The art connoisseurs along with the patriotic citizens in the far eastern part of Bharat (India) will gather at Chandmari AEI field in Guwahati on 19 October (1 Kati of 1430 Bhaskarabda) to celebrate the legacy, culture and traditions of the great land, as Bharat Mata Pujan 2023 will unfold a series of cultural programs including a group performance on the theme of Vande Mataram with 1000 participating artistes.
The five-day festival, organised under the initiative of Pragnya (Wisdom), will comprise Akhand Bharat Parikrama, Guru Pujan, Kanya Pujan, Mohiyasi Matri Sanman presentation, Vande Mataram dance competition, Alpana contest, puppet shows, folk musical performance, mime shows, exhibition and splendid cultural functions. The visiting children will be entertained by the traditional string puppet theatres from Assam every evening.
Worshiping the motherland as a deity may be unusual for other nations on Earth, but the people of India continued calling the sacred land as Bharat Mata (or Bharatamba) since time immemorial. The national personification of India as a mother goddess gained momentum during
the freedom movement, where Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay introduced a hymn titled ‘Vande Mataram’ in his Bengali language novel ‘Anand Math’ (1882) and Kiran Chandra Bandyopadhyay performed a play titled ‘Bharat Mata’ in 1873. Since then Bharat Mata symbolises a unified motherland (Akhanda Bharat) for millions of Indians.
Abanindranath Tagore, the eminent artist nephew of Rabindranath Tagore, portrayed Bharat Mata as a Hindu goddess in a 1905 painting. The four-armed deity, wearing saffron coloured traditional garments, carried a book, an Akshmala, sheaves of rice and a piece of white cloth (symbolising Shiksha, Diksha, Anna & Bastra). Bharat Mata as a Devi was also drawn on the cover of Tamil language magazine ‘Vijaya’ (edited by poet Subramania Bharati) in 1909.
Inspired by the great sons of the soil, Bharat Mata is created as a goddess with red-coloured sari holding a saffron flag and standing on a lotus with an accompanying lion. The background depicts Akhand Bharat comprising present day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar as well.
Organising a celebration to worship the motherland in the region was always a challenge, as a larger population of this region pursued the idea of separate lands arguing that this part of the world came under the political Indian territory only after the 1826 Yandabu peace treaty (between the colonial British and Burmese invaders). Even though many Assamese freedom fighters sacrificed in the national movement, a number of separatist militant outfits preached for
independence (out of India) and they often adopted violent means to manipulate the people in their favour. They even succeeded in misguiding the indigenous population for some decades with the inherent support from anti-Bharat campaigners (including intellectuals and editor-journalists).
There was a time when the armed militants dictated the people not to celebrate the national occasions like Independence Day and Republic Day in the region (terming it the western part of southeast Asia). But a small group of brave scribes and patriotic citizens broke the diktat two & half decades back and started observing both the auspicious days at the local press club premise.
The bold initiative of those patriotic individuals of Assam to pay tributes to numerous freedom fighters, who made supreme sacrifices to make India a sovereign nation, by hoisting/unfurling the national tri-colour slowly helped change the mindset of a larger section of people in the society. It now keeps rolling with the initiative of concerned authorities and nationalist civil society organisations like Pragnya.
