Sprit lives on in ‘Vande Mataram’

One of the first graduates of the University of Calcutta, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (anglicised as Chatterjee) was a close aide of Ramakrishna Paramahansa and a strong critic of British rule. To a casual question by Paramhansa, ‘What made you bent?’ — Bankim in Sanskrit means bent, curved or crooked — Bankim retorted: ‘Englishman’s shoe’.

Seldom known by his pen-name Kamalakanta, Bankim is most popularly known for his historical Bengali novel ‘Anandamath’, which later served as a script for the Hindi film, ‘Anand Math’, directed by Hemen Gupta and starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Geeta Bali and Bharat Bhushan.

It was on January 24, 1950, that the first two verses of ‘Vande Mataram’, the background song of ‘Anand Math’, were adopted as the National Song of India by the Constituent Assembly.

Bankim was born in the village of Kanthalpara of North 24 Parganas, Naihati, to an orthodox Bengali Brahmin family on June 27, 1838. While he had no children from his first marriage at the age of 11 years, three daughters were born to his second wife, Rajlakshmi Devi, after the death of his first wife.

Bankim continued his studies and cleared the BA exam in 1859, despite a revolt against the East India Company in 1857. He was appointed Deputy Collector in 1859, and remained in government service for over 32 years, retiring in 1894.

He also founded a monthly literary magazine, ‘Bangadarshan’ in 1872, facilitating the emergence of peculiar Bengali identity and nationalism. Though ‘Bangadarshan’ was shut down while he was still in government service, during the late 1880s, it was resurrected by Rabindranath Tagore in 1901 as its editor. Tagore tried to retain the originality of ‘Bangadarshan’, following Bankim’s footprints to keep the magazine as the medium of communication between the elite and the uneducated sections of Indian society.

Pardeep Sharda, a historian from Punjab, regretted that successive governments had failed to recognise the contributions of personalities like Bankim. “Had ‘Vande Mataram’ not been adopted as the National Song, people beyond history students would have never heard of Bankim’s name,” he said, adding that a majority of people were not aware that the British Government had banned Bankim’s most iconic work, ‘Anandmath’, as it was set during the Sannyasi-fakir rebellion against the British East India Company.

Bankim passed away on this day 131 years ago, at the age of 55.

Features