From Nehru’s people to the RSS’s goddess: The shifting faces of Bharat Mata

By Prem Singh* 

“Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me: Bharat Mata Ki Jai – Victory to Mother India! I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, who was this Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they wanted? My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and at me. … At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, would say that it was the dharati, the good earth of India, that they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India?”

Thus wrote Jawaharlal Nehru in The Discovery of India, concluding that Bharat Mata was not merely land, rivers, or mountains, but the people of India themselves. “You are parts of this Bharat Mata,” he told his listeners, “you are, in a manner, yourselves Bharat Mata.”

On World Environment Day, June 5, a controversy erupted in Kerala between the state government and Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar over the offering of a floral tribute to a portrait of Bharat Mata at a Raj Bhavan event. The dispute arose because the image chosen was the RSS’s version of Bharat Mata, not an officially recognised one. Agriculture Minister P. Prasad and Education Minister V. Sivankutty, who were to attend the event, withdrew after learning that the floral tribute had been added later to the official programme.

Prasad, a CPI leader and first-time MLA, said that upon requesting the image from Raj Bhavan, he found it to be the RSS’s Bharat Mata, bearing the saffron flag instead of the Indian tricolour. Since no official image of Bharat Mata has ever been adopted by the Constitution or any government, he refused to participate, noting that a portrait featuring a political organisation’s flag could not be honoured at a government event. The Raj Bhavan refused to remove it, asserting its own authority.

Prasad argued that constitutional office-holders have limits on political expression and asked why the Governor was taking such a rigid stand, unlike previous governors or presidents who had never endorsed such an image. He added that political leaders are free to venerate any image privately, but not in official state functions. Education Minister Sivankutty went further, saying that the Governor should step down for politicising the office.

Undeterred, the Governor proceeded with the RSS’s Bharat Mata at Raj Bhavan while the state government shifted the official event to the Secretariat’s Durbar Hall. Afterward, Arlekar declared that there would be “no compromise on Bharat Mata,” implying that the RSS version was the true and authoritative image.

The concept of Bharat Mata has deep roots in the freedom movement. It was shaped by revolutionaries of 1857, by mass leaders, and by writers and artists across Indian languages. Thinkers like Nehru and Ram Manohar Lohia enriched the idea, presenting Bharat Mata as a symbol of collective life, sacrifice, and independence. Over time, images of Bharat Mata have varied—from goddess-like depictions to secular, tricolour-clad representations holding the national flag before the map of India. This latter form has gained informal acceptance as a national emblem of unity and diversity.

The RSS’s Bharat Mata, however, differs sharply. She holds the saffron flag of the organisation, stands beside a lion, and is framed against a map of “Akhand Bharat.” It represents not the Republic of India but an ideological conception. Those who venerate this image never opposed imperialism in the past nor the neo-imperial subjugation of today. When the Kerala Governor insists on this version as non-negotiable, he equates the RSS’s partisan symbol with the nation itself. If political power alone determines the “true” Bharat Mata, it is a distortion of both history and patriotism.

The RSS’s rejection of the freedom struggle, the Constitution, and the national flag is well recorded. What is remarkable is that, even after a century, it remains unable to grasp the hollowness of its nationalism. By imposing an exclusionary image of Bharat Mata divorced from the spirit of freedom and sacrifice, it undermines the very republic it claims to serve. Such rigidity and inertia are unhealthy for any organisation or society.

Two factors sustain this inertia. First, while modern Indian nationalism grew from resistance to colonialism, the RSS’s “Hindu nationalism” emerged from a conservative mindset disconnected from the pluralism of the Indian Renaissance. 

Second, the organisation seeks to appropriate the symbols, figures, and ideals of the freedom movement only to reinforce its narrow ideology. It treats even internal religious and social diversity—Dalits, Adivasis, and minorities—with the same approach. The only path forward is genuine dialogue with India’s multiple streams of thought. The capacity for such dialogue is inherent to all human communities, and the RSS must decide whether it wishes to remain an exception.

Governor Arlekar’s actions are not isolated. Many governors appointed by the current central government have adopted a similar confrontational style, undermining constitutional decorum in non-BJP states. Their confidence stems from political protection. Neither the “secular” partners within the NDA nor constitutional institutions like the Presidency or the Supreme Court have raised objections. The opposition too remained largely silent. Even scholars, writers, and artists failed to express alarm.

Has the RSS’s Bharat Mata thus been silently accepted as the nation’s Bharat Mata? Across the country, public events now routinely echo with “Bharat Mata Ki Jai,” invoked by officials and dignitaries regardless of context. At a writers’ felicitation in Bhopal, the Governor and Education Minister of Madhya Pradesh began and ended their speeches with the chant, turning a literary gathering into a ritual of political affirmation.

This excessive devotion has intensified during three decades of neoliberal dependency. It demands no sacrifice, only display. Patriotism has been reduced to performative worship, devoid of concern for sovereignty, equality, or justice. In this atmosphere of neo-imperialist submission, the ruling class prefers a docile, deified Bharat Mata—one that blesses power without questioning it. The RSS, which first conceived this image, now enforces it with official sanction.

In contrast, CPI leaders P. Prasad and Binoy Viswam have demonstrated moral clarity and constitutional restraint in their stand. Their response—measured, reasoned, and firm—should remind the nation that true reverence for Bharat Mata lies not in ritual obeisance to an image, but in fidelity to the people, the republic, and its democratic spirit.

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The writer, associated with the socialist movement, is a former teacher at Delhi University and a fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla