The concept of Bharat Mata was visualised for the first time around 120 years ago when the renowned Bengali artist, Abanindranath Tagore, brother of writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, put on paper the image of a four-armed, saffron-robed goddess. The concept itself had made its appearance years earlier, in 1882, in the iconic Bengali novel Anand Math, authored by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.
In the post-independence period, for organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) it evolved from anti-colonial resistance imagery to one that represents Hindu nationalism. When the Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar chose to feature the image of the RSS version of Bharat Mata in official events, the state government saw it as a deliberate attempt to impose Hindu religious imagery into secular institutions.
On June 5, World Environment Day, Kerala’s Minister for Agriculture, P Prasad skipped the celebrations at Raj Bhavan after he learned that a picture of Bharat Mata with a saffron flag was going to be honoured. Even before the row over the incident died down, the Minister of Education V Sivankutty, walked away from another official event where Arlekar was found paying floral tribute to a Bharat Mata portrait.
On June 25, the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, the display of the ‘Bharat Mata’ image on the dais of the Kerala University Senate Hall, where Arlekar was scheduled to attend a book launch led to another flashpoint as scores of college students protested.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stood by his ministers, proclaiming that the symbols displayed at state functions should be in tune with the Constitution. The Raj Bhavan should not be used to propagate the political agenda of the RSS, he said.
The Congress, the biggest rival of the BJP at the national level, too voiced its displeasure, calling the Left government’s protest too meek.
The governor in his letter to the CM, said there was no political or religious connection to the idea of Bharat Mata and called Sivankutty's demeanour disrespectful.
The CM responded, urging Arlekar to ensure that only the national flag and emblem are displayed during official events held at Raj Bhavan as the display of any other flag or symbol would amount to disrespecting national symbols.
The origins of Bharat Mata
Sadan Jha, an associate professor at the Centre for Social Studies, in a research paper traces the genealogy of the figure of Bharat Mata 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,” Sadan Jha writes.
Then came the Anand Math and later Abanindranath Tagore’s visual representation where Bharat Mata transformed into a goddess. Abanindranath’s Bharat Mata is a saffron-clad woman, a sadhvi-like figure who holds a book, sheaves of paddy, a piece of white cloth and a rudraksha garland, one each in her four arms.
Sadan notes that the image shifted from a goddess figure to housewife and mother in the post-swadeshi period (as seen in a story titled Bharat Mata by Anand Coomarswami). In the 1920s, the representations took a sharper political tone, but continued to retain the goddess-like qualities, he writes.
The image popularised by organisations like the RSS features a goddess-like woman with a saffron flag beside a roaring lion.
PDT Achary, former general secretary of the Lok Sabha, writing in his column for The Hindu, argues that no such picture has been recognised by the Constitution or the law. It cannot, he argues, therefore, be part of an official government function. Neither can the Governor impose it or force others to pay tribute.
Ajith Kanna, Professor at the School of Language Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said it was Banga Mata and not Bharat Mata that was conceptualised by Bakim Chandra Chatterjee. “It evolved into Bharat Mata over the years. We don’t know who is behind the metamorphosis. But it makes sense that it came out of Bengal, which was the headquarters of the East India Company,” he said.
The picture of the Bharat Mata that is being propagated today bears no resemblance to Banga Mata, he said.
“It is nothing like the original image and even if it is the original Banga Mata, it is not correct to use the idol at a state function. I should think that even the Chief Minister of West Bengal – where the concept originated from – should object to it. It is no surprise that the Kerala minister walked away. The governor is expected to be neutral, and clearly, the Bharat Mata is designed as a symbol of Hinduism. It is not right to keep it, just as it is not right to keep a picture of Jesus Christ in such an event. No religious symbols should be present,” said Ajith Kanna.
Who owns Bharat Mata?
M Rajivlochan, retired professor of history at Panjab University, said the concept of Bharat Mata is in line with the popular European belief of associating homeland with the feminine, as seen during the French Revolution.
He theorises that the idea comes from the long tradition of brave women in India, who step in at times of crisis.
"In India, in times of trouble, people reached out to women for protection and not to men. Under the circumstances, towards the end of the 19th century, when the country was completely despondent (recall that over 5 million had been killed in north India in the aftermath of the Mutiny of 1857, entire villages simply wiped out of history), men in India turned to a female conception of the land-- Bharat Mata," he said.
In Discovery of India Jawaharlal Nehru asks this question, who is Bharat Mata or Mother India, whose victory people greeted him with? When people answered that it was about land, he would say it was that and much more.
“The mountains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people.”
Nehru has also written: “Does the beautiful lady of our imaginations represent the bare-bodied and bent workers in the fields and factories? Or the small group of those who have from ages past crushed the masses and exploited them, imposed cruel customs on them and made many of them even untouchable?"