ABSTRACT
Bankim's Anandamath has been translated four times since its publication in 1882 to address the needs of political historicisation of discursive nation-making. This translatory/translational tactic of appropriation is coterminous with the growth and development of Hindu nationalist discourse in India. Using the song “Vande Mataram,” the novel not only registers the imperative of Bankim to indoctrinate the ideals of Hindutva in the minds of Indian nationals but also to oppose and subvert the socio-cultural assumption of the impotence of Bengali as a martial “jati” as a people and a nation. With each subsequent English translation, as with the numerous translations in various regional languages, Anandamath has been the touchstone of religious nationalism in India. The translations of the novel are in themselves a linear history of the role of ideological politics in the construction of the idea of India and of the subtle secessionist propaganda within the secular democratic rubric of the nation. The chapter attempts a trans-translational reading of Anandamath and to identify in the novel the nuances of indigenous nationalist thought that was Hindu in character and also to interrogate the rationality of repetitively using a century-old text to rekindle the flame of political Hindutva.
