West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee remembered Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (or Chattopahdyay) on the poet’s 125th death anniversary on Sunday. Banerjee, who rarely misses special days and occasions related to national and Bengali icons, took to Twitter to express her thoughts.
“Solemnly remembering writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay on his death anniversary,” Banerjee wrote.
Solemnly remembering writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay on his death anniversary
— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) April 8, 2018
She was not the only political personality to pay tribute to the writer of ‘Vande Mataram’. BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the Congress party, too, expressed their thoughts via their respective official Twitter handles.
“I offer my tribute to Bengali language’s pioneer and writer of ‘Vande Mataram’, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, on his death anniversary. He lit the eternal flame of revolution in the hearts of the masses through his writings,” wrote Chauhan.
अपनी रचनाओं से जन-जन के हृदय में क्रांति की अखण्ड अग्नि प्रज्ज्वलित करने वाले, बांग्ला भाषा के भागीरथी, राष्ट्रीय गीत ‘वन्दे मातरम्’ के रचयिता बंकिम चन्द्र चट्टोपाध्याय को पुण्यतिथि पर विनम्र श्रद्धांजलि। pic.twitter.com/Amk7OfMGeb
— ShivrajSingh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) April 8, 2018
“We remember Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, writer of the national song ‘Vande Mataram’, on his death anniversary,” published the Congress on its Twitter handle.
“The tune was composed by Rabindranath Tagore, and was sung by him at the Congress Plenary in Calcutta in 1896,” it said.
We remember Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, writer of the national song ‘Vande Mataram’, on his death anniversary.
The tune was composed by Rabindranath Tagore, and was sung by him at the Congress Plenary in Calcutta in 1896.#VandeMataram pic.twitter.com/tzW1b9aSjE— Congress (@INCIndia) April 8, 2018
Born on 27 June 1838 in Naihati in West Bengal, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is hailed as one of the greatest writers in history of Indian literature.
Chatterjee wrote 13 novels and various other treaties’ in Bengali. A deputy magistrate by profession, Chatterjee was one of the tallest figures in Bengal’s renaissance period of the mid to late 19th century.
He is best known for writing ‘Vande Mataram’, the Sanskrit poem written by Chatterjee in Bengali script which he included in his novel ‘Anandmath’. The poem, which was later composed into a song by Rabindranath Tagore, triggered the national consciousness for freedom from the British rule.
The first two verses of ‘Vande Mataram’, which means “I praise to thee, Mother”, were adopted as India’s National Song in 1950 in line with the 1937 adoption of the same by the Congress Working Committee.
He breathed his last on 8 April 1894 in Kolkata.