A good reminder that "nationalism" comes in different shapes and packages. Here's some background to Bharat Mata politics:
Bharat Mata This article is about the national personification of India. For the Hindi film, see Mother India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Mata The life and times of Bharat Mata The image of the dispossessed motherland found form in Kiran Chandra Bandyopadhyay's 1873 play, Bharat Mata, that influentially entered into early nationalist memory. But very soon the terms of engagement and iconographic vocabulary shifted to the form of the goddess. Sadan Jha traces the emergence of nationalism as invented history. http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue142/bharat.htm Patriotic fervour: At the end of the 19th Century, a printing industry devoted to the production of pictures of deities and mythological themes was established. Being mass produced, they were the most visually influential medium of visual communication of the then socially and culturally fragmented Indian society, subsequently becoming a vehicle for political propaganda as well. Exclusive extracts from a book that looks at the pictured social reality of India, appropriate for the 56th anniversary of independence. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2003/08/17/stories/2003081700160200.htm Frederick Noronha :: +91-9822122436 :: +91-832-2409490 On 19 December 2010 21:17, soter <[email protected]> wrote: > This morning I watched a bunch of kids from a school in my neighbourhood go > past my house in a procession shouting slogans like "Bharat Mata Ki Jai!". I > remembered my childhood when I would also be compelled to do the same > without even understanding what I am doing.
