Listen to Vande Mataram!
By Niticentral Staff on August 8, 2013
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s ode to the motherland has moved patriotic hearts for generations. We here atNiti Central are proud of this national treasure. Listen to the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpjHd1R5JXo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpjHd1R5JXo
Vande Mataram is spirit of India
BSP MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq continues with his anti-national rants. Barq says he will abstain from Parliament each time Vande Mataram is being played citing the reason that his religion doesn’t permit him to sing the song. Earlier in May, the Muslim MP walked of the House when Vande Mataram was being sung.
Ahead of centenary celebration of the song Vande Mataram in 2006, Islamic seminary Darul Uloom had issued a fatwa describing the recitation of Vande Mataram as “anti-Islamic”. The ground it cited was that the verses of the national song are against the tenets of Islam. In the same year Islamic body Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind at its 30th General Session in Deoband had upheld Darul Uloom’s edict on Vande Mataram.
Because, the song is an ode to Mother India and envisions all citizens as its children, the Muslim fanatics argue that, “This is against the fundamental ethos of Islam.” Every time the Muslim extremists float the argument, the secular fundamentalists second them with their illogical rationales saying the singing of the national song should be made optional.
But nationalist Muslims sharply differ with what anti-national Islamists profess and what secular jholawalassay about the national song. Music maestro AR Rahman, in his tribute to Mother India in the form of the music album Ma Tujhe Salam gave Vande Mataram a new dimension. Arif Mohammed Khan, who was a long-time Member of Parliament, even wrote an Urdu translation of Vande Mataram.
The bogus debate over Vande Mataram dates back to a time a century ago. It was this very same debate which had clouded the debate over the national song during the pre-independence era. The Muslim League’s separatist agenda had also strongly objected to Vande Mataram.
The evocative anthem — penned by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, first appeared in his book Anandmath, published in the year 1882 — years after it was actually written. The song emerged as a hymn for India’s freedom movement. Mahatma Gandhi associated the song with the purest national spirit. Aurobindo Ghosh said it was a mantra of the new religion of patriotism. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in his book Glorious Thoughts, “Vande Mataram! These are the magic words which will open the door of his iron safe, break through the walls of his strong room, and confound the hearts of those who are disloyal to its call to sayVande Mataram.”
On the first such political occasion, it was Tagore who sang Vande Mataram in the Calcutta Congress Session of 1896. Dakhina Charan Sen sang it five years later in another session of Congress at Calcutta. Lala Lajpat Rai started Vande Mataram journal from Lahore. Later, Aurobindo Ghosh helped popularising the song through another journal Vande Mataram which he edited. An editorial in the journal exhorted, “In every village, every town Anandamath must be established. Then the Mother’s name will be uttered by crores of throats and every side will resound Vande Mataram.”
Hiralal Sen made India’s first political film in 1905 which concluded with the chant Vande Mataram. Matangini Hazra’s last words as she was shot to death by the Crown police were Vande Mataram. In 1907, Bhikaiji Cama unfurled the first version of India’s national flag in Stuttgart, Germany with Vande Mataram written on its middle band.
From Mahatma Gandhi to Shubhash Chandra Bose, Vande Mataram was a mantra of India’s independent struggle. Pre-independence Indian society left no stones unturned in their endeavours to make this very song into a national slogan, reaching as far as England. It was the Congress which adopted Vande Mataramas the National Song at its Varanasi session on September 7, 1905.
It was Vande Mataram which was voted as one of the 10 most favourite songs of the world of all times by BBC World Service radio poll in 2003. Mornings in India begin with All India Radio playing the tune of Vande Mataram, believed to be composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Vande Mataram is dedicated to Mother India. Naturally therefore, it is the song of the Indian heart. It is a symbol of nation and nationhood. The tune of Vande Mataram has inspired lives and times. The chanting of Vande Mataram brings a sense of pride to every Indian nationalist.
The likes of Shafiqur Rahman Barq and his secularist ilk, by insulting Vande Mataram, assault the very idea of India. They are insulting the norms of Indian Constitution. Be aware. They are blowing a bugle of a war against the nation.
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: Sage who gave us the Vande Mataram mantra
By Priyadarshi Dutta on June 27, 2013
June 27 marks the 175th Birth Anniversary of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894). He is recognised as the author of the novel Ananda Math and the composer of Vande Mataram that appears therein. The enduring popularity of Vande Mataram is a post-Bankim development. One owes it to the revolutionary movement in Bengal, occasioned by the partition of the province in 1905 by Lord Curzon. Vande Mataram captured the imagination of the nation. The revolutionaries and the Congress, otherwise diametrically opposed, were united in acknowledging it as the anthem of nationalism.It is doubtful whether Bankim would have preferred his laurels to rest solely upon Ananda Math. He wrote some 14 well-known novels in Bengali beside numerous essays. He was a novelist, the first Indian writer of literary fiction. The rise of ‘novel’ refers to a sea change in literary scenario of India. It was made possible by prose displacing verse as the standard form of literature in India. Until the advent of English, hardly any prose literature existed in any Indian language. Raja Ram Mohun Roy (1772-1831), is believed to be the first Indian practitioner of prose. He was a prolific essayist, journalist and polemicist. If Roy readied the language for quality non-fiction, Bankim did the same with fiction.
Bankim’s first novel Raj Mohan’s Wife (1864) was in English. But soon, he shifted over to Bengali producingDurgesh Nandini (1865). Set in 1590s, against the backdrop of Akbar’s Rajput commander Man Singh trying to subdue Pathan rulers of Bengal, it is a historical romance. It deals with the love triangle between Jagat Singh (son of Man Singh), Tilottama, daughter of a Bengali feudal lord and Ayesha, daughter of a rebel Pathan leader. Its publication heralded a new era, creating a sensation amongst Bengali readers.
Durgesh Nandini, a historical novel, did something more. It introduced the themes of Rajput chivalry into Bengal and later carried forward by RC Dutt, Tagore and DL Roy arguably preparing Bengal for revolutionary movement. Bankim develops the theme of Rajput chivalry in his eponymous novel Raj Singha(1882). Raj Singh was the grandson of iconic Maharana Pratap.
Bankim perhaps needed to return to history repeatedly, because he was dying to find heroism amongst his contemporaries. Bankim chisels out the Hindu tradition of chivalry in his novels. He made no secret of his extreme dislike for Muslim tyranny. He makes it evident in Ananda Math (1882), a fiction based on amalgamation of several historical leads. Though his band of patriotic monks prevails against the Muslims, they fail to dislodge the British. Bankim pontificates that the destruction of Muslim hegemony was liberation for the Hindus. Hindus must pass through the experience of British rule that a brutalised Hinduism might be reinvigorated.
Anand Math (1952) – Vande Mataram Sujlam Suflam
But Bankim did not overlook the ills of the Hindus. He was keenly aware of the malpractices and abuses in contemporary Hindu society of Bengal. This comes across in his novels like Bishbriksha (Poison Tree) andDevi Chaudharani and many more. Bankim depicted the moral profligacy and illicit relations in the society. But he never conferred moral legitimacy upon them.
Bankim was also an accomplished essayist. Between 1872 and 1876, he edited the magazineBangadarshan, which set new standards of scholarship. He showed that essays need not be combination of certain facts and theories. They can be products of profound philosophy, understanding of historical perspective and literary excellence. Bankim’s essays and literary criticism also featured in magazines likeBhramar, Nabajiban and Prachar. These essays were later compiled in two volumes of Vividha Prabandha(collected essays).
Bankim was a product of the 19th century Bengal Renaissance. The developments in Bengali literature set standard for other Indian languages. The works of Bankim had been translated into nearly all Indian languages. But it is a pity that Bankim’s legacy was later trimmed down in his home province by the Leftists. In the 20th century, Tagore’s universalism grew upon Bengali psyche more than Bankim’s conservatism.
Sri Aurobindo, in his book Bankim, Tilak and Dayanand, described Bankim was a Rishi (Seer) who gave the nation a mantra — Vande Mataram. Aurobindo puts Bankim amongst the nation-builders. Bankim, Aurobindo feels, had divined the political needs of his nation. “He, first of our great publicists, understood the hollowness and in-utility of the method of political agitation which prevailed in his time and exposed it with merciless satire in his Lokarahasya and Kamalakanter Daptar. But he was not satisfied merely with destructive criticism, he had a positive vision of what was needed for the salvation of the country. He saw that the force from above must be met by a mightier reacting force from below,- the strength of repression by an insurgent national strength. He bade us leave the canine method of agitation for the leonine. The Mother of his vision held trenchant steel in her twice seventy million hands and not the bowl of the mendicant.”