Kolkata: Presidency College, a cradle of nationalism, played a huge role in the evolution of ‘Vande Mataram’, from being a song to turning into a mantra to a battle cry to a victory slogan for the motherland, said RSS eastern India Prachar Pramukh Jisnu Basu.A scientist at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Basu was speaking at a seminar organised by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), RSS’s students’ wing, to commemorate the sesquicentenary of the national song. The event was held at Presidency University’s A K Basak auditorium on Thursday.The ABVP unit is trying to make a foray into Presidency, the campus where Syama Prasad Mookerjee (to whom the RSS traces its ideological lineage) and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (its nationalistic Vande Mataram poet) spent their college days.“The first stream was initiated by Presidency College (then Hindu College) alumnus Rajnarayan Basu. He wrote an extraordinary essay — ‘Prospectus of a Society for the Promotion of National Feeling among the Educated Natives of Bengal’ — that cultivated deep national feeling among people. Nabagopal Mitra was overwhelmed. Mitra, Basu and members of the Tagore family —Debendranath, Gaganendranath, Jyotirindranath and Rabindranath — came forward and they started the Hindu mela. Sparked by Bankim Chandra, one of Presidency’s first graduates, this stream gave birth to ‘Vande Mataram’. His profound composition became a defining mantra and Aurobindo Ghosh spread across the country during the 1905 Partition,” Basu said.The third stream, he said, was rooted in the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement. Vivekananda also studied at Presidency for a few days. “Sister Nivedita inspired Abanindranath Tagore to create the Bharat Mata painting. She had created India’s national flag by incorporating Vajra and writing ‘Vande Mataram’. While this design was not adopted as India’s national flag, AJC Bose adopted the Vajra symbol as the official emblem of the Bose Institute. Despite Bose’s qualifications and the high quality of his research, he was denied a full salary simply because he was Indian. In protest, Bose continued to teach his students and conduct his research, but he refused to accept his salary. This is also nationalism,” Basu said.ABVP PU unit president Mridul Banik said, “The first official programme of ABVP at the Presidency went off without any resistance. This shows nationalism is fostered on the campus.”SFI unit secretary Ushashree Mitra accused ABVP of “exploiting Presidency and its connection to nationalism” to “reclaim” the campus.
