Vande Mataram : One Song, One Soul, One India
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Dr Sachchidanand Joshi
Contd from previous issue
In our culture, the Mother is not theological but terrestrial. She is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the language we speak.
The first two stanzas — officially adopted—describe rivers, fields, and winds. The Mother is nature herself. Vande Mataram is not about any religion or subscribes to any particular belief—it is about reverence. It celebrates not dominion, but devotion for the motherland. Not conquest, but compassion.
Why It Still Matters
In an age of fractured identities, Vande Mataram offers unity through emotion. It reminds Indians that nationhood is not an ideology but an inheritance. It asks nothing but gratitude —a sentiment beyond politics, beyond creed.
It also redefines nationalism— not as chest- thum- ping pride, but as quiet service. In Bankim’s vision, to bow to the Mother is to protect her rivers, forests, and children. As Vande Mataram turns 150 in 2025, India celebrates it in new forms. AI-driven symphonies visualize its verses through satellite imagery — rivers flowing to rhythm, crops swaying to chorus. School children from across states sing it in 22 languages. Artists remix it into rap, classical dance, and fusion.
Technology has not diminished its sanctity; it has amplified it. The Mother now speaks in code, but her song remains the same. At its core, VandeMataram is not political poetry — it is philosophy. It calls upon Indians to merge duty with devotion. To be born on this soil is fortune; to serve it, dharma.
Bankim’s invocation of the Mother anticipated the environmental, spiritual, and moral questions of our time. To sing Vande Mata-ram today is to remind ourselves of balance—between progress and preser- vation, power and peace. Few songs in history have outlived empires. Vande Mataram did. Banned, debated, dissected — yet undefeated. Because songs that spring from soul cannot be silenced.
From colonial prisons to Olympic stadiums, from Bengal’s riverside to the moon’s surface, its echo endures. Soldiers whisper it before battle; children hum it before school prayers. It is India’s first language of love. When Bankim Chan-dra Chatterjee wrote Vande Mataram on that Akshay Navami afternoon in 1875, he could not have known that his pen would outlast empires. That his hymn would become a Nation’s soul.
Today, as India rises again — confident, plural, ancient, and young — the Mother still listens. She asks no offerings, only remembrance. Every time we say Vande Mataram, we remind ourselves that freedom without gratitude is hollow.” The Mother is free. The children must now prove worthy as Sri Aurobindo wrote:“For nations are not built by armies alone, but by those who can hear the voice of the Mother and bow to her with love.” Vande Mataram, Mother, we bow to thee. (The writer is a writer, author, Member Secretary of IGNCA)
Contd from previous issue
In our culture, the Mother is not theological but terrestrial. She is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the language we speak.
The first two stanzas — officially adopted—describe rivers, fields, and winds. The Mother is nature herself. Vande Mataram is not about any religion or subscribes to any particular belief—it is about reverence. It celebrates not dominion, but devotion for the motherland. Not conquest, but compassion.
Why It Still Matters
In an age of fractured identities, Vande Mataram offers unity through emotion. It reminds Indians that nationhood is not an ideology but an inheritance. It asks nothing but gratitude —a sentiment beyond politics, beyond creed.
It also redefines nationalism— not as chest- thum- ping pride, but as quiet service. In Bankim’s vision, to bow to the Mother is to protect her rivers, forests, and children. As Vande Mataram turns 150 in 2025, India celebrates it in new forms. AI-driven symphonies visualize its verses through satellite imagery — rivers flowing to rhythm, crops swaying to chorus. School children from across states sing it in 22 languages. Artists remix it into rap, classical dance, and fusion.
Technology has not diminished its sanctity; it has amplified it. The Mother now speaks in code, but her song remains the same. At its core, VandeMataram is not political poetry — it is philosophy. It calls upon Indians to merge duty with devotion. To be born on this soil is fortune; to serve it, dharma.
Bankim’s invocation of the Mother anticipated the environmental, spiritual, and moral questions of our time. To sing Vande Mata-ram today is to remind ourselves of balance—between progress and preser- vation, power and peace. Few songs in history have outlived empires. Vande Mataram did. Banned, debated, dissected — yet undefeated. Because songs that spring from soul cannot be silenced.
From colonial prisons to Olympic stadiums, from Bengal’s riverside to the moon’s surface, its echo endures. Soldiers whisper it before battle; children hum it before school prayers. It is India’s first language of love. When Bankim Chan-dra Chatterjee wrote Vande Mataram on that Akshay Navami afternoon in 1875, he could not have known that his pen would outlast empires. That his hymn would become a Nation’s soul.
Today, as India rises again — confident, plural, ancient, and young — the Mother still listens. She asks no offerings, only remembrance. Every time we say Vande Mataram, we remind ourselves that freedom without gratitude is hollow.” The Mother is free. The children must now prove worthy as Sri Aurobindo wrote:“For nations are not built by armies alone, but by those who can hear the voice of the Mother and bow to her with love.” Vande Mataram, Mother, we bow to thee. (The writer is a writer, author, Member Secretary of IGNCA)