Feminine personifications of nations are common around the world. Some popular examples include Britannia, Bharat Mata, and Marianne. Usually represented as goddesses, mothers, or queens, these entities embody their countries’ unity, liberty, strength, reason, and spiritual essences. As national icons, they impart to their people a strong sense of identity and belonging associated with their lands. In this two-part mini-series, Apeksha Srivastava highlights some changes in their portrayal with time, along with some similarities and differences among them.
In the first part of this mini-series, she looks at changes in the portrayal of Britannia and Bharat Mata with time.
The East offering its riches to Britannia, Roma Spiridone, 1778. Source: British Library, available here.
Britannia
The Submissive
In his article Britannia and John Bull[1], RT Matthews mentioned how the Greeks and Romans associated anthropomorphic deities with their newly conquered lands. Several coins depicting this were made during Roman Emperor Hadrian’s journey through imperial provinces[2]. As the female personification of the recently subjugated island, Britannia can be seen on one of them. She is depicted sitting with her head slightly bowed. Her pose is submissive, with her shield at rest, and her armor cast off.
The Rising Queen
This submissive Britannia disappeared when Rome’s power declined around 400 CE. She reappeared to personify Britain during the reign of Elizabeth I, making her place in maps and emblem books. In 1603, writer Henry Peacham featured Britannia on one of the first English emblem books (Minerva Britannia). She is seen striding confidently towards a ship, which symbolizes Britain’s newly acquired maritime power. The word “Minerva” is a Roman reference to the Greek goddess of war and reason, Athena. English chronicler Michael Drayton, in 1612, portrayed Britannia on his Poly-Olbion. She is seated under a Roman arch decorated with male figures (Aeneas - the founder of Rome, Julius Caesar - the first Roman conqueror of Britain, a medieval king representing the Tudor line, and a 17th-century explorer). She is the image of Britain’s sovereign powers and flourishing economy and has the horn of plenty in her left arm and a scepter in her right hand. A wreath on her head is being placed by two cherubs. Ships in the sea visible in the background are a reference to Britain’s maritime prosperity. In 1660, King Charles II issued a medal and halfpenny-coin with Britannia on the reverse.
The Colonizer
Eventually, Britannia started marking her presence on statues, paintings, monuments, stamps, and printed works, often commissioned by the government authorities. One such painting, The East Offering Its Riches To Britannia, was made by Roma Spiridione in 1778 on the British East India Company headquarters ceiling in London. Britannia is shown sitting on a rock with a lion near her as a guardian. She is humbly receiving a tribute of pearls/jewels from a dark figure (India). A kneeling woman (China) is offering her a porcelain vase, and a tea chest is lying close by. The camel and elephant on the right side of the painting symbolize the East, especially India. This work presents Britannia at a much higher stature. An interesting point to note here is that the East actually never offered anything to Britain; the latter plundered it. This painting is an interesting example of whitewashing and turning history to one’s advantage[3]. Another example of self-glorification is the painting Retribution by Edward Armitage. It depicted the soldier-massacre in Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion in 1857. After the rebellion, a British woman and her child are shown on the ground as casualties. Britannia is furious to see her children in this condition. As revenge, she is about to kill the Bengal Tiger, the symbol of the Sepoys, with her sword[4]. It, again, portrays only one side of the story.
Made by Walter Crane, the Imperial Federation Map, published in 1886 for a London weekly newspaper, showed Britannia as the “rising world-power”. She is seated on a globe upheld by Atlas and is gazing down at the people of her empire (denoting parts of the world under British control marked in pink). Another map published in the same year shows her in the middle, with different scenes from the Empire being illustrated[5].
The Celebrity
Britannia also survived the changes in society with time. By the mid-18th-century, people started enjoying written parodies about her. Apart from entertainment, these satires emerged as ways to influence public opinion. Furthermore, caricature-illustrators elevated her to higher moral planes.
In humor magazines (like Punch), Britannia was depicted as the defender of the British Empire, who crusaded for noble causes. She also personified the virtues of the English middle-class like women should be at home for happiness in marriage. Some other cartoons emphasized her vulnerability. In another work, she is seen making preparations for the Great Party[6], holding a candle in her hand, her shield and trident put aside. We can also observe the dishes/spoons on the floor.
The patriotic song Rule Britannia demonstrated Britannia’s true establishment as a national icon[7]. She became the symbol of Great Britain’s political presence, evolving with time. During the 1990s, the term Cool Britannia (a humorous version), was used to describe contemporary Britain, showing approval of pop groups, artists, and fashion[8].
Bharat Mata
The Goddess
India has worshipped the earth in a female form (Dharti-Mata/Bhu-Devi) since ancient times. According to some scholars, the origins of Bharat Mata (Mother India) can be traced back to this idea. She, as the national personification, was created out of the desire to be free from the British dominion[9]. After gaining popularity from KC Bandyopadhyay's play Bharat Mata (1873), she emerged as a goddess in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s poem Vande Mataram in 1875. She was visually evoked in 1905 through Abanindranath Tagore’s painting[10].
The Symbol of Independence & Nationalism
Sumathi Ramaswamy’s book, The Goddess and The Nation[11], traced Bharat Mata’s origins to Bengal in 1904 (Mother-Bengal/Bangamata). Over the next few decades, artists added new features to her depiction such as the tricolor flag, lions (guardians/vahana), the territory-map she represented, and her weapons (like trident or spinning wheel signifying the Swadeshi Movement to boycott British-made products). In one of her articles, Ramaswamy also mentioned how Aurobindo Ghosh advised his student to become patriotic, “... It is not a map, but the portrait of Bharat Mata ... worship her with the nine-fold bhakti [devotion].” Some works depict Bharat Mata blessing freedom fighters for their sacrifice. In an election hoarding, she is seen as the nation-map, crying, and carrying Indira Gandhi’s lifeless body[12].
Associated with fury and rage, Kali is said to have emerged from goddess Durga. She apparently struck fear in some British people. Ramaswamy argued that Bharat Mata emerged as an intermediate: having fury for the oppressors and maternal love for her children. She rose as the glorious mother/goddess associated with the map of India to effectively elicit strong feelings of nationalism in people.
Shobha Singh’s painting (1947) showed Bharat Mata clad in the Indian tricolor. She has a trident in her hand and a halo around her head. The roaring lion by her side is kicking the British crown into the abyss. K.K. Rajaram’s painting (1962) depicted the Indo-China War setting. Bharat Mata is near the Ashoka Pillar. Carrying the Indian flag and a sword, she is leading four roaring lions and soldiers against the Chinese-dragon on the Himalayan borders[13].
The Unifier of Diversity
After independence, Bharat Mata was sometimes utilized for political ends. In 2011, Anna Hazare highlighted her in his campaign India Against Corruption, emphasizing that she belongs to all India and not just a particular religion. Sri Aurobindo, in 1920, had already written that “if we hope to have a vision of the mother by ... establishing Hindu nationalism ... we would be deprived of the full expression of our nationhood”[14]. In this context, Ramaswamy described an image of Bharat Mata riding through the street with houses of religious worship in the background (church, mosque, and perhaps, Gurdwara), promoting the idea of religious harmony (inclusive-Hinduism).
The Progressive
Bharat Mata survived the evolutions in popular taste. She has been represented in posters, calendars, and films. In one of his sketches, cartoonist Shankar showed Nehru as a cherub, drawing a cover (“Planning”) over the nude female form of the nation. A second cartoon depicted a “new version of Bharat Mata” who is protecting the poor from the corrupt politicians and resembles Lady Justice[15]. Another sketch portrayed her horrified at the incident of the tricolor flag being carried to support a rape accused. Such works underline the social changes in India with time in the form of different physical and emotional states of Bharat Mata.
The first Bharat Mata temple in Varanasi (1936) houses a giant marble relief map of India with its rivers, mountains, and sacred places. Another temple in Haridwar (1983) dedicated its ground floor to Mother India, represented as a map and a marble image. The map contains a network of lights indicating pilgrim places that link the entire nation[16]. Such examples beautifully depict the associations of Bharat Mata with the sacred geography of India.
Read on: In the second part here, Apeksha discusses Marianne of France and some similarities and differences among these national personifications.
Apeksha Srivastava completed her Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. She is currently an aspiring writer and a second-year Ph.D. candidate at this institute. This article is based on an assignment she submitted for the course, Perspectives on Indian Civilization.
References
Britannia and John Bull: From Birth to Maturity. Roy T. Matthews. The Historian. Vol. 62, No. 4 (SUMMER 2000), pp. 799-820 (22 pages). Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Britannia and Melita: Pseudomorphic Sisters. Derk Kinnane-Roelofsma. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 59 (1996), pp. 130-147 (18 pages). Published by: The Warburg Institute.
The Hidden Wound. Nick Robins. The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational, 1-18. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
Britannia as the embodiment of Great Britain. Aline Gay, Fanny Guilbaud, and Damien Lenoir, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, France. Essay written for Professor Béatrice Laurent’s seminar, 'Myths and Icons'.
Walter Crane and the Imperial Federation Map Showing the Extent of the British Empire (1886). Pippa Biltcliffe. Imago Mundi. Vol. 57, No. 1 (2005), pp. 63-69 (9 pages). Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.
Britannia's Great Party. 1851. Wood engraving. Punch (7 June 1856): 81. [http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/punch/95.html]
Britons will never be slaves! Britannia and liberty as a construct of British national identity in James Thomson and Thomas Arne’s song Rule Britannia and Thomas Rowlandson’s engraving, The Contrast, 1792, British Liberty, French Liberty, Which is best? Peter Johnston. The University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education. Date created: Tuesday, April 18, 2017.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/cool-britannia
Mother India: The Role of the Maternal Figure in Establishing Legal Subjectivity. Kanika Sharma. 2017. Law and Critique, 29(1), 1–29.
https://scroll.in/article/805990/far-from-being-eternal-bharat-mata-is-only-a-little-more-than-100-years-old
The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India. By Sumathi Ramaswamy. Duke University Press, 2010. 379pp.
Maps, Mother/Goddesses, and Martyrdom in Modern India. Sumathi Ramaswamy. 2008. The Journal of Asian Studies, 67(03).
Icon-ising national identity: France and India in comparative perspective. Subrata K. Mitra and Lion König. National Identities, 15(4), 357–377.
The Life and Times of Bharat Mata: Nationalism as Invented Religion. Sadan Jha. 2006. Manushi.
https://timescontent.com/syndication-photos/reprint/just-like-that/454566/buy.jsp
India: A Sacred Geography. Diana L. Eck. 2011. Harmony Books.
