The novel [Bankim chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anand Math] was not anti-British, either. In the last chapter, we find a supernatural figure persuading the leader of the sanyasis, Satyananda, to stop fighting. The dialogue that follows is interesting:
“He [the supernatural figure]: Your task is accomplished. The Muslim power is destroyed. There is nothing else for you to do. No good can come of needless slaughter.
“S [Satyananda]: The Muslim power has indeed been destroyed, but the dominion of the Hindu has not yet been established. The British still hold Calcutta.
“He: Hindu dominion will not be established now. If you remain at your work, men will be killed to no purpose. Therefore come.
“S: (greatly pained) My lord, if Hindu dominion is not going to be established, who will rule? Will the Muslim kings return?
“He: No. The English will rule.”
Satyananda protests, but is persuaded to lay down the sword.
“He: Your vow is fulfilled. You have brought fortune to your Mother. You have set up a British government. Give up your fighting. Let the people take to their ploughs. Let the earth be rich with harvest and the people rich with wealth.
“S: (weeping hot tears) I will make my Mother rich with harvest in the blood of her foes.
“He: Who is the foe? There are no foes now. The English are friends as well as rulers. And no one can defeat them in battle. (emphasis added).
“S: If that is so, I will kill myself before the image of my Mother.
“He: In ignorance? Come and know. There is a temple of the Mother in the Himalayas. I will show you her image there.
“So saying, He took Satyananda by the hand.”
[Frontline, Jan 02-15, 1999]
The song ‘VandeMataram’ occurs in BankimchandraChatterjee’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 ‘BandeMataram’ on their lips. The central plot moves round a band ofsanyasis, 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 Bankimchandra’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, “Bankimchandra converted patriotism into religion and religion into patriotism.”