Bharat Mata

Bharat Mata (Bhārat Mātā, Mother India) is a national personification of India as a mother goddess. She is commonly depicted dressed in a red or saffron-coloured sari and in more contemporary iterations, holding a national flag; she sometimes stands on a lotus and is accompanied by a lion.

The word Bharat Mata dates to late 19th century Bengal in modern literature. She was popularised by the Bengali language-novel Anandamath (1882), wherein she was depicted in a form inseparable from the Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali. After the controversial division of Bengal province in 1905, she was highlighted during the boycott of British-made goods organized by Sir Surendranath Bannerjee. In numerous protest meetings, she was invoked in the rallying cry Vande Mataram (I bow to the mother).

Bharat Mata was painted as a four-armed goddess by Abanindranath Tagore in 1904, in the style associated with the Bengal School of Art, in a form derived from typical depictions of Hindu goddesses. This painting is displayed in the Victoria Memorial Museum in Kolkata. By the late 19th century, maps of India produced by the British Raj, and based on the Great Trigonometrical Survey, had become widely available. Over the background of a map, Bharat Mata was depicted on the cover of the poet Subramania Bharati's Tamil language-magazine Vijaya in 1909. In the decades following, she appeared throughout India in popular art: in magazines, posters, and calendars, becoming a symbol of Indian nationalism.

There are a handful of Bharat Mata temples in India. The first was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in Varanasi in 1936. The temple has a large marble relief map of India on its floor, but originally lacked a murti (divine image used for worship). On its wall is displayed a poem written for the inauguration by the nationalist Hindi language-poet Maithili Sharan Gupt; it proclaims the temple to be open to all castes and religions. Most visitors to the temple are foreign tourists. Muslims and Sikhs have opposed the chanting of her name, because in Islam and Sikhism, God cannot be worshipped in human form.

The image of Bharat Mata formed with the Indian independence movement of the late 19th century. A play by Kiran Chandra Banerjee, Bharat Mata, was first performed in 1873. The play, set during the 1770 Bengal famine, depicts a woman and her husband who go to the forest and encounter rebels. A priest takes them to a temple where they are shown Bharat Mata. Thus they are inspired and lead a rebellion which results in the defeat of the British. The Manushi magazine story traces origin to a satirical work Unabimsa Purana or The Nineteenth Purana by Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay which was first published anonymously in 1866. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1882 wrote a novel Anandamath and introduced the hymn "Vande Mātaram", which soon became the song of the emerging freedom movement in India. As the British Raj created cartographic shape of India through the Geological Survey of India, the Indian nationalist developed it into an icon of nationalism.

In the 1920s, it became a more political image, sometimes including images of Mahatma Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. The Tiranga flag was also started being included during this period. In 1930s, the image entered in religious practice. The Bharat Mata temple was built in Varanasi in 1936 by Shiv Prashad Gupt and was inaugurated by Mahatma G. This temple does not have any statuary but only a marble relief of the map of India. Bipin Chandra Pal elaborated its meaning in idealizing and idealist terms, along with Hindu philosophical traditions and devotional practices. It represented an archaic spiritual essence, a transcendental idea of Universe as well as expressing Universal Hinduism and nationhood.

Abanindranath Tagore portrayed Bharat Mata as a four-armed Hindu goddess wearing saffron-colored robes, holding the manuscripts, sheaves of rice, a mala, and a white cloth. The image of Bharatmata was an icon to create nationalist feeling in Indians during the freedom struggle. Sister Nivedita, an admirer of the painting, opined that the picture was refined and imaginative, with Bharatmata standing on green earth and blue sky behind her; feet with four lotuses, four arms meaning divine power; white halo and sincere eyes; and gifts Shiksha-Diksha-Anna-Bastra of the motherland to her children. Poet Subramania Bharati saw Bharat Mata as Ganga, and identified her as Mahadevi.

In the book Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India, Kalyani Devaki Menon argues that "the vision of India as Bharat Mata has profound implications for the politics of Hindu nationalism" and that the depiction of India as a Hindu goddess implies that it is not just the patriotic but also the religious duty of all Hindus to participate in the nationalist struggle to defend the nation. This association has caused controversy with devout Muslims, whose belief in the oneness of God keeps them from assigning divinity to any god other than Allah.