A History of Bharat Mata

In the construction of nationalism, the modern nation has often been explicitly imagined through gendered metaphors, particularly that of the female body.

1)  The many faces of ‘mother’ – motherland, mother tongue, motherhood – have particularly proved to be potent symbols.

2)  Several studies have examined this icon in colonial India, particularly in Bengal

3) The maternal metaphor was not limited to the representation of the nation but extended to linguistics, which in turn strengthened regional, as well as national identities.

4) Less however has been said on ways that this phenomenon was expressed in other parts of the country, particularly in north India. This paper examines how and why the metaphor of mother was used in multiple fields in late colonial north India, with a special focus on the United Provinces (henceforth UP). Hindu publicists of UP particularly worked this icon into narratives of nation, language, and cow, sharpening the contours of community identity. 

Building the Future: Unveiling the Power of Hindu Rashtra Mandirs:

Swami Shraddhanand stated: The first step which I propose is to build one Hindu Rashtra Mandir at least in every city and important town...The Rashtra Mandir will be in charge of the local Hindu Sabha... While the sectarian Hindu temples are dominated by their deities, the Catholic Hindu Mandir should be devoted to the worship of the three mother spirits: the Gau-Mata, the Saraswati-Mata, and the Bhumi-Mata. Let some living cows be there to represent the plenty. 

Unlocking the Divine Power Within: Embracing Savitri and Rediscovering India's Glory:

Let ‘Savitri’ be inscribed over the gate of the hall to remind every Hindu of his duty to expel all ignorance and let a life-like map of Mother Bharat be constructed in a prominent place, giving all its characteristics in vivid colors so that every child of the Matri-bhumi may daily bow before the Mother and renew his pledge to restore her to the ancient pinnacle of glory from which she has fallen!5 This symbolism was evoked largely to aid men in the service of the nation. The emotional appeal of the symbol of the mother was combined with modern scientific arguments and economic ‘facts’ about the earth and the cow. 

Unveiling the Divine: Exploring the Magnificent Bharat Mata Temple in Banaras:

Mapping the Mother/Nation Bharat Mata Temple at Banaras The identity of the country and the nation was often expressed and represented in terms of devotion to the goddess Bharat Mata or Mother India, who was inevitably a Hindu. The cult was imbued with moral fervor, and in the process, religious, cultural, and aesthetic aspects were politicized.

Motherhood as a Symbol of Resistance: Unveiling the Power of Maternal Identity in Colonized Bengal:

The ideology of motherhood could be specifically claimed as their own by the colonized and could help in emphasizing their selfhood. In the case of Bengal, Bharat Mata was often a cultural artifact, or a distinct personality, represented in different situations as a glorious figure of abundance; as the powerful mother Kali and Durga, a destructive ‘shakti’; or as an enslaved, all-suffering figure, a tearful victim and a frail widow. While such emblems can be seen in north India, there was also another image in which the nation as mother took on an entity of a detailed physical map, namely the Bharat Mata temple, the first of its kind, built at Banaras in the early 20th century. 

Unlocking the Mysterious Sacredness: Exploring Banaras Beyond Altars and Images:

One goes today to the holy city of Banaras and sees in this temple, not the anticipated altar, shrines, and images, or the mother figure of the woman shown in different moods as reflecting the state of the nation, but instead, within the spacious sanctuary, surrounded by a brass rail, a huge relief map of the country. Here Bharat Mata is not a distinct personality in her own right but a metaphor for a fixed, bounded space. It is different from the images one associates with a temple, or even of Bharat Mata. How is one to interpret this phenomenon? It has been argued that the drawing of modern and precise maps was an emblem of the rational and scientific nature of the West, a working of power-knowledge by European powers and colonialism, a prelude to the possession, and a tool for enabling mastery of the world. The scientific map became a metonym for colonial modernity.

Unveiling the Lost Tales of Medieval Cartography: How David Harvey Reveals the Stripped Reality of Modern Maps:

David Harvey has shown how the modern maps, in the period of enlightened modernity, were stripped of all elements of fantasy, religious belief, and rich and sensuous spatial stories of medieval cartography, and instead became strictly functional systems, with the factual ordering of space and mathematically rigorous depictions.9 Hindu nationalists, through a detailed and precise mapping of the nation The Icon of Mother in Late Colonial North India ‘Bharat Mata’, ‘Matri Bhasha’ and ‘Gau Mata’ In the metaphor of nationalism, it is the female body and the many faces of ‘mother’ – motherland, mother tongue, motherhood – have served as the most universal and potent symbols of imagining the nation. 

Unlocking the Power of Motherhood: Analyzing the Multifaceted Symbol in Various Fields:

The symbol of the mother was especially effective because it could take on different meanings in different contexts. This paper examines how and why the metaphor of mother was used in multiple fields in late colonial north India, with a special focus on the UP. Hindu publicists of UP particularly worked the icon of the mother into narratives of nation, language, and cow, thereby sharpening the contours of community identity. CHARU GUPTA 4292 Economic and Political Weekly November 10, 2001, in a temple, with the emotive name of Bharat Mata, were able to combine (or hybridize?) science with emotion and modernity with traditional beliefs. Shivprasad Gupt, a staunch nationalist and a wealthy person of Banaras built the Bharat Mata temple.