JUDGMENT :

Prayer: Criminal Original Petition filed under Section 482 of Cr.Pc to call for the records pertaining to the First Information Report in Crime No. 377 of 2021 dated 20.07.2021 and quash the same as illegal as against the petitioner alone.

“En Kadhala” in the album “Naatpadu Theral” is yet another Vairamuthu melody. The song celebrates the irrelevance of the age factor to a person in love. However, the visualization of the song carries a deeper undertone – the relationship between humans and nature. One sees a plant lovingly bowing down and touching the protagonist to comfort her.

2. To me, it is not a poetic fancy. It represents the age-old tradition of this nation and its people. The five elements of nature are venerated as divine entities-prithvi, akash, agni, vaayu and varuna. The earth (prithvi) is worshipped as Bhooma Devi. She is seen as a consort of the divine. The land is described as 'Punya Bhumi' in the works of the various seers. She takes the form of “Bharat Mata” in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel “Ananda Math”. “Bande Mataram” was composed in Her honour. The translation by Maharishi Aurobindo reads as under :

“Mother, I bow to thee!

Rich with thy hurrying streams,

Bright with thy orchard gleams,

Cool with thy winds of delight,

Dark fields waving, Mother of might,

Mother free.

Glory of moonlight dreams

Over thy branches and lordly streams, -

Clad in thy blossoming trees,

Mother, giver of ease,

Laughing low and sweet!

Mother, I kiss thy feet,

Speaker sweet and low!

Mother, to thee I bow.

Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,

When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands

And seventy million voices roar

Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?

With many strengths who art mighty and stored,

To thee I call, Mother and Lord!

Thou who savest, arise and save!

To her I cry who ever her foemen drave

Back from plain and sea

And shook herself free.

Thou art wisdom, thou art law,

Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,

Thou the love divine, the awe

In our hearts that conquers death.

Thine the strength that nerves the arm,

Thine the beauty, thine the charm.

Every image made divine

In our temples is but thine.

Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,

With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,

Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,

And the Muse a hundred-toned.

Pure and perfect without peer,

Mother, lend thine ear.

Rich with thy hurrying streams,

Bright with thy orchard gleams,

Dark of hue, O candid-fair

In thy soul, with jewelled hair

And thy glorious smile divine,

Loveliest of all earthly lands,

Showering wealth from well-stored hands!

Mother, mother mine!

Mother sweet, I bow to thee,

Mother great and free!”

“Bande Mataram” became the warcry of the freedom movement. The nation became equated with the Mother Goddess. In the pictorial representation of Abanindranath Tagore, She is clad in saffron and dressed like a sadhvi, holding a book, sheaves of paddy, a piece of white cloth and a rudraksha garland (mala) in her four hands. Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, inaugrated a Bharat Mata temple at Varanasi in 1936. Here, She is represented not in the form of an idol but in the form of the map representing undivided India. She has been installed as a Goddess in the precincts of many a Hindu Temple across the country. In Kanyakumari, one finds Her in the premises of Esakkiyamman (Devi) Temple. The legendary freedom fighter Shri.Subramaniya Siva wanted to erect one such temple at Papparapatti in Dharmapuri District. The Government of Tamil Nadu had agreed to fulfil this nearly century old dream.

3. Though She is identified as Durga or Kali and depicted in pictures as standing alone, Tamil Poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi saw Her as the consort of Lord Shiva in one of his many hymns sung in Her praise. She then becomes Parvathi and Ganesha becomes Her child. The noted intellectual and scholar, Shri.Aravindan Neelakandan, makes an interesting observation that this association was brought out beautifully in the painting of M.F.Husain made on the occasion of