Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: The Man Who Wrote Vande Mataram

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay served the colonial government for over 30 years. In his spare hours he wrote the song that outlasted the empire.

That song is “Vande Mataram”, India’s National Song. This lesson covers his life, his novels, the song’s journey and the exam traps around it.

1Who was Bankim Chandra?

He was a civil servant by day and a novelist by choice.

• Bankim was born on 26 June 1838 at Kathalpara, Naihati.
• His family was Brahmin. His father later served as Deputy Collector of Midnapur.
• He studied at Hooghly College and then at Presidency College, Calcutta.
• In 1858 he was one of the first two graduates of the University of Calcutta.
• He soon joined the colonial service as a Deputy Magistrate.
• He worked as a civil servant for over 30 years.
• He retired in 1891. He held the title Rai Bahadur.
• He died on 8 April 1894 in Calcutta, aged 55.
• Exams like the contrast. A government servant wrote a song of resistance.

2What did he write?

He wrote the first Bengali novel and a long list of others.

• His first novel was in English. It was Rajmohan’s Wife, of 1864.
• His Durgeshnandini of 1865 is widely seen as the first Bengali novel.
• He is called a pioneer of the Indian novel. He adapted the Western novel form to Bengali.
• Other major works include Kapalkundala (1866) and Mrinalini (1869).
• He also wrote Bishabriksha, or The Poison Tree (1873).
• Later came Anandamath (1882) and Devi Chaudhurani (1884).
• He wrote about 14 novels in all.
• He also wrote essays on religion and society, such as Krishnacharitra.
• In 1872 he founded and edited the magazine Bangadarshan.
• Bengali literary circles gave him the honorific “Sahitya Samrat”, or Emperor of Literature.
• West Bengal’s Bankim Puraskar is named in his honour.

3What is Anandamath about?

It is a novel set in a real revolt, built around one hymn.

• Anandamath came out in 1882.
• It is set during the Sannyasi Rebellion against East India Company rule.
• That revolt was a real 18th-century uprising by ascetics.
• Bankim turned a real episode into lasting nationalist fiction.
• The novel shows the Mother Goddess in three forms.
• She appears as she was (Jagaddhatri), as she is (Kali) and as she will be (Durga).
• The hymn “Vande Mataram” is part of the story.
• The novel made the song known to a wider public.
• Exam trap: the song was written first. It was not first published in the novel.

4How did the song become a national symbol?

It travelled from a magazine to the streets, then to the Constitution.

• Bankim wrote “Vande Mataram” in 1875.
• It first appeared in Bangadarshan on 7 November 1875.
• That was seven years before it entered Anandamath.
• 2025 marked 150 years since its composition.
• Rabindranath Tagore set it to music.
• Sri Aurobindo later translated it into English.
• He sang it at the 1896 Congress session in Calcutta.
• On 7 August 1905, thousands marched in Calcutta against the Partition of Bengal.
• The song became a rallying cry of the swadeshi and boycott movement.
• Officials tried to suppress it. In November 1905, a school in Rangpur fined students for chanting it.
• In 1907, Madam Bhikaji Cama raised a flag with the words “Vande Mataram” at Stuttgart.
• That flag is often called the first Indian flag raised on foreign soil.
• On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly adopted it as India’s National Song.
• It was adopted alongside Jana Gana Mana, the National Anthem.
• For the song’s full story, see Vande Mataram: From Novel to National Song.

5What are the exam traps?

Exams love dates and the order of events.

• CDS II 2025 asked which work shows the Mother Goddess in three forms. The answer was Anandamath.
• UPSC 2018 asked which of four events came earliest.
• The answer was Dinabandhu Mitra’s Neeldarpan, of 1860.
• It came before Satyendranath Tagore’s ICS success in 1863.
• It also came before the Arya Samaj’s founding in 1875, and before Anandamath in 1882.
• Do not say the song first appeared in 1882. That is the novel’s date.
• Do not say Bankim was a full-time author. He served the government for over 30 years.
• Remember who set the song to music: Tagore, not Bankim.