: The appropriation of cultural creations for political purposes may be inevitable, but it should not happen in a state of arrogant ignorance. The low level of knowledge now on display in the statements and actions of many political parties in respect of the song, Vande Mataram, is surprising. It is surprising because the song has been part of the language of Indian politics for over a century. At this moment we see a rerun of an old series of actions and reactions intended to stage an enactment of identity assertions.
The traditional appeal of the captivating lyric, celebrating the beauty of the motherland, remains as strong as ever so far as the general public is concerned. One evidence of this is its popularity set to music composed by A.R. Rahman. And yet political squabbles over the song continue. Coverage in the electronic media provides entertainment in juxtaposing the so-called Hindu and Muslim points of view, a mode of presentation which allows no other reading of the song. Actually the meanings read into the poem have differed widely in the 130 years since it was written. In terms of the meanings thus attributed there are about five different phases.
In the beginning were just the words. Reportedly one of the leading defenders of the song and of Hindutva has said that the song was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to honour those who sacrificed their lives for the country. To defend the truth about the song from such defenders it needs to be said that when Bankim first wrote it in the early 1870s it was just a beautiful hymn to the motherland, richly-watered, richly-fruited, dark with the crops of the harvests, sweet of laughter, sweet of speech, the giver of bliss. For several years these first two stanzas remained unpublished. In 1881 this poem was included by Bankim in the novel, Anandamath, and now it was expanded to endow the motherland with militant religious symbolism as the context of the narrative demanded.
However, the icon of the motherland, “terrible with the clamour of seventy million throats”, likened to “Durga holding ten weapons of war” etc, entered the public imagination much later. This was from the beginning of Bengal’s Swadeshi agitation in 1905. It was sung in the Congress session in Benaras in 1905 (music composed by Tagore), in anti-Partition processions in Calcutta led by Tagore, in meetings addressed by Aurobindo...
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
