The song ‘Vande Mataram’ occurs in Bankim chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anand Math published in 1882.
In his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Nirad C. Chaudhuri has aptly described the atmosphere of the times in which the song was written. “The historical romances of Bankim Chatterjee and Ramesh Chandra Dutt glorified Hindu rebellion against Muslim rule and showed the Muslims in a correspondingly poor light. Chatterjee was positively and fiercely anti-Muslim. We were eager readers of these romances and we readily absorbed their spirit.”
R.C. Majumdar, the historian, has written an objective account of it. “During the long and arduous struggle for freedom from 1905 to 1947 ‘Bande Mataram’ was the rallying cry of the patriotic sons of India, and thousands of them succumbed to the lathi blow of the British police or mounted the scaffold with ‘Bande Mataram’ on their lips. The central plot moves round a band of sanyasis, called santanas or children, who left their hearth and home and dedicated their lives to the cause of their motherland. They worshipped their motherland as the Goddess Kali;… This aspect of the Ananda Math and the imagery of Goddess Kali leave no doubt that Bankim chandra’s nationalism was Hindu rather than Indian. This is made crystal clear from his other writings which contain passionate outbursts against the subjugation of India by the Muslims. From that day set the sun of our glory – that is the refrain of his essays and novels which not unoften contain adverse, and sometimes even irreverent, remarks against the Muslims” (emphasis added). As Majumdar pithily puts it, “Bankim chandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism.”