This article attempts to explore the cult of the ‘Bharat Mata’ that was born out of the patriotic fervour of Indian nationalist leaders who transformed their nationalist passion into an image of the nation as mother, and the widely promoted idea of Queen Victoria as a mother to her subjects in the nineteenth-century Bengal. The image of ‘Bharat Mata’ was conceived with the rising tide of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the impetus provided by the Bengali novelist Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandamath (1882). The image of Queen Victoria as a mother to her Indian subjects found its most emphatic projection in Bengali texts like Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore’s poem Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam, The Greatness of the Empress Victoria: A Sanskrit Poem, Set to Music with English Translation (1897). Composed on the occasion of the completion of 60 years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the poem was a ‘humble offering of loyalty’ to the Queen-Empress, whose reign over India was glorified and regarded auspicious. The article looks into the apparently contradictory nature of the worship of the feminine form as the ‘mother’ in a pre-independent nineteenth-century Bengal, through a consideration of texts like Anandamath, Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam and Girishchandra Ghosh’s play Hirak Jubilee (1897), among others. In this context, the article also takes into account the theoretical perspective of the cultural ‘Other’, inherent in a study involving the dynamics of colonial relations.

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“Bharat Mata”和“Ma Victoria”：孟加拉殖民地神圣母性的形式

本文试图探讨源自印度民族主义领导人的爱国热情的“巴拉特玛塔”崇拜，他们将民族主义热情转化为国家作为母亲的形象，以及广泛宣传的维多利亚女王作为母亲的观念她在 19 世纪孟加拉的主题。'Bharat Mata' 的形象是随着 19 世纪民族主义的兴起而构思出来的，这是由孟加拉小说家 Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay 的小说 Anandamath (1882) 提供的推动力。维多利亚女王作为印度臣民的母亲的形象在孟加拉语文本中得到了最有力的体现，例如 Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore 的诗 Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam, The Greatness Victoria: A Sanskrit Poem, Set to Music with English Translation (1897)。这首诗是在维多利亚女王统治 60 年结束之际创作的，是对女皇的“谦卑的忠诚”，女皇在印度的统治得到了美化并被视为吉祥。本文通过对 Anandamath、Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam 和 Girishchandra Ghosh 的戏剧 Hirak Jubilee 等文本的考虑，探讨了在 19 世纪独立前孟加拉将女性形式崇拜为“母亲”的明显矛盾本质（ 1897）等。在此背景下，本文还考虑了文化“他者”的理论视角，这是一项涉及殖民关系动态的研究所固有的。本文通过对 Anandamath、Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam 和 Girishchandra Ghosh 的戏剧 Hirak Jubilee 等文本的考虑，探讨了在 19 世纪独立前孟加拉将女性形式崇拜为“母亲”的明显矛盾本质（ 1897）等。在此背景下，本文还考虑了文化“他者”的理论视角，这是一项涉及殖民关系动态的研究所固有的。本文通过对 Anandamath、Srimad-Victoria-Mahatmyam 和 Girishchandra Ghosh 的戏剧 Hirak Jubilee 等文本的考虑，探讨了在 19 世纪独立前孟加拉将女性形式崇拜为“母亲”的明显矛盾本质（ 1897）等。在此背景下，本文还考虑了文化“他者”的理论视角，这是一项涉及殖民关系动态的研究所固有的。