India’s national song Vande Mataram celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. It was on November 7, 1875, that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote the iconic song. As Sri Aurobindo rightly observed, viewing the country as a personified divinity, undoubtedly inspired the masses and strengthened their struggle for freedom. Seventy-five years after that struggle came to fruition, the image evoked by those lines remains a glorious one, and any Indian would be awestruck by its greatness of that image.

Here is the first stanza of the song, as translated by Sri Aurobindo.

Mother, I bow to thee!

Rich with thy hurrying streams,

Bright with thy orchard gleams,

Cool with thy winds of delight,

Dark fields waving, Mother of might,

Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams

Over thy branches and lordly streams, –

Clad in thy blossoming trees,

Mother, giver of ease,

Laughing low and sweet!

Mother, I kiss thy feet,

Speaker sweet and low!

Mother, to thee I bow.

As many might know, Vande Mataram is not the only patriotic song that gained popularity during the freedom movement. There are various poems and songs in many Indian languages that eulogize India. “Parukkulle Nalla Naatu," sang Subramania Bharati in Tamil — Our India is the best country in the world. “Bharatamenna per kettal abhimana poorithamakanam antharangam," wrote Vallathol Narayana Menon in Malayalam — Your heart should be filled with pride when you hear the very name of this country. “Sare Jahan Se Acha, Hindostan Hamara," sang Allama Muhammad Iqbal in Urdu — Our Hindustan is better than the entire world.

Yet none of these songs captured the attention and imagination of the entire nation like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram. From Lahore to Tuticorin, from Calcutta to Bombay, the song was sung, chanted, and invoked as a powerful slogan — it became a mantra on the lips of Indians at a time when they were defining their new political identity.

The song is at once a divine hymn and a powerful force that has echoed through time, leaving an indelible mark on the very identity of India. The idea of Bharat Mata owes much to this song. Sri Aurobindo observed that Bankim Chandra’s greatest service to the nation was in giving Indians a vision of their Mother. An intellectual idea of the motherland, he explained, cannot by........

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