Bharat Mata

Bharat Mata
National personification of India
Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951).
Other names	Mother India
Affiliation	Bhudevi, Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali
Animals	Lion
Symbols	Red or saffron-colored sari, national flag, lotus, lion
Temples	Few temples in India, first inaugurated in Varanasi in 1936 by Mahatma Gandhi

Bharat Mata (Bhārat Mātā, Mother India in English) is a national personification of India (Bharat^[1]) as a mother goddess. Bharat Mata is commonly depicted dressed in a red or saffron-coloured sari and holding a national flag; she sometimes stands on a lotus and is accompanied by a lion.^[2]

The word Bharat Mata dates to late 19th century Bengal in modern literature. She was popularised by the Bengali language-novel Anandamath (1882), wherein she was depicted in a form inseparable from the Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali. After the controversial division of Bengal province in 1905, she was highlighted during the boycott of British-made goods organized by Sir Surendranath Bannerjee.^[3] In numerous protest meetings, she was invoked in the rallying cry Vande Mataram (I bow to the mother).

Bharat Mata was painted as a four-armed goddess by Abanindranath Tagore in 1904, in the style associated with the Bengal School of Art, in a form derived from typical depictions of Hindu goddesses. This painting is displayed in the Victoria Memorial Museum in Kolkata. By the late 19th century, maps of India produced by the British Raj, and based on the Great Trigonometrical Survey, had become widely available. Over the background of a map, Bharat Mata was depicted on the cover of the poet Subramania Bharati's Tamil language-magazine Vijaya in 1909. In the decades following, she appeared throughout India in popular art: in magazines, posters, and calendars, becoming a symbol of Indian nationalism.

There are a handful of Bharat Mata temples in India. The first was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in Varanasi in 1936. The temple has a large marble relief map of India on its floor, but originally lacked a murti (divine image used for worship). On its wall is displayed a poem written for the inauguration by the nationalist Hindi language-poet Maithili Sharan Gupt; it proclaims the temple to be open to all castes and religions. Most visitors to the temple are foreign tourists.^[4] Indian Muslims have opposed the chanting of her name, because in Islam, the divine cannot be worshipped in human form.