular goddess of twentieth century 3
See, Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger
posters and popular prints) but make north India. (ed.), The Invention of Traditions,Cambridge
University Press, 1983.
claims over the entire body of the Shifting the scopic register, one 4
Indira Choudhury, The Frail Hero and Virile
visitor. The moment one enters a can say that posters and calendars History, OUP, Delhi, 1998. p.99.
5
temple complex, the human body is, carry out this task at much more Jasodhara Bagchi, “Reprsenting Nationalism
: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial
potentially at least, transformed into ordinary moments of daily life. For Bengal”, Economic and Political Weekly, 20-
the body of a devotee. This instance, at the back of the RSS poster 27 October 1990, pp: WS-65-71.
6
transformative characteristic has discussed in the beginning of this Sister Nivedita, “Bharat Mata”, The
Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, Birth
sufficient ability to change the nature essay, a loop is attached, so that it can Centenary Publication, vol.III,Ramkrishna
of the icon, Bharat Mata itself. In the be properly displayed on a wall. This Sarda Mission, Calcutta,1967, p. 58.
7
Benaras and the Haridwar temples, we simple loop converts the poster into a Coomaraswami, Anand. “Bharat Mata”,
The Modern Review, April 1907, pp:369-71.
may see a shift in the locale of the wall-hanging, and, as a wall-hanging, 8
Cited by Bose,Sugata. “Nation as Mother:
image of Bharat Mata, from this text transforms the domestic into Representations and Contestations of ‘India’
nationalism drawing upon the the public sphere. in Bengali Literature and Culture, in Sugata
Bose and Ayesha Jalal (ed.), Nationalism,
vocabulary of religious cultures to A Different Framework Democracy and Development: State and
religious cultures trying to upgrade I have so far discussed the ways Politics in India, OUP, Delhi, 1999, p. 68.
9
themselves by mobilising resources Gandhi, Mahatma. “Speech at Bharat Mata
in which the icon of Bharat Mata has Mandir, Benaras”, The Collected Works of
from nationalism. travelled in history within a modular Mahatma Gandhi, vol.63, The Publication
The proliferation of Bharat Mata’s frame of deity and motherhood. Division, Delhi, 1976, p.388.
10
imagery as a member of the Hindu Mc Kean, Lise. “Bharat Mata: Mother India
However this framework, with its and Her Militant Matriots”, in Devi :
pantheon has other effective and fluid enphasis on the pure, sacred nature Goddesses of India, edited by John S.Hawley
popular registers. Her incorporation in of the Bharat Mata icon, is disrupted and Donna M.Wulff, Motilala Banarasidass
the long list of the gods and once we turn to a different visual Publishers, Delhi, 1998(1996), p. 263.
goddesses of the Hindu pantheon can register, the world of cartoons. The The author is a Ph.D. scholar at
be seen, for instance, on the web-site famous cartoonist Shankar, in a clever Jawaharlal Nehru University.
38 MANUSHI
