A lot of planning has apparently gone into marking the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, the Sanskrit-Bengali song by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee hailing the country as mother. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently inaugurated the year-long celebrations on November 7 in New Delhi. The choice of the date is, however, rather apocryphal.

The claim that Bankim Chandra wrote the song on November 7, 1875, which, being Kartik Shukla Navami, celebrated as Jagaddhatri Puja in Bengal, is not substantiated by any definite finding. The claim was apparently first advanced by Amerandra Laxman Gadgil in his book, Mataram: The Song Perennial (1978), based on “information recently published" (P.7), which he chose not to expound.

The columnist found that biographers of Bankim Chandra and historians have ascribed no definite date to the penning of the song. SM Mitra (1908) says Bankim Chandra composed Vande Mataram in “a fit of patriotic excitement after a good hearty dinner, which he always enjoyed. It was set to Hindu music, known as Mallār-Kawāli-Tāl" (Indian Problems, P.66).

P Thankappan Nair (1959), the eminent Malayali researcher on Calcutta, says that the song was composed in September 1875, during a short train journey from Sealdah Railway Station in Calcutta to Naihati, from where his house in Kanthalpara was a matter of walk. “The poet in Bankim Chandra," says Nair, “was bewitched in the course of the journey by the beauty of Bengal countryside with its lush green vegetation, colourful flowers swaying in the breeze to the call of gurgling streams and tanks" (Indian National Songs and Symbols, P.32). Bankim Chandra apparently had a vision of the primeval mother, and wrote Vande Mataram on a piece of paper on reaching home.

Bankim Chandra’s essay “Amar Durgotsav" (My Durga Worship), which forms a chapter in his experimental book Kamalakanter Daptar, first appeared in Kartik, 1281 Bengali Era (November 1774) issue of the literary journal Bangadarshan (estd.1872). It might be recalled that Bankim Chandra was the founding editor of this journal. While My Durga Worship anticipated the ideas lyrically expressed in Vande Mataram, and contains a hymn mentioning Jagaddhatri, it would be presumptuous to attribute Vande Mataram to the Jagaddhatri Puja the following year.

As Osho (Acharya Rajnish), commenting on the extreme coincidence of Gautam Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and demise on the same lunar day (Vaishak Full Moon), in different years, said it is mythical and symbolic rather than historical. Since Buddha represented fullness of consciousness, one expects him to be born, enlightened, and departing on a full moon. Being born on any other day, even if historically true, would be inconsistent with our sentiments. Similarly, linking Jagaddhatri Puja with Bankim Chandra’s writing of Vande Mataram might be such an incident of mythmaking. It is an act of spirit triumphing over the fact.

Though the song was written in 1875, it was never independently published by Bankim Chandra. It was first published as part of the Anandamath, the Bengali historical fiction serialised in Bangadarshan from Chaitra, 1287 Bengali Era (April 1881) to Jyestha, 1289 Bengali Era (May 1882) before being published in the form of a book in 1882.

Bankim Chandra had predicted that Vande Mataram would become a delayed hit. His nephew and biographer, Sachischandra Chatterjee, informs that a few years prior to his death, Bankim Chandra had told........

© News18