A Nation’s Song: The Early History of “Vande Mataram”
Photo: Mohit Khare
From its origins in the 1882 novel Anandmath, the attention of European Orientalists, and the impact on early Hindu nationalist movements, Abhimanyu Kumar traces the complicated legacy of India’s national song.
This article is the first part of Abhimanyu Kumar’s 2-part series on the “Vande Mataram” and India’s revolutionary movement.
The Modi government declared 2025-2026 as the 150th anniversary year of the song “Vande Mataram,” an initiative which included the launch of a dedicated website that features selfie-and video galleries, sing-alongs, and even an A.I. film making contest. According to the website, the number of participants in these activities is close to 8 crores. Last year’s Republic Day celebration paid a special tribute to the “Vande Mataram”. Parliamentary debates have taken place over the song, and the government has made it mandatory to sing it in its entirety on public occasions—leading to some objections and protest.
“Vande Mataram” was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and first published in 1882 as part of his Bengali novel, Anandmath. The labyrinth of history is full of dark corners, and the government’s claims—that the song was written earlier and already in circulation—aren’t easily verifiable. Searching online leads to government websites that cite each-other. Even articles in the national press toe the government’s line. Neutral sources remain non-committal. Tanika Sarkar, in her masterly analysis of the text of the song and Anandmath, writes that “Vande Mataram” was indeed written in the 1870s, but no exact year is cited by her.
In Bengal, Anandmath’s influence was the defining factor behind the rise of a revolutionary movement. Set around the reign of India’s first Governor-General Warren Hastings in the last quarter of the 18th century, the novel tells the story of a group of Hindu mendicants (or Sanyasis) who take arms against the British-backed Muslim ruler of Bengal, Mir Jaffer, during a famine. The events fictionalized in the novel, however, did take place. The famine in Bengal in 1770 was responsible for the deaths of millions; the actual number is disputed but could be anywhere between 1 to 10 million, almost a third of the total population. According to sociologist Massimo Introvigne, the famine was caused by British economic policies such as suddenly raising land tax revenues by 30 per cent.
Introvigne contends that the famine of 1770 led to the start of the Kali cult in Bengal, the Hindu goddesses most associated with violence. Around the same time, the Sanyasi rebellion (also called the Faqir rebellion) took place as well. Rising land taxes had impoverished sections of the peasantry, and disgruntled soldiers of the Mughal army—who were out of jobs after the British took over the Diwani of Bengal in 1765—joined the rebellion. Hindus and Muslims fought together against the British. The rebellion lasted until the end of the 19th century, and is considered one of the first large-scale armed revolts against the British in India.
Anandmath, published well over a hundred years later, used Hinduism’s scriptural sanction of violence to create a new vocabulary of anti-colonial resistance, thereby articulating the first stirrings or early notions of Hindu nationalism. It was a home-grown movement, which was also influenced by events taking place outside of India. It was, in fact an accidental birth, though long desired for by Indians suffering under the tyranny of the British. A product of European Orientalism, Aryanism, and home-grown anti-colonial resistance to the British, among several other influences, its appearance on the scene—like a spectre being conjured out of thin air—caused strong reactions: Many were charmed and pledged allegiance; but some were alarmed by what seemed like a dangerous proposition from the start. The first translator of Anandmath Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta wrote disapprovingly in his foreword to the book, regarding Chatterjee’s idea of nationalism:
Anandmath used Hinduism’s scriptural sanction of violence to create a new vocabulary of anti-colonial resistance, thereby articulating the first stirrings or early notions of Hindu nationalism… Many were charmed and pledged allegiance; but some were alarmed by what seemed like a dangerous proposition from the start.
Two very sinister consequences are seen to flow from this conception of a religious basis of nationality in the present work. The first is the attempt to rehabilitate the Hindu Pantheon with new-fangled patriotic gods and goddesses, and the second is the morbid dislike of Mussulmans that seems to be indicated in this work.” (Chatterjee, 1906, viii, ix).
The novel starts with the depiction of the famine in late 18th century in Bengal and the pitiable condition of people in the countryside. Unable to bear with their distress, a family of three—husband, wife and infant daughter—leave the village and starts walking toward the city. They are waylaid by robbers who kidnap the wife and child. The husband, Mahendra, ends up being arrested by British soldiers. Later, the wife, Kalyani, the daughter, Sukumari, and eventually Mahendra, are all rescued by a group of mendicants who call themselves The Children (Santan). Mahendra, after his rescue, becomes interested in the Sanyasis, and learns of their mission: to rid Bengal of Muslim rule through armed rebellion. His rescuer is a monk called Bhavananda, who sings “Vande Mataram” to Mahendra, further intriguing him.
The first two of the song’s five verses describe the land’s bounteous nature: filled with fruits, fresh water, and cool winds. In a time of famine, the song fulfils a psychological necessity to reimagine the life-giving qualities of land. It holds on the idea of the land’s fertility, and of a pastoral community like the one that existed in Bengal’s countryside. It hopes for better times, of survival until the land reverts to its nourishing function.
The third verse veers sharply, and now, the song praises the valour of crores of Indians who inhabit the Motherland, who roar and carry arms—swords in this case—in her defence. Another verse follows, praising the Motherland for possessing the virtues of knowledge, love, and faith. The last verse returns to the theme of a divine Mother, who is strong and able to defend herself from enemies by comparing her to the ten-armed, weapon-bearing Goddess Durga.
When Mahendra asks Bhavananda for an explanation of their motivation, the latter chides Mahendra for his naivete and says,
In every country the bond that binds a sovereign to his subjects is the protection that he gives; but our Mussalman King—how does he protect us? Our religion is gone; so is our caste, our honour and the sacredness of our family even! Our lives even are now to be sacrificed. Unless we drive these tipsy long, beards away, a Hindu can no longer hope to save his religion. (34-35)
The image that these lines create of Muslim rule in late 18th century Bengal is one of anarchy and chaos. The question, “How does he protect us?” is rhetorical. It sets up a flurry of accusations and laments which follow but no concrete example of misrule is provided. In a complete distortion of historical reality, blame for the sharp rise in land taxes under expanding British rule in India and the famine in Bengal are assigned to the state’s Muslim rulers. The last lines of the passage contain a direct slur at Muslim rulers of being unduly fond of drink (despite the prohibition of their religion) and being unable to govern properly due to their debauchery.
Vishnu’s traditional role is to preserve the universe, as part of the trinity with Shiva, who is the destroyer, and Brahma, the creator. He is instead re-imagined by drawing on lesser-known scriptural traditions to emphasize the capacity he has for retributive violence.
Later, Mahendra learns more about the organization when he comes across the idol of Vishnu in the abbey where they live.
Mahendra could not at first see what there was in the room, but gazing and gazing on, he presently found a huge four-handed image, bearing in its four hands, the Conch, the Disc, the Club and the Lotus; ... Two huge, decapitated forms stood before it, painted as if drenched in blood, representing Madhu and Kaitabha. (38-39)
Madhu and Kaitabha are demons in Hindu mythology whom Vishnu once slayed. Clearly, this is not the calm, gentle Vishnu of the Vaishnavas, whose reincarnation was the righteous Rama: even-tempered, just, calm in adversity, and always following decorum and ethics. Vishnu’s traditional role is to preserve the universe, as part of the trinity with Shiva, who is the destroyer, and Brahma, the creator. He is instead re-imagined by drawing on lesser-known scriptural traditions to emphasize the capacity he has for retributive violence.
Mahendra also comes across the figure of goddess Kali, and goddess Durga bearing arms. All these figures, emphasize the necessity of violence to drive away the enemies of Hinduism. This is made explicit by Chatterjee, while describing goddess Durga. “Bowing to this goddess, the monk observed: ‘This is the mother as she would be: her ten hands spreading on all sides and her varied powers appearing in them in the form of so many arms; the enemy trampled under her feet and the lion at her feet engaged in killing her foes…’” (41)
This is the Durga of “Vande Mataram” given a concrete, fearsome form. She is the slayer of demons, an all-powerful, all mighty goddess of vengeance. An impressed Mahendra ends up joining the Santan or Children. Meanwhile, he is again separated from his wife and child.
At one point in the narrative, Mahendra questions the head monk, Satyananda, about the violence they commit, despite belonging to the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism which is non-violent. Satyananda replies: “That's the Vaishnava creed of Chaitanya. It is the creed of that spurious Vaishnavism which grew up in imitation of atheistic Buddhism. The ideal of true Vaishnavism is the chastisement of the wrong-doers and the salvation of mother earth…” (97) This passage shows how deeply Hinduism and its history are entwined with violence, forming a civilizational dialectic that has informed the history of the subcontinent in a fundamental way. The reference to Buddhism and the allegation that Hinduism copied its strain of non-violence from the former has a historical basis; although here, it is used to make a different point.
The Arya or Vedic Hindu religion was never free of violence. Violence was rather integral to it: in ritual sacrifice, or in vanquishing enemies, for example. Historians have argued that Hinduism appropriated non-violence from the Buddhists in order to weaken it by stealing its core idea and to give itself a boost in popularity. Hence, there is a re-emphasis in Anandmath on righteous violence being integral to the original conception of Hindu religion.
After winning a decisive battle against the English forces trying to stop the Children from tormenting Muslims, the Children establish their rule in that part of the countryside.
On that night that part of the country rang with shouts of Harinam… During that night, the whole country was in a great ferment. Everybody said, “The Moslems have been defeated and the country has come back to the Hindus; cry Hari, Hari.” The villagers would chase any Mussulman that they would meet—some would combine and go to the Mussalman quarters to set fire to their houses and pillage them. (167)
Sarkar argues that this is a description of ‘ethnic cleansing’. Terrorizing Muslims, as praxis to the reactionary ethos of the novel, becomes a form of divinely sanctioned patriotism. Turning history on its head, Muslims who suffered as much as Hindus under British rule, and fought against it with the latter, are turned into villains, including ordinary Muslims simply going about their lives.
Meanwhile, the British, who have been oppressing the country and the city of Calcutta are criticized, too, but not for any actions of their own—only because the dubious assertion that they support the Muslims. The Battle of Plassey of 1757 took place because Siraj-ud-Daulah, then-king of Bengal objected to the British fortifying Calcutta and for not sharing revenues that the British earned from trade. He was defeated and his body—sliced in parts—was paraded through Calcutta by the British at the end of the Battle of Plassey. The Battle of Buxar (1764) was fought between Muslim rulers of neighbouring Awadh, and the rulers of Bengal who challenged the British but lost.
By the end of the book, the Children are unable to take over the capital, despite their victories in battles against the English. This is explained at the end of the novel as something ‘inevitable’ by a mysterious character called the Physician—a stand-in for Vishnu himself—in a speech to Satyananda, the head monk. The Physician explains that the English are great at “objective sciences” and the Hindus should learn from them till they are able to rule themselves. Finally, he says, “The English are a friendly power, and no one, in truth, has the power to come off victorious in a fight with the English.” (200) It is on this obsequious note that the novel ends.
The publication of Anandmath was part of the phenomenon of Hindu revivalism which began to gain ground in the late nineteenth century in India, a hundred years after the Sanyasi and Faqir Rebellion. But its seeds were indeed sown in the early years of British rule described in the novel. Warren Hastings—cruel and corrupt as he was—was sympathetic to Hindu and particularly Brahmin learning and scholarship. Hastings, who reformed and codified Hindu laws, was one of the first British Orientalists: he knew both Sanskrit and Persian, for example, and he encouraged another British Orientalist Charles Wilkins to translate the Gita into English for the first time. The translation of the Gita, and the translation of Shakuntala by William Jones (the founder of Asiatic Society of India) found enthusiastic takers in the West, especially France and Germany.
There was already a rise in European interest in India, especially its ancient Hindu past. It can be traced back to the Enlightenment: a primarily European socio-cultural movement, which transformed Europe. A variety of influences in the field of science, philosophy, politics, and religion contributed to the rise and development of the phenomenon of Enlightenment. Its main component was the emphasis on Reason, and a rejection of what could not be explained through it, such as the concept of God and as a natural corollary, the tenets of Christianity. Reason, which was implicit in the disciplines of Logic and Mathematics, led to a greater emphasis on knowledge gained through scientific methods.
The publication of Anandmath was part of the phenomenon of Hindu revivalism which began to gain ground in the late nineteenth century in India, a hundred years after the Sanyasi and Faqir Rebellion. But its seeds were indeed sown in the early years of British rule described in the novel.
As a result of this crisis in Western epistemology, which was undergoing a drastic shift, and discarding any form of knowledge that was not scientifically proven, there arose a countermovement to Enlightenment, which has been termed as Counter-Enlightenment by thinkers such as Isaiah Berlin. Counter-Enlightenment philosophers did not think true knowledge could be accessed through Reason alone. They believed that Truth and Knowledge derived from God, and without his help or presence, true knowledge can never be gained.
Political upheavals helped consolidate the gains of Enlightenment. In 1688, England underwent the Glorious Revolution, leading to a regime change which led to the Parliament gaining powers over and above those enjoyed by the monarchy. The powers of the Roman Catholic church became reduced as well.
The political developments culminated in the French Revolution of 1789, which abolished the monarchy altogether in France and led to the rise of a secular Republic. Along with new ideas in science and philosophy, and a restructuring of religious beliefs, Europe also saw the Industrial Revolution take place, which created conditions for greater affluence. Of course, its other contribution was the rise of Colonialism, in search of more goods, and of markets where these goods could be bought and sold. Scientific developments in the fields of transportation and communications opened up the world unlike ever before. Thus, this also became a time for the global exchange of ideas, too.
The new developments can be seen in the context of what Foucault calls the History of Ideas in his book Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). These ideas, or-quasi-epistemological disciplines, remain in the contested zone between reason and un-reason, sometimes overlapping with disciplines that are scientifically valid. Aryanism, 19th century philology, and even Orientalist Indology, were some such ideas that passed from philosophy, literature, and other disciplines to politics. Ideas pass into philosophy and other humanistic fields as well, especially from science. For example, Charles Darwin’s work on evolution and the many scientific discoveries of the period—especially in astronomy—had disproved many religious ideas about the origin of life and Earth’s place in the universe. It led to the rise of atheism and materialist philosophy, summed up in Nietzsche’s dictum, God is Dead.
It was the exile of God from philosophy, to which atheist philosophers like Voltaire and Spinoza contributed, under the influence of science which made European philosophers dissatisfied with such an approach look towards Eastern knowledge. In these eastern philosophies, divinity had not been consigned to the dungeons of epistemology; it co-existed with other schools of thought, including atheistic thought—as it does in Hindu philosophy.
Sanskrit texts from India, exuding scriptural authority and containing esoteric wisdom preserved by the Hindus since antiquity, fitted right into this new paradigm, as far as European idea of knowledge was concerned. Eventually, these texts gave rise to a strong current in European thought which was to have a lasting effect not just on the history of the continent but also of India.
It is through Johann Gottfried Herder, that these ideas—first articulated by Counter-Enlightenment philosophers—reached their full potential and began to attract other adherents. Herder became the father of German Romanticism, which had differences with the rational and scientific approach of classic Enlightenment thought. It emphasized on forming connections with nature instead of industrialization and urbanization. It celebrated the value of arts in bringing us closer to the nature of reality, and to the role of human spirit in guiding individuals and civilization.
In these eastern philosophies, divinity had not been consigned to the dungeons of epistemology; it co-existed with other schools of thought, including atheistic thought—as it does in Hindu philosophy.
Herder was born in 1744 to poor parents and went on to study theology, philosophy and literature. He was associated with the German literary movement Sturm und Drang, which was a precursor to German Romanticism. His most notable work is the 1774 treatise Auch Eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (Yet Another Philosophy of the History of the Formation of Humanity). Berlin writes that Herder had three main contributions to intellectual thought. The first was Populism, which stated that the community determined an individual’s place in the world. The second was Expressionism, which postulated that art should express the community or the group’s outlook towards life and culture. The third was Pluralism, which stated that all cultures were equally worthy of study, and none was inherently superior to another.
It was the third doctrine of Herder into which India fitted, along with other cultures of antiquity which he studied and wrote about. In her book 2018 Hindu Pasts, Vasudha Dalmia writes, “Though he polemicised against Voltaire’s scepticism of all human endeavour and refusal to see any hope for the future of mankind, Herder followed him in identifying the Orient as the cradle of human race.” (23)
Searching for a common historical past was one of the obsessions of Counter-Enlightenment philosophers and German Romantics. They believed that humanity arose from a single source and by studying human society in its embryonic form as well as its subsequent growth, they could learn more about the world and its history that through employing empirical methods.
By the time Friedrich Schlegel arrived on the scene, Indology was becoming an established discipline, with plenty of material available to European scholars for study. Schlegel was born in the latter half of eighteenth century. Educated at Gottingen university, he was initially a firm believer in the value of classical learning, deriving from the Greeks. In the early years of the nineteenth century, he went to Paris to study Sanskrit, where the French dominated the field of Indology at the time. Starting with Schlegel, the Germans were soon to take over.
Dalmia writes,
William Jones (1746-94) had already proclaimed that the classical European languages, Greek and Latin, were closely related to Sanskrit and Persian, and speculated about their common historical past. Schlegel went further. He raised language itself to the status of a historical document. (27)
The implication of this approach was that Sanskrit contained the key to understanding early human history, especially of one branch in particular, and its connections with European languages was evidence of a shared past between Indians and Europeans. Schlegel extolled Hindu wisdom. “It was among the Indians, the ‘most cultivated and wisest people of Antiquity’, that ‘traces of divine truth’ were still to be found.”(Dalmia, 29)
Both these developments are intimately connected to one man who single-handedly established the Vedas as the font of the most sublime form of Hindu wisdom, and proved, controversially, that India was the place where the Aryan civilization reached its zenith by composing these scriptures: Max Mueller
Two new developments would further raise India’s profile in the German and European imagination in the years to come. One was the translation of the Rig-Veda, which had not been attempted before, and the advent of the Aryan theory. Both these developments are intimately connected to one man who single-handedly established the Vedas as the font of the most sublime form of Hindu wisdom, and proved, controversially, that India was the place where the Aryan civilization reached its zenith by composing these scriptures.
This man was Max Mueller. The son of a poet, Mueller was born in the first quarter of the 19th century in Germany. His father died when he was still young, and his early upbringing was under impoverished circumstances. He learned Sanskrit in Paris after his initial education in Leipzig, and Berlin, under the philologist Franz Bopp and philosopher Friedrich Schelling. Schelling was an Indophile, like Herder and Schlegel, while Bopp is credited with discovering the connection of European languages to Sanskrit. Mueller also studied in Paris under Eugene Burnouf, who was a leading French orientalist of his time. Later, Mueller moved on to Oxford where he served as a professor for the rest of his academic career. His fame rests chiefly on his translation of the Rig-Veda in an annotated form, which was the first to appear in Europe and established his reputation. The first part of the text appeared in 1847.
One of Mueller’s his central achievements consisted in his efforts to popularize the Aryan theory and ancient Hindu wisdom in Europe. As a result, he came to occupy the position of a well-wisher of India and Indians; someone whose sympathy for ancient India as the homeland of the Aryans never wavered, and whose praise of its ancient wisdom helped Indians feel better about themselves, suffering under an inferiority complex due to their colonized status.
Mueller’s book, India: What Can It Teach Us was a compilation of his lectures to young British civil servants on their way to serve in India. These lectures were delivered in 1882, three years before the formation of the Indian National Congress, and the same year in which Anandmath was published.
In the very first lecture Mueller exhorts the young civil servants to make a study of Sanskrit. The reason he cites is what happened to be the basis for the Aryan theory: Sanskrit’s connection to European languages proved that the Indians were cousins of Europeans, and although different in terms of temperament and achievements, they were of the same racial stock.
A little later, Max Mueller describes when he first heard of Sanskrit. “[I] remember, I say, one of our masters (Dr. Klee) telling us one afternoon, when it was too hot to do any serious work, that there was a language spoken in India, which was much the same as Greek and Latin, nay as German and Russian.” (17) He writes that, although the students first thought it to be some kind of a “joke” but when they saw,
the parallel columns of Numerals, Pronouns, and verbs in Sanskrit, Greek and Latin written on the blackboard, one felt in the presence of facts, before which one had to bow. All one’s ideas of Adam and Eve, and the Paradise, (...) seemed to be whirling round and round, till at last one picked up the fragments, and tried to build up a new world, and to live with a new historical consciousness. (17)
The new historical consciousness which Mueller spoke of was the ‘realization’ gaining ground in Europe that India was the cradle of civilization, and the Vedas—which predated the Bible—were the foundational texts of human history for the world, including European civilization. As he said in the same lecture: “Whatever else we may have been, it is quite clear now that, many thousands of years ago, we were something that had not yet developed into an Englishman, or a Saxon, or a Greek, or a Hindu either, yet contained in itself the germs of all these characters.” (18)
The Aryan ancestor, that is. This was the heyday of Aryanism, which connected India to the West by positing that both Indians and Europeans came out of the same stock: Nomadic Central Asian tribes which conquered the Indian subcontinent, after destroying the indigenous Harappan civilization, and composing the Vedas, the central texts of Hinduism. An offshoot of Aryanism was the linguistic theory which claimed that Sanskrit was the root of many European and Indian languages. Indology too was a rising discipline of the period, pioneered, as we have seen, by German Romantics and French philologists. Although these disciplines have now become tainted by political associations—the rise of fascism and growth of an authoritarian right-wing in India, for example—at the start of the 20th century, they were considered valid and were powerful enough as ideas to dictate the course of history.
It was not Mueller himself who first coined the word ‘Aryan’ and connected it to the Europeans. This dubious honour goes to Arthur de Gobineau, a French writer with an aristocratic background. In the middle of the nineteenth century, he published a book called An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races which stated that the Europeans were the descendants of Aryans—by which he meant blonde, blue-eyed people who were racially superior of all others.
Hindu revivalism, growing under the influence of European intellectual currents of Oriental scholarship and Aryanism, was also influenced by developments at home. Hindu revivalism was of two varieties: Orthodox and Reformist. This was due to the influence of Christian missionaries and Orientalists. While Missionaries criticized Hinduism and its practices, Orientalists extolled its texts, especially the Vedas. The Reformist trends arose by accepting the validity of the critique; Orthodox Hindus clung harder to the past, in order to refute the criticism.
In his book, Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th century Punjab (1976), Kenneth Jones writes that Orthodox Hindu movements in Punjab can trace their origins to Pandit Shradha Ram. He explains that Punjab consisted of three communities: Muslims (who formed the majority), Hindus, and Sikhs. Out of these three, Sikhs and Muslims had ruled Punjab, but Hindus had the benefit of belonging to the majority in rest of the Indian subcontinent. Various other historical influences were already at play in the state in the 19th century, including that of the English who had recruited many Bengalis in government services due to their knowledge of English. This began a cultural renaissance in Punjab, through Bengalis based in Lahore, many of whom were connected to the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reform movement which borrowed from Christianity. This connection to Christianity was both appreciated as a form of Modernism, as well as disapproved by Punjab’s Hindus and Sikhs for weakening Hinduism.
In this milieu, a devout Hindu called Shradha Ram—a British employee—rose to the defence of Hinduism, which was under attack from Brahmo Samaj and the Christian Missionaries in Punjab. Jones writes that, in 1867, Ram founded a school in Ludhiana to teach Sanskrit to children. Over the next decades, he would go on to write a book in favour of Hinduism called Dharm Raksha, found an institution called Hindu Dharm Prakashik Sabha, and campaign for Orthodox Hinduism from every platform available to him.
The tensions between Brahmo Samaj, Orthodox Hinduism, and Christian Missionaries, along with the publication of Anandmath, had contributed to Bengal becoming a major centre of Hindu revivalism in the second half of the 19th century. This milieu is described in Rabindra Nath Tagore’s novel Gora (1910). Set in the late 19th century, the novel features Gourmohan or Gora, the protagonist who is a staunch supporter of Hinduism, which is shown to be under attack from Christian missionaries and Brahmo Samaj. In her book Make Me A Man!: Masculinity, Hinduism and Nationalism in India (2005), Sikata Banerjee argues that implicit in the criticism of missionaries was a gendered construct as well, of the Indian—especially the Bengali—as an “effeminate other” to the “manly” Christian British colonizer. Banerjee writes:
The tensions between Brahmo Samaj, Orthodox Hinduism, and Christian Missionaries, along with the publication of Anandmath, had contributed to Bengal becoming a major centre of Hindu revivalism in the second half of the 19th century.
Usually in these British accounts, the effeminacy of Hindus was defined by mention of their feeble bodies, perceived to be the result of little vigorous exercise, an excessive bookishness, a propensity for mercantile occupations (…) and behavior marked by a cowardly lack of patriotism. The most potent symbol of general Hindu effeminacy was the Bengali… (28-29)
Gora is a representative of the orthodox trend in Hinduism during this period in India. His position—defending Hinduism, along with the caste system and other ills that burden it—is remarkably similar to what Shradha Ram said during a debate with a Punjabi Hindu reformer Kanhaiyalal Alakhdhari, as written by Jones. Alakhdhari had founded the organisation Niti Prakash Sabha in 1873, which extolled the Vedas but found Hinduism’s insistence on idol worship to be a form of backwardness, among other traditions and customs, similar to the position of the Brahmo Samaj. Ram argued that in order to reform Hinduism, one had to be first a ‘firm Hindu’ oneself. He excoriated Alakhdhari for not wearing the sacred thread nor keeping a knot on his head—as mandatory for Brahmins—and for criticizing the caste system.
Jones writes about Shraddha Ram and his ilk, “To leave the traditions and customs of Hinduism in order to save them seemed to Shraddha Ram and many orthodox Hindus contradictory if not simply insane. It was a self-defeating strategy and would only encourage the work of the ‘Muslims, Christians and the Brahmo Samaj’” (28).
Both Reformist and Orthodox trends continued to exist and refine their outlook in this period. These trends also overlapped: The founder of Arya Samaj, Dayanand Saraswati was influenced by Debendranath Tagore, who founded the Brahmo Samaj. A wandering medicant from Kathiawar in Gujarat, Saraswati rebelled against the orthodoxy of Hinduism since childhood. Born in 1824, he left home in youth, and little is known of his life during his 20s and early 30s. In 1860, he found a guru, a Punjabi holy man named Virajanand Dandeesha, who was a firm believer in the Vedas, but not in the caste system or Sati. Saraswati adopted his guru’s radical interpretation of Hinduism and set out to preach and propagate it, thus setting in motion a powerful trend of reformist, militant Hinduism, which was hostile to Christianity and Islam. While Saraswati’s initial efforts did not bear much fruit, it did bring him considerable fame.
In 1872, Saraswati met Debendranath Tagore in Calcutta, and stayed in the city for four months. Jones writes that following this period, Saraswati underwent a transformation. This reflected in his dropping Sanskrit for Hindi as the language in which he communicated. He tried to reach out to non-Brahmins and dropped the loin cloth that he used to wear earlier for the traditional orange robe of the monk.
By 1875, he had already published his main work Satyarth Prakash and established a branch of Arya Samaj in Bombay. However, it was in the Punjab that he finally tasted success. His lectures in the state began to draw a lot of attention and he started to attract a following. This also made him the target of ire of the orthodox Hindus such as Shraddha Ram.
But Saraswati carried on, regardless of opposition. and by 1877, the Lahore branch of the Arya Samaj became functional. One of his first adherents was Arjun Singh, the grandfather of Bhagat Singh. He went on to establish several other branches of the Arya Samaj in the state. Although initially influenced by the Brahmo Samaj, Saraswati began to criticize it later, and the two organizations joined issue over Saraswati’s interpretation of the Vedas, among other things. Gradually, Brahmo Samaj was eclipsed as Arya Samaj began to consolidate its hold in Punjab.
For Aurobindo, religion was synonymous with duty. He connected the idea of dharma, or duty, with the need for retaliatory violence, as shown by the actions of the heroes of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Mueller and Saraswati too did not agree on their respective interpretation of the Vedas, but both agreed on greatness of the scriptures and their status as the greatest achievement of the Aryans, confirming their belief in the Aryan race as superior. Jones writes, “The same forces which brought Christianity had freed Hindu thought and made possible a purification of the present state of degeneracy,” (49).
The ‘freeing’ of Hindu thought from the shackles of Colonialism which deemed it inferior did not only influence the socio-religious sphere, but went on to influence India’s struggle for Independence. As Banerjee argues in Make Me A Man!, the ‘ambiguity’, or rather, hostility, of British and European Orientalists about Muslims and their rule seems to have seeped into the worldview of Hindu nationalist revolutionaries. She writes,
The gendered gaze of the British intersected with two other common European imperial views that were dominant in India—the construction of a mythic, golden, Hindu Vedic past and ambiguity about Islam and its practitioners (…) Both interpretations—the golden Vedic past and demonic Muslim invader—were used by Hindu nationalists to construct their own cultural vocabulary of resistance to British rule. (39)
Extremists like B. G. Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, and religious leader Vivekananda used the Aryan theory and Hindu scriptures to emphasize the martial past of Hindus and exhorted them to be physically strong—more manly—in order to defend their motherland; violence could and should be used against the oppressor, if need be. Out of the three, Tilak, being a prominent political leader, did not speak openly in favour of violence but only hinted at it in his speeches and writings. Vivekananda did not concern himself directly with politics but spoke in general about the need for a more muscular form of Hinduism. “Vivekananda’s image of masculine Hinduism—reflecting the purity and stance of a warrior-monk and derived from notions of a mythic ascetic warriorhood—was delineated most eloquently in Chatterjee’s Anandmath.” (45) writes Banerjee.
Aurobindo, like Vivekananda, was a scholar of Hinduism, and like Tilak, was a political leader as well. It was him who took the idea of manliness and militant response to injustice, which is inherent in Hinduism, and brought it to the political field, using it to argue in favour of political or revolutionary violence in his early writings.
For Aurobindo, religion was synonymous with duty. He connected the idea of dharma, or duty, with the need for retaliatory violence, as shown by the actions of the heroes of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. He wrote,
[For] it is their duty as Kshatriyas to protect the world from the reign of injustice, even though it is at their own expense that injustice seeks to reign. The Christian & Buddhistic doctrine of turning the other cheek to the smiter, is as dangerous as it is impracticable. The disinterested & desireless pursuit of duty is a gospel worthy of the strongest manhood; that of the cheek turned to the smiter is a gospel for cowards & weaklings.” (Sri Aurobindo, Collected Works)
Like Anandmath before it, the reformist efforts of Dayanand Saraswati, Shradha Ram, and the Aryan supremacist philosophies shared between Hindu and European thinkers, the seeds had been sown to encourage a new Hindu man, a ‘protector of his religion,’ inspired by the Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s rallying cry in “Vande Mataram.” But the many twists and turns on how this hymn was declared the Indian republic’s “National Song”—and was eventually elevated to soundtrack India’s mainstreamed radical right-wing shift in the 21st century—remains to be told.
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Abhimanyu Kumar is a journalist and writer based in the Netherlands. He co-authored The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy (2025) with Aletta Andre last year for Harper Collins, India. He has written for several Indian and foreign publications as a journalist. He has also published poetry and fiction. You can find him on Instagram: @garcia_bobby123.
