New rules of patriotism

A tempest in a tea pot or a great Mother India wiggle? It all started with Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s defiantly asserting, “I won’t chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai even if you put a knife to my throat,’ in Hyderabad early this month. Defending his unabashedness by adding, “It is nowhere in the Constitution”. Taking a lead from Owaisi, the MIM’s Maharashtra MLA Waris Pathan echoed the same during the debate on the Governor’s address.

Questionably, did Owaisi and Pathan rake up a needless controversy over Bharat Mata Ki Jai? Was it to rebuff RSS Chief Bhagwat’s claim that young Indians must be taught to chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Obviously, all parties are collectively playing to the gallery as elections to five State Assemblies roll out next month. While Owaisi’s MIM has eyes on the minority vote banks, the others all want a piece of the majority Hindu vote pie.

Further, Owaisi wants to emerge as the Muslims sole leader by trashing Messers Mian Mulayam, Lalu-Nitish as also the Congress. It does not matter by projecting himself as the community’s sole saviour; he is playing into the BJP hands by dividing Muslim votes and pushing Hindus into the Hindutva brigade’s arms. Big deal if his outburst paints the minority community as anti-national.

Though it is extremely difficult to pin-point when this slogan first came into existence, the genealogy of the figure of Bharat Mata has been traced to a satirical piece titled Unabimsa Purana (‘The Nineteenth Purana’) by Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay, first published anonymously in 1866. Bharat Mata is identified in this text as Adi-Bharati, the widow of Arya Swami, the embodiment of all that is essentially ‘Aryan.’

In its original sense, Bharat Mata is the personification of India as Mother Goddess which was conceptualized in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel, Anandamath, loosely based on what is known as the Sannyasi rebellion of late 18th century. Since then, Hindutva has reclaimed and greatly magnified the Bankim Chandra idea of Bharat Mata.

For free India’s first Prime Minister Nehru Bharat Mata Ki Jai was not just about land and geography but also about peasants and people themselves. Bringing things to such a pass that today patriotism is judged by evoking Bharat Mata which has become a symbol of Hindutva cultural nationalism. Any demand on Muslims to assert this slogan is akin to asking them to flout the fundamental tenets of their religion.

For the Sangh Parivar, Muslims chanting the slogan or refusing to do so is a test of their loyalty to the nation. It is high time we stopped trivializing it. All secular minded Indians must collectively chorus a slogan which ignited patriotism, galvanised Indians to gang up against British Raj to throw the firangis out and won India its freedom. Let us not demean it in the hands of our political drumbeaters!