Last rites of Maoist leader Sudhakar performed in Eluru, rich tributes paid
RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM: The last rites of top Maoist leader Gautam alias T Sudhakar, who was killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on June 5, were performed on Monday at his native village Satyavolu, 20 km from Eluru district.
Acting on the appeal of his brother T Anandarao and sister-in-law, both State and Central authorities handed over Sudhakar's body to the family.
Under the instructions given by the police, the relatives brought Sudhakar's body from Bhadrachalam hospital to the village late Sunday night.
Several left party leaders and activists, including Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist) leader Akkiraju Haragopal (alias Ramakrishna)'s wife Padmakka alias Sireesha, paid their respects.
A pall of gloom descended on the village following Sudhakar's death.
Police made elaborate security arrangements in Satyavolu during the funeral.
Sudhakar, a prominent Maoist figure, was a native of the village and had been active in left-wing extremism for several years before being killed in the recent gunfight.
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The imagery first appeared in the works of artists and writers in Bengal, much before it was used elsewhere in the context of India's national movement for Independence. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's 1882 novel Anand Math contained the hymn to the motherland Vande Mataram, which became the mantra of the freedom movement, and the official song of India after Independence. The novel depicts the three faces of Bharat Mata as Goddesses Jagaddhatri, Kali and Durga. Two decades later, in 1905, after partition of Bengal under Lord Curzon, Abanindranath painted his iconic Bharat Mata, a woman in saffron robes, with a serene face and halo around her head, beads and scriptures in her hands. The revolutionary Aurobindo Ghose wrote in a letter to his wife Mrinalini Devi in August that same year: 'I look upon my country as the Mother. I adore her, I worship Her as the Mother. What would a son do if a demon sat on his mother's breast and started sucking her blood?' 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However, this was merely a paraphrasing of what Bankim had written nearly a century ago, when he elaborated on the notion of Mother India as a woman having the characteristics of Sujala, Suphala (overflowing with water and laden with fruits) and Dashapraharana Dharini Durga (Goddess Durga with her 10 weapons), Lakshmi and Saraswati. The imagery was also used in popular media and Hindi cinema – the iconic frame of actress Nargis, with a yoke and two babies, was an unforgettable cultural intervention, in 1957's film Mother India. Several historians have pointed out that the Bharat Mata visualised by its pioneers was more a 'Banga Mata', or Mother Bengal, with the deities they invoked being Kali and Durga, often their family deities. In Vande Mataram, Bankim called upon only the 'sapt koti' or seven crore people of Bengal. The first critics of the metaphor too came from among its inventors. Fifteen years after the Partition of Bengal, in August 1920, Aurobindo underlined the limits of the slogan and sought a greater mantra: 'We used the Mantra Bande Mataram with all our heart and soul… (but) the cry of the Mantra began to sink and as it rang feebly, the strength began to fade out of the country… A greater Mantra than Bande Mataram has to come.' The first two paragraphs of Bankim's Vande Mataram were adopted as the national song after Independence. The government did not retain the verses that mentioned either 'sapt koti', or the eulogies to the Goddesses Durga and Lakshmi. The obvious reference to Bengali nationhood was removed. Almost up to Independence, few underlined the religious overtones of the slogan, and it remained an essential mantra of an occupied country, a rallying call for its people. 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