VANDE MATARAM: A MANTRA TO STIR THE NATION'S SOUL

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's poem should not be seen through narrow parochial or religious eyes. It harkens to a higher ideal of nationhood that's relevant even today

- MAKARAND R PARANJAPE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi must be congratulated for making the 150th anniversary of 'Vande mataram', the song that stirred the soul of a fallen nation, into a State celebration. For what is a State any State which has no statement to make? Respect, even reverence, for one's motherland is the least, some would even say the utmost, Indian statement.

For Ma Bharati is not just a country, a political union, a nation, or even a state of mind. She is nothing short of a force of consciousness. In invoking her, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, unified and activated the dormant soul of a defeated people, so enwrapped in darkness that it needed nothing less than a new mantra, almost magical in its incantatory power, to agitate it into awakening.

If I sound so enthusiastic, even laudatory to the point of being reverential, it is because I have just re-read and inwardly recited Bankim's poem, India's national song. Yes, it was so affirmed by India's Constituent Assembly in 1950, the same body that gave us our Constitution. Let me confess that I have never sung or listened to 'Vande mataram' without being deeply moved, even to tears. And today is no exception.