From ‘national song’ to ‘modern anthem’ – the journey of Vande Mataram

In the last 100 years, ‘Vande Mataram’ has often found itself caught in a crossfire, reflecting the intersection of religion, politics, and culture. We look at the poem from being a rallying call for freedom to a modern anthem and the controversies surrounding it.

Birth of a poem

In the 1870s, about 35 km north of Calcutta — in Chinsurah on the banks of the river Hooghly — Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, deputy collector of Jessore under the British government, sat in an ivory-hued house (now called Bankim Bhawan) and wrote Bande Mataram (“I pray/bow down to thee, Mother”). This poetic identification with Bengal, written in Bengali and Sanskrit, was inspired by the Sanyasi Rebellion, one of the earliest uprisings agains the British rule.

First published in his own literary magazine ‘Bangadarshan’ to fill up a blank page, the poem eventually ended up becoming one of the significant highlights of the Bengal Renaissance and also found itself in Chatterjee’s ‘Anandmath’ — a book about the Sanyasi Uprising, written after three famines ravaged Bengal. Set during the British rule and the Bengal famine of 1770, it was about a group of monks fighting against colonial rule and the Muslim rulers in Bengal.

Following the novel, ‘Vande Mataram’ became a rallying cry for the freedom movement. Noted historian R.C. Majumdar wrote of the book: “The main theme of the novel inspired the Bengali youths to supreme self-sacrifice during the hectic days of the Swadeshi movement.”

Its verses instantly struck a chord. People used it as a greeting as much as they did during the lathi blows and public meetings around the freedom movement. The British considered it seditious.

Controversial past and present

‘Vande Mataram’ has been a matter of discord for decades now. During the freedom movement, the song became a rallying cry for unity, but some from the Muslim community felt estranged by the prominent Hindu symbolic representation of Goddess Kali and Durga as the motherland.

In 1937, many leaders from the Muslim League as well as those from the Indian National Congress felt that it was not secular enough. In the national movement that sought to unite Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and others under a common flag, the new political context made it problematic.

Therefore, a compromise was reached to only have the first two stanzas. In the Congress Working Committee statement from October 28,1937, which is also included in ‘The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi’, Gandhi wrote of the song, “The other stanzas in the song are little known and hardly ever sung. They contain certain allusions and a religious ideology which may not be in keeping with the ideology of other religious groups in India.”

Historian Majumdar wrote of ‘Anandmath’: “No other Bengali book or, for that matter, no book written in any language, so profoundly moved the Bengali youths save perhaps one written half a century later. The later novel (Sarat Chandra’s Pather Dabi) was an emotional protest against British rule, as the earlier one was, at least ostensibly, against Muslim rule. This aspect of the ‘Anandmath’ and the imagery of Goddess Kali leave no doubt that Bankim Chandra’s nationalism was Hindu rather than Indian.”

Historian Tanika Sarkar wrote in her article ‘Birth of a Goddess: Vande Mataram, Anandamath and Hindu Nationhood’ (Economic and Political Weekly, 2006) that the East India Company was then calling the shots from behind the façade of a puppet Muslim Nawab.

“It was rack-renting peasant surplus to augment revenues from which the Company extracted a massive tribute. The drive was so relentless that three successive droughts produced a famine of catastrophic proportions in 1770. Much of the land returned to waste and approximately one-third of the population starved to death.”

She went on to say that in Chatterjee’s version of the story, “the Nawab was responsible not just for widespread death and starvation, but also for a deliberate and total destruction of Hindus, of their honour, faith, caste and women. In other words, it forces a split between the agents and victims of the famine: the agents are Muslims and the starving and dying people are always identified as Hindus.”

In the 1980s, some sections of the Dravidian movement considered it an idea symbolic of North Indian culture and not reflective of South India’s linguistic pluralism.

In 2017, it caused a rift between BJP members of the Meerut municipality and Muslim councillors. The latter walked out during a session of the Meerut Municipal Corporation when the piece was sung. When the seven Muslim councillors returned, they weren’t allowed back in. The cries of “Hindustan mein rehna hai toh Vande Mataram kehna hai” were heard.

The BJP, including Amit Shah, has often blamed the Congress for dropping the two stanzas.

Original composition by Jadunath Bhattacharya

While many musicians have sung ‘Vande Mataram’ and given it their own colour, the first time it was composed was by Jadunath Bhattacharya of the Bishnupur gharana. He was the court musician of Panchetgarh and a guru to Rabindranath Tagore as well as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. His name isn’t remembered well in history, but he was the first composer of ‘Vande Mataram’ and even sang it to Chatterjee.

The raga remains a matter of disagreement. While many say it was Desh, others say it was Kafi. Tagore had recited the poem in 1896 at the annual convention of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta (now Kolkata). In a 1934 recording, where Tagore can be heard singing with Sati Devi, Jaya Das and Bijoya Das, the song is in raag Desh. One cannot be sure if this composition was inspired by Bhattacharya’s tune or was entirely Tagore’s composition.

Timir Baran Bhattacharya, regarded as the father of Indian orchestration, composed a “march-friendly” version for Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Sena.

Pandit D V Paluskar also created a composition in raag Kafi, which was admired by Mahatma Gandhi and often sung at public meetings. In fact, it was this version that was sung by his student Pandit Omkarnath Thakur at the dawn of Independence on August 15, 1947, at Akashvani.

Post-Independence

The current style in which ‘Vande Mataram’ is sung is slightly different from Thakur’s style but closer to the Tagore version. It is again a raag Desh composition and is likely to have been composed by sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, who was the music director of AIR from 1949 to 1956 and had also set Iqbal’s ‘Saare Jahan Se Achha’ to tune.

Some people claim flute maestro Pannalal Ghosh composed it. But like much of Indian broadcasting history, the answer isn’t clear. This is the tune that’s taught and sung in Indian schools as well as at official national occasions — including the Beating Retreat ceremony.

One of the most iconic performances of the national song remains Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s recital at the midnight commemorative function held in Central Hall on August 14–15, 1997, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of India’s Independence.

From ‘National Song’ to ‘Modern Anthem’

While one of the compositions that has resonated in popular consciousness is that of Hemant Kumar, where he got Lata Mangeshkar to sing a version in raag Bhairavi for his film ‘Anand Math’ (1952), which was based on the book. The song became very popular and was sung by Mangeshkar in almost every concert.

A century after its creation, ‘Vande Mataram’ found new life as a pop anthem. In 1997, A.R. Rahman released his studio album ‘Vande Mataram’ to mark 50 years of Independence and composed a song titled ‘Ma Tujhe Salaam’, which came with the refrain ‘Vande Mataram’ and remains extremely popular, being played on Independence Day as well as Republic Day. The modern beats and interpretation brought the spirit of ‘Vande Mataram’ to a new generation.

In 2020, Grammy-winning musician Ricky Kej collaborated with 75-piece Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Choir for a recording at the iconic Abby Road Studios in London.