(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
Manushi, Issue 142:
The image of the suffering mother, found in these lines from the popular Hindi novel,
Maila Anchal, is undoubtedly the most central among those visualisations which have shaped
and reshaped national identities, spanning both pre- and post-colonial India. As we see in
the above-quoted example, the crucial aspect of this image of the nation as body is that the
body involved is neither anonymous nor abstract. It is a familiar one, revered and adored,
one which evokes profound memories, and one which, at this narrative moment, is in grave
distress. Even in deep pain, this body commands respect. What is also worth pointing out is
that this body is presented as perishable, in the most literal sense of the word.
We have a number of instances where the anthropomorphic form of the
nation, Bharat Mata, has been shown along with India's cartographic form, its map [1]. A
popular wall calendar of the Hindu right wing organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) is one such example. We can divide this poster into three main subtexts. These are a)
the central image; b) a quotation attributed to a certain Swami Ramtirth, including a
passport-size photograph of the man; and c) the photograph of RSS supremo Rajju Bhaiya and
the announcement of an upcoming mass meeting in New Delhi.
In the central image, we see a woman occupying the map of the nation, giving the nation as
body a very tangible female form. We have here an image which takes its meanings from a wide
range of cultural signifiers: the smiling face of the goddess standing in front of her lion,
looking directly into the gaze of onlookers. In the second subtext, however, the body of the
nation has been defined in a very systematic and anatomical fashion. The cultural
signifiers of the visual image have been provided with a set of concrete meanings and
contexts. The quotation says:
I am India. The Indian nation is my body. Kanyakumari is my foot and the Himalayas my
head. The Ganges flow from my thighs. My left leg is the Coromandal Coast, my right is the
Coast of Malabar. I am this entire land. East and West are my arms. How wondrous is my form!
When I walk I sense all India moves with me. When I speak, India speaks with me. I am India.
I am Truth, I am God, I am Beauty.
There is an interesting contradiction here between the first and second subtexts of this
frame. Note the use of masculine gender in the words in bold face that follow: "Jab main
chalta hoon to sochata hoon ki pura Bharatvarsh chal raha hai. Jab bolta hoon to sochata
hoon ki pura Bharat bol raha hai." The earlier subtext has given us to believe that that the
body of the nation is female; however, the second subtext makes it very clear that the body
in consideration is male.
Religion and nationhood
The Bharat Mata icon and its various scopic regimes are, obviously, quite mythical. In
India, the imaginary bonding between nation and citizen is often mediated in and through
religion. Writing on "Nation and Imagination", Dipesh Chakrabarty has questioned the use of
the word 'imagination' for the phenomenon of 'seeing the nation' 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 Mukhopadhyay, first published
anonymously in 1866. Bharat Mata is identified in this text as Adhi-Bharati, the widow of
Arya Swami, the embodiment of all that is essentially 'Aryan'. The image of the dispossessed
motherland also found form in Kiran Chandra Bandyopadhyay's play, Bharat Mata, first
performed in 1873. The play influentially entered into nationalist memory in its early
phase. [4]
The landmark intervention in the history of this symbol was Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's
Ananda Math. In this classic text, the figure of the mother has an evolutionary biography
marked in three phases. The journey takes place from the figure of 'mother as she was in the
past' to 'mother in the present' who still retains the power to transform herself into
'mother as she will become in the future'. In her present form she is Kali, supposedly
haunting the cremation grounds and dancing on Shiva's chest, signifying the reversal of
order and suggesting a parallel between the land of Bharat and a cremation ground. The final
image is that of Durga, the ten armed mother, the symbol of power with all her shining
weapons. Such representations suggest a nascent nationalism in the process of widening its
popular appeal by appropriating prevalent religious culture. Jasodhara Bagchi also points
out that Ananda Math was Bankim's response to the positivist ideology of order and
progress. [5]
Very soon the terms of engagement and iconographic vocabulary shifted to the form of the
goddess. The artist Abanindranath Tagore portrayed Bharat Mata as Lakshmi, the goddess of
prosperity and wealth, clad in the apparel of a vaishnava nun. For Sister Nivedita here is
"a picture which bids fair to prove the beginning of a new age in Indian art." She says:
In this picture...we have a combination of perfect refinement with great creative
imagination. Bharat Mata stands on the green earth. Behind her is the blue sky. Beneath the
exquisite little feet is a curved line of four misty white lotuses. She has the four arms
that always, to Indian thinking, indicate the divine power. Her sari is severe, even to
Puritanism, in its enfolding lines. And behind the noble sincerity of eyes and brow we are
awed by the presence of the broad white halo. Shiksha-Diksha-Anna-Bastra, the four gifts of
the motherland to her children, she offers in her four hands? What [Tagore] sees in Her is
made clear to all of us. Spirit of the motherland, giver of all good, yet eternally
virgin.... The misty lotuses and the white light set Her apart from the common world, as
much as the four arms, and Her infinite love. And yet in every detail, of "Shankha"
bracelet, and close veiling garment, of bare feet, and open, sincere expression, is she not
after all, our very own, heart of our heart, at once mother and daughter of the Indian land,
even as to the Rishis of old was Ushabala, in her Indian girlhood, daughter of the dawn? [6]
From Goddess to Mother
The post-swadeshi period witnessed another shift in imaging India, from goddess-figure to
housewife and mother, as seen in a short story entitled Bharat Mata by Anand Coomarswami.
This is a story of "a tall, fair and young woman". She was "wealthy and many had sought her
hand, and of these, one whom she loved least had possessed her body for many years; and now
there came another and stranger wooer with promises of freedom and peace, and protection for
her children; and she believed in him, and laid her hand in his."
The story goes on: Some other children were roused against him, by reason of his robbing
them of power and interfering with the rights and laws that regulated their relations to
each other; for they feared that their ancient heritage would pass away for ever. But, still
the mother dreamed of peace and rest and would not hear the children's cry, but helped to
subdue their waywardness, and all was quiet again. But, the wayward children loved not their
new father and could not understand their mother.
In India, the imaginary bonding between nation and citizen is often mediated in and through
religion. 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.
But, the girl grew strong, and would carry little of her father's tyranny, and she was
mother to the children of the children who came before her, and she was called the mother by
all?" Her children rose in revolt against their father but were subdued. The mother helped
her children this time and she left the foreign lord, and when the foreign lord would have
stopped it, she was not there, but elsewhere; and it seemed that she was neither here, nor
there, but everywhere.
And the writer concludes philosophically, "And this tale is yet unfinished; but the ending
is not afar off, and may be foreseen." [7]
Ninety years after its publication, this story, read from a post-colonial location, is
perhaps not very exciting. Yet, while its personification of the nation is one to which we
are now accustomed, the shift that has taken place here, from nation as goddess to a more
earthly figure is crucial. A parallel can also be observed in Sri Aurobindo's ways of
looking at Bharat Mata. Writing in 1920, he remarks,
... the Bharat Mata that we ritually worshipped in the Congress was artificially
constructed, she was the companion and favourite mistress of the British, not our mother
.... The day we have that undivided vision of the image of the mother, the independence,
unity and progress of India will be facilitated.
But Aurobindo warned that the vision had to be one that was not divided by religion. He
concluded, "... if we hope to have a vision of the mother by invoking the indu's mother or
establishing Hindu nationalism, having made a cardinal error we would be deprived of the
full expression of our nationhood. [8]
India of the villages
In the 1920s, Bharat Mata's representations take on sharper political overtones. The
inclusion of political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, and of scenes such as those of Bhagat
Singh in prison, began to redefine the constructs of suffering in the semiotic space. [9] A
tendency can be seen to push Bharat Mata into the background, making her a kind of
inspirational force for political figures. Another significant change in the semiotic field
was the introduction of the tricolour flag. However, unlike in the literary treatments,
what remained unchanged in the visual registers are the goddess-like qualities of Bharat
Mata.
Temples to a new deity
The institutionalised entry of the icon into the domain of religious practice goes back to
the 1930s. In 1936, a Bharat Mata temple was built in Benaras by Shiv Prashad Gupt and was
inaugurated by none less than Mahatma Gandhi. The temple contains no image of any god or
goddess. It has only a map of India set in marble relief. Mahatma Gandhi said, "I hope this
temple, which will serve as a cosmopolitan platform for people of all religions, castes and
creeds including Harijans, will go a great way in promoting religious unity, peace and love
in the country." [10] In the Mahatma's speech we see a concern for the universal mother,
not
restricted to the mother that is India but the mother that is the earth.
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 process of the institutionalisation of a particular form of
nationalism. These shrines to Bharat Mata frame not merely the gaze of onlookers (as do
posters and popular prints) but make claims over the entire body of the visitor. The moment
one enters a temple complex, the human body is, potentially at least, transformed into the
body of a devotee. This transformative characteristic has sufficient ability to change the
nature of the icon, Bharat Mata itself. In the Benaras and the Haridwar temples, we may see
a shift in the locale of the image of Bharat Mata, from nationalism drawing upon the
vocabulary of religious cultures to religious cultures trying to upgrade themselves by
mobilising resources from nationalism.
The proliferation of Bharat Mata's imagery as a member of the Hindu pantheon has other
effective and fluid popular registers. Her incorporation in the long list of the gods and
goddesses of the Hindu pantheon can be seen, for instance, on the web-site of Vaishano Devi,
one of the most popular goddess of twentieth century north India.
Shifting the scopic register, one can say that posters and calendars carry out this task at
much more ordinary moments of daily life. For instance, at the back of the RSS poster
discussed in the beginning of this essay, a loop is attached, so that it can be properly
displayed on a wall. This simple loop converts the poster into a wall-hanging, and, as a
wall-hanging, this text transforms the domestic into the public sphere.
A different framework
I have so far discussed the ways in which the icon of Bharat Mata has travelled in history
within a modular frame of deity and motherhood. However this framework, with its enphasis on
the pure, sacred nature of the Bharat Mata icon, is disrupted once we turn to a different
visual register, the world of cartoons. The famous cartoonist Shankar, in a clever satire on
the Boticelli Venus, depicted Nehru as an elderly and avuncular cherub, drawing a cover over
the nude form of the nation. 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."
Sadan Jha
The author is a Ph.D. scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Endnotes
The life and times of Bharat Mata
The image of the dispossessed motherland found form in Kiran Chandra
Bandyopadhyay's
1873 play, Bharat Mata, that influentially entered into early nationalist
memory.
But very soon the terms of engagement and iconographic vocabulary shifted to
the form of the goddess.
Sadan Jha
traces the emergence of nationalism as invented history.
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 third subtext puts the poster in a contextual frame. This is an announcement of the
arrival of R.S.S. supremo, Rajju Bhaiya in New Delhi. His schedule has been announced
according to the Vikram Samvat, despite the fact that this calendar is not in general use.
This would lead one to suppose that the objectives of this poster go much further than its
temporal frame, that is the provision of information about a public event. A concession is,
however, also made to the Christian or Common Era calendar perhaps simply because it would
be more expedient.
The turning point of the story comes when [the] mother bore a child to the foreign lord,
and
he was pleased there at, and deemed that she (for it was a girl) should be a young woman
after his own heart, even as the daughters of his own people, and she should be fair and
wealthy, and a bride for a son of his people. However, when this child was born, the mother
was roused from her dream.
Sumitranandan Pant's famous poem, Bharat Mata, provides a different vision of romantic
nationalism. Here the image of Bharat Mata is a rural one; Mother India is a woman of the
soil, worn with centuries of suffering, dispossessed and an alien even in her own home. In
its original, this poem employs the metaphors of the Ganges and the Yamuna as rivers of
tears, symbolising the pain of the nation. In a post-Independence version, however, lines
were added to reflect the buoyant, resurgent mood of the times. Here, India's most
celebrated rivers become the bearers of prosperity and wealth. A similar thought is evident
in M.F. Husain's sketch, specially created for The Times of India's special issue for the
fiftieth year of Indian independence.
Manushi, Issue 142
(published August 2004 in India Together)
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