RSS eastern India Prachar Pramukh Jisnu Basu at an ABVP event at Presidency University on Thursday
Kolkata: Presidency College, a cradle of nationalism, played a huge role in the evolution of ‘ Vande Mataram ’, from being a song to turning into a mantra to a battle cry to a victory slogan for the motherland, said RSS eastern India Prachar Pramukh Jisnu Basu. A scientist at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Basu was speaking at a seminar organised by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ( ABVP ), RSS’s students’ wing, to commemorate the sesquicentenary of the national song. The ABVP unit is trying to make a foray into Presidency, the campus where Syama Prasad Mookerjee (to whom the RSS traces its ideological lineage) and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (its nationalistic Vande Mataram poet) spent their college days. “The first stream was initiated by Presidency College (then Hindu College) alumnus Rajnarayan Basu. He wrote an extraordinary essay — ‘Prospectus of a Society for the Promotion of National Feeling among the Educated Natives of Bengal’ — that cultivated deep national feeling among people. Nabagopal Mitra was overwhelmed. Mitra, Basu and members of the Tagore family —Debendranath, Gaganendranath, Jyotirindranath and Rabindranath — came forward and they started the Hindu mela.
The event was held at Presidency University’s A K Basak auditorium on Thursday.