Question

What is the sense of collective belonging in India? Explain in Detail
(From the chapter nationalism in India

Answer 1

In the 20thcentury the identity of India came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata and portrayed it as an ascetic figure, calm, composed, divine and spiritual.In the1870s Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote ‘Vande Mataram’as a hymn to the motherland. Later it was included in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal and other national movements.Ideas of nationalism also developed through a movement to revive Indian folklore. Nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends. In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for folk revival. In Madras, NatesaSastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of Southern India.During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolor flag (red, green and yellow) was designed. By1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolor (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through reinterpretation of history. The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing themselves. In response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India’s great achievements in art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had flourished.