Vande Mataram. Just two words, yet they carry profound emotion — patriotism, devotion to the motherland, and national pride. Alongside the National Anthem, these words have become one of the most widely recognised patriotic chants across India. But in essence, Vande Mataram is a mantra — a mantra of patriotism. From the very beginning, it emerged as a voice of protest and a slogan of resistance.

To understand this, we need to return to the second half of the 19th century — India after the Great Rebellion of 1857. Power transitioned from the East India Company to the British Crown. Political and cultural consciousness among Indians was intensifying. Across Bengal and the rest of India — except within certain sections of the Muslim community, a community often excluded from or actively resistant to that emerging cultural renaissance — nationalist feelings were growing. This historical reality is important even today for those who perceive Vande Mataram as exclusionary.

In Indian thought, religion and society have never been separate concepts. In the Sanatana Hindu imagination, the nation is revered as a mother — much like the earth itself. Hence, in Indian tradition, bowing to the land is viewed as a duty. Against this backdrop, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, in 1875, created an extraordinary mantra blending Sanskrit and Bengali to invoke the image of the Motherland. Seven years later, in 1882, he incorporated the song into his novel Anandamath. The character Bhavananda envisions the motherland as a divine figure. In the novel, the Sanyasi rebels sing Vande Mataram with deep emotion, drawing inspiration from it. The song recalled the country’s lost glory and lamented its present condition under colonial rule. Gradually, Vande Mataram transformed from a song into a mantra.

The distinction between a song and a mantra is significant. A........

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