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from Bhawani Mandir of Sri Aurobindo
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...... What is our mother-country? It is not a
piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a
mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make
up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the
Shakti of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded
into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani
Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people
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from the `Discovery of India' by Jawaharlal Nehru
"........Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of
welcome would greet me: Bharat Mata ki Jai-- Victory to Mother India! I
would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, who was this
Bharat Mata, Mother India, whose victory they wanted? My question would
amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to
answer, they would look at each other and at me. I persisted in my
questioning. At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial
generations, would say that it was the dharti, the good earth of India,
that they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all
the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of
India? And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently
to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do so and explain that India
was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The mountains
and rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us
food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people
of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all
over this vast land. Bharat Mata,
Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory
to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat
Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as
this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up
as if they had made a great discovery."
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WE, THE
PEOPLE OF INDIA means
the living unity of the Shaktis of three
hundred million people in the words of
Sri Aurobindo
or
millions of people in the words of Pt Nehru
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