"SAY PROUDLY WE ARE HINDU"

Bharat Mata's robe forms the contours of India. Her saffron, white and green sari _ the colours of the Indian national flag _ cradles the heroes of the national struggle and shelters the fighters still alive and leading the teeming millions. Among the heroes of the bygone years, one can identify Justice Ranade, Balgangadhar Tilak, and the founder of the Indian National Congress, A.O. Hume. The leaders of the masses are Kasturba and Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sarojini Naidu, Rabindranath Tagore, Abdul Gaffar Khan and others. The diverse pictorial traditions of India made it difficult to find a symbol of national integrity acceptable to all. To worship a geographical map of India seemed to be a way out of the dilemma of finding a symbol for the Motherland without antagonising the religious sentiments averse to the idea of bowing before an image of an anthropomorphic god or goddess. One of the earliest and largest temples of Bharat Mata was established in 1936 in the town of Varanasi, where a large relief map of Akhanda Bharat or South Asia lies enshrined. By this time, the practice of using a contour map of India to deify Bharat Mata had already gained popularity.


                                                                     Bharat Mata Ki Jai