CHATTERJI, BANKIM CHANDRA (Pt A:vxIMACHAN DRA CHATTOPADHYAYA) (1838-1894), Indian novelist, was born in the district of the Twenty-four Parganas in Bengal on June 27, 1838, and was by caste a Brahman. He was educated at the Hugli college, at the Presidency college in Calcutta, and at Cal cutta university, where he was the first to take the degree of B.A. (1858). He entered the Indian civil service, and served as deputy magistrate in various districts of Bengal, his official services being recognized, on his retirement in 1891, by the title of rai bahadur and the C.I.E. He died on April 8, Bankim Chandra was beyond question the greatest novelist of India during the 19th century, whether judged by the amount and quality of his writings, or by the influence which they have continued to exercise. He created in India a school of fiction on the European model. His novels include Kapala Kundala, Mrinalini, and Bisha-Brikkha. His outstanding work however is the Ananda Math, a story of the Sannyasi rebellion of 1772. The rebels gained a crushing victory over the British and Mohammedan forces. This success was, however, not fol lowed up as a mysterious "physician," speaking as a divinely inspired prophet, advised Satyananda to abandon further re sistance, as, for the time, British rule was the only alternative to Mohammedan oppression. This book contains the famous song Bande Mataram.
Although the Bande Mataram was not used during Chatterji's life time as a party war-cry, it became, during the agitation which followed the partition of Bengal, the recognized patriotic song of the revolutionary party. The words Bande Mataram, "Hail to thee; Mother" are usually held to be an invocation to Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. The Sanyassi rebels are represented as having erected, in addition to the dark image of Kali "The Mother who has been," a white marble statue of the "Mother that shall be" : the poet sings the praise of the "Mother" but he also praises her as "Durga, bearing ten weapons." Other passages, too, are susceptible of revolutionary interpretation. Whatever Chatterji's original intention (it is sometimes held that it is merely an invocation of the Motherland) the story of the Sanyassis, the ingenious language and its stirring air, the Mallar Kawali-Tal, all have a strong appeal to the Hindu mind and the Bande Mataram has become a powerful influence in political agitation and the accepted hymn of the extremist party.
In his earlier years Bankim Chandra served his apprenticeship in literature under Ishwar Chandra Gupta, the chief poet and satirist of Bengal during the earlier half of the 19th century. Bankim Chandra's friend and colleague, Dina Bandhu Mitra, was virtually the founder of the modern Bengali drama. Among the younger men who venerated Bankim Chandra, and benefited by his example and advice, may be mentioned two distinguished poets, Nabin Chandra Sen and Rabindranath Tagore.