– Jagadindra Raychoudhury
British came to India as the East India Company for some business purpose and during that time India was divided into some small continent and rulers were ruling their territory independently. In a simpler form it can be stated that India was a diversified country with full of wealth and resources. With a snail’s speed British tried to grab the ruling power under their grip and atrocity was started towards the Indian people in every step of life. When it reached into a certain level, the rebellion started amongst Indian people and the fry of independence conceived in their mind. As a result, struggle for independence evoked and Indian people from every corner unanimously joined in the freedom movement.
During the freedom movement, mostly the dedicated freedom fighter came into a lime light from Maharashtra, Bengal and Punjab. The noted freedom fighters from Bengal were Sri Aurobindo, Benoy Basu, Khudiram Bose, Rash Bihari Bose, Ali Muhammad Shibli, Chittaranjan Das, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jogesh Chandra Chattopadhyay etc. They were all front runner freedom fighters but other luminaries such as poets, novelists, artists etc. were directly or indirectly associated in freedom struggle and one of them were Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or Chattopadhaya. Bankim Chandra was born on 26th June, 1838. He was a dedicated person to the mother India and out of devotion and respect his literary pursuance impregnated in various compositions and able to easily establish as a poet, novelist not only in Bengal but also in Indian perspective.
Bankim Chandra is widely regarded as a key figure in literary renaissance of Bengal as well as Indian subcontinent. His writing includes novels, essays and commentaries which were a break from traditional verse-oriented Indian writings and brought him as an author across India.
Bankim Chandra began his literary career as a writer of verse before turning to fiction. Bankim Chandra’s first novel in Bengali was not published but later on, fiction was published as an English novel, called Rajmohan’s wife. Besides this some romantic novels were also published in Bengali. His prominent works were Kapalkundala, Devi Chaudhurani, Durgeshnan etc. but out of these the most landmark composition was the Ananda Math, a Bengali political novel based on Sannyasi (Hindu ascetic) army fighting against a British force. The book calls for the rise on Indian nationalism. The most important part of the novel was the source of the song Vande Mataram which music was composed by Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore. The main theme of Vande Mataram was nothing but worshiping motherland India only. The song becomes the National song of India and even after post independence also.
The Ananda Math novel was based on the plot especially Sannyasi rebellion. He imagined that sannyasi soldiers fighting and defeating the British East India Company. Initially the novel was published in serial form in Bangadarshan, the literary magazine founded by Bankim Chandra himself. The song Vande Mataram becomes very much popular as well as prominent during Swadeshi movement and as result Lord Curzon attempt to partition Bengal into a Hindu majority in west and Muslim majority in east. But Bankim Chandra glorified India as a Mother Goddess as Bharat Mata for the first time and that too continued at present context with the song Vande Mataram.
(Author has Secretary of Vidya Bharati Purvottar Kshetra.)
Read More : स्वामी भारती कृष्ण तीर्थ और वैदिक गणित
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