The original conception of Bharat Mata is a work painted by the Indian painter Abanindranath Tagore in 1905. The work depicts a saffron clad woman, dressed like a sadhvi, holding a book, sheaves of paddy, a piece of white cloth and a rudraksha garland in her four hands.
“Historian Sumathi Ramaswamy’s seminal book “The Goddess and the Nation, Mapping Mother India” shows how Bharat Mata has been reimagined over the years, going from a benign, giving figure or a tragedienne to a martyr and often an ultra-nationalist warrior.
Among the first of these was the famous rendering by Abanindranath Tagore in 1905. His Bharat Mata is a four-armed woman dressed like a sadhvi with a beatific look on her face. But in mass-produced calendar images, as Ramaswamy points out, Mother India did not sport the ascetic look; instead, she wore vivid, flowing saris, often sported a jewelled crown, carried arms (cover image) and was flanked by roaring lions.
A poster published around 1950 and signed by Sikh painter Sobha Singh shows Bharat Mata flanked by a lion (page 64, figure 37). Ramaswamy theorizes that the number of lions flanking her — a predator associated both with Durga and the British Empire — and their ferocity increased as the freedom movement headed towards a successful conclusion. With the passage of time, Mother India was being mapped along with towering figures of the freedome movement such as Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, Nehru and Sardar Patel, paying obeisance, cutting her shackles and often sitting on her lap. This infantilized position is given to both Bose (page 213, figure 105) and Gandhi.”
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru explains 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' in "Discovery of India".
"Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me: Bharat Mata ki Jai --Victory to Mother India !!
I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, _who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they wanted?_
My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and at me. I persisted in my questioning.
At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, would say that it was the dharti, the good earth of India, that they meant.
What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India?
And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more.
The mountains and 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. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata,and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery._
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