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I was born at the peak of the Quit India Movement and so was too young to fight our British rulers with any gusto. But I was told that the slogan 'Vande Mataram' shouted at the British was much like "Jai Patala Bhairavi!" with our Telugu teacher. It was a red rag for the British bull.
Tales were told that whoever shouts: "Vande Mataram!" in a crowd would get beatings from the lathis of our own native policemen in the employ of our benign British rulers. And during the Quit India movement, this slogan would elicit even firing from their rusted police guns. And that this gent, Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu (who went on to become the first CM of our Andhra State after we gained freedom from the Tamil Rule) ran towards the police during the Quit India Movement shouting: "Vande Mataram!" baring his chest...the police got confused. (Wiki tells me that the event actually happened during the boycott of the Simon Commission during which another catchy slogan was in vogue: "Simon Go Back!")
When we were at school in the early 1950s, the first stanza of Vande Mataram was sung daily as a prayer song at the beginning of our school assembly. And I could intuit the meaning of the stanza which sounded like just a glorification of the beauty and bounty that Nature bestowed on our motherland:
And I wondered what was so provoking about it to the British whose own Lake Districts thrilled their Wordsworth so much that he wrote his 'Daffodils' which we had to mug up and vomit without provoking bullets:
It simply shows that slogans are slogans and don't have to mean much to generate fury and wrath.
Here is how Vande Mataram got to be written:
...Bande Mataram was composed even before the Ananda Math was born. It happened in 1875 when, on a holiday, Bankim boarded a train to his native place, Kantalapada. The train passed into the outskirts of the city and glided through vast tracts of land, wrapped in enchanting green foliage, decked with multifarious flowers, nourished and nurtured by hurrying streams and beautiful lakes and unveiling the bewitching charm of nature in all its splendour. The poet's heart was thrilled with the vision of his exquisite Mother-the Bharata Mata-and he burst into song...
http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_120102.htm
Well, I am no poet...on the other hand...
But one early July morning in 2005 just before I quit Bengal for good, I was taking two of my Telugu nieces on an excursion to Calcutta from KGP in a hired Tata Sumo. And it was the beginning of the sumptuous Bengal monsoon of which Tagore wrote so many songs. And I looked out the window at the delightful white drizzle that was drenching the Bengal greenery. And I asked my nieces to sing the first stanza of their Vande Mataram which they did after some coaxing. And then I asked them to stop chatting inanities and look out the window to realize the meaning of the blessed song.
And the Brits killed people without ever knowing its meaning:
....Thousands of our pre-independence patriots had to suffer grievously in uttering and singing this song which before independence was considered the National Anthem. Some of them lost their lives for singing this song. Every patriot from Khudiram Bose to Bhagat Singh and Rajguru died with the mantram of Vande Mataram on their lips. It had become spontaneously the National Anthem adopted by the mass of our people.
http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_120102.htm
What a fall my countrymen!
The current slogan of our Crown Prince is:
"Suit Boot ki Sarakar!"
And its counter is the equally inept:
"Sooj Bhoojh ki Sarkar!"
...Jaitley took another potshot at Rahul — without naming him — when he called the Modi government a “soojh boojh ki sarkar”. This remark was in an apparent reference to Rahul’s recent “suit boot ki sarkar” remark...
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/jaitley-replies-to-rahuls-jibe-says-this-is-sooj-boojh-ki-sarkar/
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/jaitley-replies-to-rahuls-jibe-says-this-is-sooj-boojh-ki-sarkar/
I don't think our Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu's great-grandson would now bare his chest shouting:
"Suit Boot ki Sarkar!"
...Posted by Ishani
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