One of the remarkable aspects of South Asian nationalist ideologies is their emphasis on maternal figures. For instance, India’s national song, Vande Mataram, is an ode to a mother, while the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, refers to Bharata Bhagya Bidhata as “the affectionate mother” in its full lyrics. Moreover, Bharat Mata serves as a prominent symbol in the ideology of RSS. This is not limited to India, similar maternal figures are also celebrated in the national anthems of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. So, who are these mysterious mothers, and where do they originate from?
A lesser-known fact is that all these mothers have a connection to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel, Anandamath, published in 1882. At that time, Bengal encompassed a large region, including present-day West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bangladesh, and Assam. The novel takes place in a fictional Bengal, where the inhabitants are acutely aware of their civilizational identity and are ready to take up arms to defend it. It revolves around three fundamental elements:
1. Civilizational ideology : It’s an ancient and highly inclusive form of Non-dualism that we first see in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The choice of Non-duality was not unusual, as Bankimchandra, like most of his contemporary Bengali scholars, had a Vedanta centric view of Dharma. In one of his essays, he even described western non-dualists like Spinoza and Herbert Spencer as European Hindus.
2. The Mother: She embodies the essence of this civilizational ideology and represents the land where it thrives. She is seen through three distinct forms, known as âwhat mother was,â âwhat mother has become,â and âwhat mother will be.â
3. Santan Dal (Children of the mother): It is a large paramilitary organization consisting of dedicated volunteers, led by celibate monks. Their singular purpose is to reclaim the past glory of the mother. They are not ritualistic and have just one anthem, Vande Mataram, dedicated to the mother.
The novel as well as the song Vande Mataram had a huge impact on the freedom struggle and soon the mother gained a pan-Indian fan following. Within a generation Bengali Mata became Bharat Mata and after independence the song Vande Mataram was declared to be the national song of India.
After Bankim Chandra’s death in 1894 this ideology was further popularized by Tagore. The mother featured in many of his songs, including Jana Gana Mana. SriLankan composer Ananda Samarakoon, who studied under Tagore at Vishwa Bharati University for a brief period, was deeply influenced by Tagore’s work. In 1940, he created the SriLankan Mata in a song titled “Namo Namo Matha,” which ultimately became the national anthem of Sri Lanka.
The story behind “Amar Sonar Bangla”, the national anthem of Bangladesh, is quite interesting. Tagore wrote this song before the partition of Bengal, so the word Bangla refers to the entire Eastern India and the “Ma” in this anthem is the same as the one from the original version of Vande Mataram. Because it doesnât mention Bangladesh or Islam at all, a lot of Muslim organizations in Bangladesh werenât too thrilled about it. But then in 1971, the leaders of Bangladesh wanted to step away from a religious identity, so they finally embraced it as the national anthem.
The link between RSS and Bharat Mata ideology was Anushilan Samiti, The first real organization motivated by Santan Dal. Although it was treated as a terrorist organization by the British rulers, it had supporters from all over India. One of them was K. B. Hedgewar, who went to Calcutta to study medicine and became a part of the inner circle of Anushilan Samiti. He returned to Maharashtra after his studies, but a few years later created a pan-Indian version of Santan Dal, known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Category: Ace of Spades
Economies of UP and Bihar
In the rankings of major Indian states based on per capita income, UP and Bihar have been occupying the last two places for quite a while. Their per capita incomes are approximately half and one third of the national average, which has sparked considerable discussion lately. While most people focus on usual suspects like overpopulation and corruption, some argue that the absence of coastlines also plays a significant role. This idea has appeared in this blog several times, and I will offer my two cents.
On the surface, the argument seems reasonable, given that both Bihar and UP are non-coastal states and many coastal states are doing extremely well. However, a closer look reveals a lack of empirical evidence to support this claim. To begin with, the correlation between higher per capita income and having a coastline is relatively new. Back in 1990, of the eight major coastal states, only Maharashtra was performing exceptionally well. Gujarat was above average, while Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Bengal were either average or slightly below. Orissa, on the other hand, was quite poor. This suggests that it was economic liberalization, rather than the mere presence of coastlines, that primarily fueled the growth in South India.
The correlation between coastal status and economic performance appears even more spurious when we examine other non-coastal states. There are eight large non-coastal states with populations exceeding 20 million, excluding UP and Bihar. Their combined per capita income is almost same as the national average. In fact, two of these states, Telangana and Haryana, rank among the top three. If being landlocked is indeed such a significant disadvantage, why doesnât it similarly impact these other non-coastal states?
Letâs explore the coastline related industries further. India’s blue economy, which includes sectors like coastal tourism, fisheries, shipping, and offshore energy, constitutes only about 4 percent of the countryâs GDP. Given that coastal states account for 55 percent of Indiaâs GDP, itâs evident that coastlines aren’t as impactful economically as one might assume. The transport sector in India represents roughly 5 percent of the GDP, but a significant part of this involves passenger and local freight transport. The part consisting of transport between port and non-coastal states is relatively small, and the extra burden is equivalent to a tax of less than 5 percent on all imported or exported goods.
So one could probably argue that if UP and Bihar were coastal, their per capita incomes might be 5-10 percent higher. However, this doesnât change the big picture.
Mahabharata war and Yuga cycles
Anyone who is slightly familiar with Hindu mythology or Hindu cosmology knows that ancient Indians were fond of extremely large time periods. According to traditionalists the war of Mahabharata happened more than 5000 years ago (3102 BCE). A Yuga is supposed to last for 1.08 million years. A Yuga cycle, consisting of 4 Yugas, is 4.32 million years long. Who came up with these numbers ?
The story behind these numbers is quite interesting. Although the word Yuga goes back to Vedic age, Vedic texts do not mention these numbers. The specific numbers were first introduced by Aryabhata, who was born in 476 CE. According to his definition a new Yuga begins whenever all five visible planets along with the Sun and the Moon have zero celestial longitude (we are using the current terminology here, Aryabhata used the word Yugapda to denote a Yuga). The first verse of Aryabhatia, his only surviving work, states the following :
Aryabhatia 1.1 : In a yuga cycle the revolutions of the Sun are 4,320,000, of the Moon 57,753,336, of the Earth eastward 1,582,237,500, of Saturn 146,564, of Jupiter 364224, of Mars 2,296,824, of Mercury and Venus the same as those of the Sun.
The accuracy levels of these estimates are reasonably high, ranging from 99.9 percent (period of Saturn) to 99.999 percent (period of Earth’s rotation). It is possible to get this level of accuracy from 20-30 years of naked eye observations. Not surprisingly, the exact numbers are all wrong. Assuming an error margin of 0.3 degrees for an observation, one needs 3600 years of sky watching to count the exact numbers of revolutions in 1.08 million years. Aryabhata definitely knew this but he also accepted the traditional view that the current Yuga started during the war of Mahabharata (Aryabhatia 1.3). Seven astronomical objects having celestial longitudes close to zero is a very strong condition, and the initial estimates he obtained from 20-30 years of observations were good enough to rule out all years in the past few thousand years except 3102 BCE. So he concluded that the beginning of the current Yuga and Mahabharata war happened in in 3102 BCE.
Aryabhatia 3.10 : When three Yugas and sixty times sixty years had elapsed (from the beginning of the Yuga cycle) then twenty three years of my life had passed.
Since he could directly see the positions of the celestial objects during 499 CE vernal equinox, the assumption that they all had zero longitude in 3102 BCE meant having observations separated by 3600 years. This allowed him to make extremely precise claims about their periods. At the same time he was forced to increase the length of a Yuga to 1.08 million years to ensure that all the celestial objects make complete revolutions.
Why did he come up with the concept of Yuga cycle and how did he know that we are in the fourth Yuga of the current Yuga cycle ? This is related to two abstract points corresponding to apsidal and nodal precession of Moon’s orbit. Aryabhata wanted to include them in the list of celestial objects but his initial estimates showed that their celestial longitudes were closer to -270 degrees and 180 degrees in 3102 BCE. So he introduced a 4.32 million years long Yuga cycle and assumed that we are in the fourth Yuga.
How do we know all these details ? As remarked earlier, Aryabhata’s model was not accurate enough to go 3600 years in the past and detect a Yuga changing moment. However if we calculate the positions during 499 CE equinox using modern technology and apply Aryabhata’s model to go back another 3600 years, then celestial longitudes of the first seven objects become close to zero. The probability of this being a pure coincidence is less than one in a billion. The only logical conclusion is that Aryabhata was born in 476 CE and his definitions and methods were as described above.