Bankim Chandra Chatterjee or Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who
is considered as the father of Hindu Rashtra, has written three novels all in
the last ten years of his life: Anandmath, Debi Choudhurani and Sitaram. All of
them can be justly described as anti-Muslim. B.C.C played an important role in
reducing Indian nationalism to Hindu nationalism, which is anti-Muslim to the
core. Anandmath, a Bengali novel written by B.C.C outlines the concept of Hindu
Rashtra and is considered as the Bible by the proponents of Hindu Rashtra. B.C.C
played an important role in the degradation of Indian nationalism to communal
nationalism and introduced the song ‘Vande Mataram’ through his novel which
equated nationalism to mother worship. Anandmath narrates the story of Hindu sanyasi
rebellion against Muslims. Novel romanticizes the attack on Muslims, it
describes how the Hindu sanyasis (sanatans) torched Muslim houses and looted
everything. The novel also describes how the sanatans killed the Musalman who
refused to recite 'I salute thee mother' which is still followed by hindutva
terrorists.
B.C.C was very fond of British rulers and never considered them
as people who loot India, and he preached that ‘Muslims are our sole enemy’. His
love for British masters could be seen in the last lines of Anandmath, where when
some of the sanatan cadres who have succeeded in overthrowing Muslim rulers now
wanted to fight against Britishers, a mystic leader appears and pacifies them
that the sanatan virtue could only be restored under the rule of Englishman as
King, so the sanatans should not wage war against them. The leader convinces
the sanatans that they have become successful by eliminating Muslim rule and
now should let the English reign continue. It reads "the Englishman is our ally King. Moreover,
none possesses such power who can win the war with the Englishmen ultimately".
The novel glorifies the imperialist masters, who destroyed lives and properties
of Indians, and they are depicted as brave and superior souls. Importantly
B.C.C was appointed directly to the post of Deputy Magistrate in the year 1858,
the first Indian to be appointed to such a post immediately after 1857. Bankim
retired as District Magistrate in the year 1891. He was conferred with the
titles of Rai Bahadur and CIE by the British Crown. He was none other than a
stooge for British imperialism and part of British exploitation program in
India.
M.R.A. Baig's analysis of the novel and
the song deserve attention. "Written as a story set in the period of the
dissolution of the Mughal Empire, the hero of the novel, Bhavananda, is
planning an armed uprising against the Muslims of Bengal. While busy
recruiting, he meets Mahendra and sings the song 'Bande Mataram' or 'Hail
Mother'. The latter asks him the meaning of the words and Bhavananda, making a
spirited answer, concludes with: 'Our
religion is gone, our caste is gone, our honour is gone’. Which caste is B.C.C.
pointing here? Dalit, Adivasis or OBCs? It is clear that Bankim’s articulation
on Hindu Rashtra is nothing but re-establishing the Brahmanical supremacy (caste
based social order).
Through Anandmath B.C.C introduced the sectarian cry of 'Bande Mataram'
as the national cry. Due to the personification of the land and equating it
into goddesses Kali and Durga, there were many oppositions to its singing in
national gatherings of freedom struggle. The original five-stanza song of
'Bande Mataram' was cut down to two stanzas, which only describes the beauty of
the land mass. RSS was very unhappy when Indian constituent assembly
adopted 'Jana gana mana' as the national anthem, and wants it to be replaced it
with 'Bande Mataram', we have to remember that RSS was also unhappy about the
Indian constitution and want it to be replaced with 'Manu Smriti'. We are
going through a period where the preachings of B.C.C through Ananthmath is
reaping its fruits, as the sanatans dreamed, 'will the day come when we shall break mosques and build temples on
their sites?'. Today Bankim’s grandsons are killing Muslims and dalits in
the name of cow protectionism and orchestrating
anti-national drama in campuses across India.
A person with the character of pro-British, anti-Muslim and a
castiest is projected as the national leader by Hindutva group. Historically, ‘national
leaders’ from the Hindutva camp, Savarkar, Hedgewar, Golwalkar, Vajpayee, Advani
are all pro-British and pro-Brahmanical. Today Modi continues that legacy. One
side he is pushing the anti-people policies (pro-imperialist) like cashless
economy, GST, privatizing the railway; on the other side he is escalating the sanskrit
imposition, communal riots, cow nationalism. Hindu Rashtra is nothing but the Brahmanical
empire established on caste based social order along with facilitating the finance
capital to loot the country without any obstructions.
In the first quarter of 20th century, Kakori martyrs (including
Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan) of
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) were waging a war against the
British imperialism. Despite knowing the fact he will be hanged, to trigger the
political consciousness of Indian masses against British imperialism, Bhagat
Singh has voluntarily participated in the Parliament bomb attack in 1929 with
pamphlet ‘To make the deaf hear’ against labour laws. Bhagat Singh has fought
against the British imperialism and parasite Indian bourgeois class. He
strongly criticized the caste system and religion. Their slogan ‘Inquilab Zindabad’
(Long Live Revolution) was a replacement to ‘Vande Mataram’ in the freedom
struggle; even after a century ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ represents the voice of working
masses.
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