Culture played a significant role in awakening the feeling of nationalism:
(i) History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a vital role in evoking the feelings of nationalism, unity and sense of collective belonging.
(ii) Symbols in figures or images helped people to identify the nation. It was in the twentieth century with the growth of nationalism, that the identity of India came to be usually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
(iii) In the 1870s Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland. Later it was included in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal.
(iv) Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata. He made it an ascetic figure: calm, composed, divine and spiritual. Devotion to this mother figure came to the open as evidence of one’s nationalism.
(v) In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and started the movement for folk revival.
(vi) In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of Southern India.
(vii) During the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was designed consisting of eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims.
(viii) By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.
