Bharat Mata and the Muslim League

Two things took shape at about the same time, and the chapter puts them side by side on purpose.

The first was a symbol. 'Mother India' or 'Bharat Mata' runs through the speeches and writings of many Nationalists, partly inspired by Bankim's Anandamath, which saw India as a divine motherland.

In 1905, during the partition of Bengal, the poet-painter Abanindranath Tagore painted 'Bharat Mata'. In Madras presidency, Subramania Bharati translated Bande Mataram into Tamil and wrote many poems calling on Mother India to rise. In Punjab, Lala Lajpat Rai started a publication titled Vande Mataram.

Notice how far that spread: Bengal, the Tamil country, Punjab. One image was giving very different regions a shared way to picture the nation.

The second development went the other way. In December 1906, leading members of the Muslim community founded the All-India Muslim League in Dhaka, to defend Muslim political interests in British India.

Their worries had grown since the Congress was formed. They distrusted it, fearing Muslims would not be properly represented in a largely Hindu body. Syed Ahmad Khan had campaigned against the Congress and founded the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference as another platform in 1886.

The Congress tried to answer these concerns, without much success.

The chapter adds two careful points. The League at first represented only a limited part of the Muslim population, mainly the elite. And quite a few Muslims had opposed the partition of Bengal. A few decades later, this division would help give rise to the Two-Nation Idea.