Bande Mataram & Cricket

Bande Mataram is in the news. Cricket always is. The twain – the highly inspiring ode and the crazy game – once did meet and cause an everlasting flutter. British Raj’s favourite sport had a very deep influence on Bharat Mata’s national song. Amazing, yes; but true.

In the early 1870s Bankim-babu was a highly placed government official as the Deputy Magistrate of Brahmapur (Baharampur) in Bengal. On 15 December, 1873, a drama unfolded which was to have wide-reaching influence on India’s nationalist movement. The Indian DM was seated inside an enclosed palanquin as the vessel-carriers took a short-cut through a field in the then cantonment area where some Britons were playing cricket.

One British player, Colonel Duffin by name, was so furious at the intrusion of the palanquin on the field that he vigorously pushed the passenger in full view of the players and spectators. Bankim Chattopadhyay was not a man to take an injustice lying down. He approached the court with a charge of assault. Although the British judge realized the crime committed, he did not want to punish his countryman. Instead he requested Bankim-babu to withdraw the allegation and settle the dispute through mediation.

Highly principled Bankim Chattopadhyay agreed on one condition that Duffin would apologize in full view of the hundreds of Indians who had gathered at the hearing. To save himself from a prison sentence, Duffin had no other option. He shook Bankim-babu’s hand saying, “With the same hand now I extend my sincere apologies to you, Sir.”  The multitude went into raptures.

The field known as Barrack Square or Parade Ground still exists. In 2007 the place was recognized as a heritage venue. In 1993 the Bengal-Assam Under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy cricket match was held on this ground. I happened to be the Bengal coach.

Even as a government administrator, Bankim-babu was always a social activist of the highest order. Moreover he was an exceptional writer and edited a magazine named Bongo Darpan. Most of his essays reflected his own wide experience of people and places; issues and incidents. This particular incident left an indelible mark on the multi-dimensional personality. He began to write against the British Raj more often and with more venom to inspire generation of freedom fighters.

One day the magazine Bongo Darpan required some more written material to fill space. The working editor asked for an article and BC promised to write one that very day. In the meantime the working editor saw a poem on a piece of paper lying on the Bankim-babu’s desk. Promptly he read the piece and mentioned that the poem was good enough for the moment.

Immediately Bankim-babu took away the piece of paper and told him not to worry at all. The genius concluded by saying that after his death the patriotic Indians would learn to appreciate the sentiment involved in the poem, where Sanskrit and Bengali were beautifully twined.

What a prophecy it turned out to be. The awe-inspiring words “Bande Mataram” became the clarion call of thousands of Indian freedom fighters around the country. The lyrics were an ode to his Motherland. In 1882 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay included the poem in his book Ananda Math, a novel based on the Sannyasi Movement in India against the British crown.

To me Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay will always remain a Rishi in the most appropriate sense of the term. His immortal ode Bande Mataram would probably have materialized anyway, but the strange encounter with cricket surely had a highly catalytic moment.