A nation betrayed? Embroiled in controversy, Bharat Mata is 'again in shackles'

By Dr. Prem Singh*  

Bharat Mata, India’s revered symbol, is again embroiled in controversy, reignited by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In Kerala, the Lieutenant Governor’s display of a saffron-clad Bharat Mata at a government event led to a boycott by the state’s Education Minister, who argued that the Constitution champions inclusive, democratic nationalism, not a singular cultural icon. The Chief Minister condemned the use of Raj Bhavan to push RSS ideology, escalating tensions as the Lieutenant Governor expressed outrage.

The deeper issue is the government’s tendency to treat public events as RSS platforms. Constitutional officeholders flout decorum, chanting *Bharat Mata Ki Jai* at state functions, following RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call to instill nationalism in youth. Educational institutions are now ideological battlegrounds, unmoved by appeals to the Constitution or India’s freedom struggle. The message is clear: with the RSS in power, Bharat Mata is theirs to define.

Two decades have shown that NDA leaders from marginalized communities—Dalits, backward classes, and tribals—prioritize power over constitutional values. Those tied to the RSS are even less accountable. Bharat Mata must be viewed through the Constitution and the independence movement, not RSS dogma. Below is a revised version of my 2012 Yuva Samvad article from the “Samay-Samvad” column, re-released in 2020 and now in 2025, to frame this ongoing debate.

She, Too, Is Bharat Mata’s Daughter

In 2007, driving back from a Noida wedding at 11:30 p.m., I saw a frail, fifteen-year-old girl selling garlands at the desolate Ghazipur crossing. Likely from a nomadic or tribal community, she stood alone in the cold, malnourished and vulnerable. Nagarjun’s words echoed: “She, too, is a daughter of Mother India!”

I thought of writing about her but didn’t. Writers romanticize the poor as revolutionary subjects, yet India’s slums and streets brim with the dispossessed, far from citizenship. That girl’s solitary struggle for a few rupees lingered in my mind. Corporations exploit resources; writers exploit the uprooted lives of the marginalized. Governments reward both—corporations with contracts, writers with awards. The claim that literature challenges power persists, yet writers embrace corporate honors, a trend entrenched in the West and growing in India.

Eighteen years on, that girl’s plight has worsened, trapped in inhumane conditions. Terms like liberation and empathy are hollow, born of the capitalism that doomed her to that crossing. In 2012, a 13-year-old domestic worker in Delhi’s Dwarka was freed after being locked in a home by a doctor couple vacationing in Thailand. Starving and terrified, she was called a “maid” in reports, her abusers named, but her own name—perhaps Sona—was likely a placeholder. Her Jharkhand mother remained nameless. India’s middle class obsesses over Sanskritized names for their children, yet tribal mothers and daughters are denied such dignity.

Civil society acts shocked at such cases, as if they’re rare. The middle class absolves itself, trusting the law to act, easing guilt with spiritual gurus. They denounce corrupt politics but seek no reform, only moral superiority. Child laborers flood India’s homes and streets, toiling for meager wages. Domestic workers face backlash for demanding raises, while the middle class demands every comfort, evades taxes, and breaks laws for gain. Celebrities and artists, unsatisfied with fame, chase advertising wealth, preaching patriotism while amassing fortunes.

Who Is Bharat Mata’s Daughter? 

Is Sona, or someone like Kiran Bedi, Bharat Mata’s true daughter? I choose Sona—not from sentiment, but because countless Sonas labor without fanfare, enduring exploitation. Their mothers’ collective tears form Bharat Mata, now captive to her wayward sons. Pandit Likhiram’s village song of a weeping Bharat Mata, walking a thousand miles, evoked the sacrifices of Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose, and Gandhi. She wasn’t adorned in finery but resembled village women. In Maila Aanchal, a character dies for a Bharat Mata enslaved by selfish forces.

How did corporates, multinationals, mafias, and intellectuals trap Bharat Mata in neoliberal chains? The Anna Hazare movement, invoking her name, epitomized this. Its RSS-aligned imagery drew shallow criticism, but its deeper flaw was embracing RSS ideology. Its rhetoric was empty, diluting even serious activists’ voices. Kiran Bedi called Hazare, Ramdev, and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar “fakirs” serving the nation, yet their ties to wealth and power betray this. True fakirs of the Bhakti movement championed the masses, not neoliberal elites.

Ramdev’s invocation of socialist icons like Lohia is absurd given his commercial empire. India’s middle class, abandoning critical thought, equates rituals with culture and superstition with faith, fostering a frustrated mindset amplified by media and spiritualism. Politically, absurdities like the CPM’s “desi socialism” reveal ideological bankruptcy. Ramdev and Sri Sri’s ties to politicians and corporates expose their motives.

A Call for Revolution

Bharat Mata’s daughters like Sona are excluded from her embrace, denied the Earth Mother’s lap that Lohia envisioned for all. A multifaceted revolution is urgently needed to break this neoliberal stranglehold. Lohia’s ideas offered a path, but the ruling class and its intellectual allies have sidelined them, betraying India’s revolutionary potential. The Anna movement, backed by corporates and NGOs, co-opted activists, ensuring neoliberalism’s continuity regardless of elections.

Press Council chief Markandey Katju rightly said waving flags at Jantar Mantar won’t end corruption, but his elitism—dismissing non-English speakers as backward—excludes Sona from Bharat Mata’s fold. Lohia’s vision of inclusive education for all children is their crime. The Anna movement hijacked nonviolent resistance, using it to support the system it claimed to oppose, undermining genuine nonviolent struggles.

Sona deserves to roam the world freely, learn, work, and build a life, as Lohia dreamed. But until Bharat Mata’s chains are broken, her daughters remain exiled. India needs a revolution—now.

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*Dept. of Hindi, University of Delhi; Former Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; Former Visiting Professor, Center of Eastern Languages and Cultures, Dept. of Indology, Sofia University