bankim chaterjee

It was Bankim who gave the mantra of ' Bande Matram' which transformed pre-independence India overnight from a supplicant nation to a self-conscious nation! Suddenly the Indian youth had received an 'adesh' from the almighty to liberate their country from foreign yoke. Lord Curzon's decision to partition Bengal added fuel to the fire. Perhaps 1906 was the turning point in India's independence struggle. Tilak,Aurobindo,Das,Lajpat Rai and many others exhorted the people to demand 'Swaraj'.
Bankim's vision of India was that of ma Durga astride a lioness with a sword in her hands! He dream t of a dedicted band of 'sanyasis' whose only pre-occupation would be to build a mighty,prosperous and enlightened nation which would lead the world. After Vivekananda he was the second person who foresaw that without moral courage and idealism any movement was doomed to failure.
Bankim was a scholar,poet, playwright,dramatist and novelist. He realized that the old Bengali language was too stiff and sober and modified it into a simpler form. Suddenly Bengal was abuzz with creativity and new forms of poetry,literature,art and music emerged.
Anand Math,kapal-kundal,Devi Chaudhrani are all masterpieces and give an accurate picture of Indian society of that period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj1Iy4nRMkc

RlSHI BANKIM CHANDRA THERE are many who, lamenting the by-gone glories of this great and ancient nation, speak as if the Rishis of old, the inspired creators of thought and civilisation, were a miracle of our heroic age, not to be repeated among degenerate men and in our distressful present. This is an error and thrice an error. Ours is the eternal land, the eternal people, the eternal religion, whose strength, greatness, holiness may be overclouded but never, even for a moment, utterly , cease. The hero, the Rishi, the saint, are the natural fruits of our Indian soil; and there has been no age in which they have not been born. Among the Rishis of the later age we have at last realised that we must include the name of the man who gave us the reviving mantra which is creating a new India, the mantra Bande Mataram. sri aurobindo