Bharat Ek Khoj 01—The Discovery of India; Episode 1: Bharat Mata Ki Jai

Bharat Ek Khoj—The Discovery of India
A Production of Doordarshan, the Government of India’s Public Service Broadcaster
Episode 1: Bharat Mata Ki Jai

With Ravi Jhankal, Vijay Kashyap, Ram Moorti

The scene opens with a panoramic visual of India and its colourful landscape. Occasionally, as Nehru reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet him-‘Bharat Mata—ki Jai’! He would ask the crowd unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, I who was this ‘Bharat Mata’, whose victory they wanted? His question would surprise them, and then, not knowing what to answer, they would look at each other. He persisted in his questioning. At last a vigorous jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, said that it was the Dharti (the good earth) of India that they meant. What earth was it? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India? Nehru would then endeavour to explain that India was all that they had thought, and much more. The mountains, the rivers, the forests, and the broad fields which gave them food, but what counted ultimately was the people like them who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people!

Travelling by train, the landscape and the landmarks flash past his eyes. He wanders over to the Himalayas and sees the mighty rivers - the remote Brahmaputra, the Yamuna, and the Ganga - that flow from this great mountain barrier into the plains of India, from their source to the sea. India unfolds with its waterfalls, rivulets and seas, with her richness of life and its renunciation, of growth and decay, of birth and death.

He visits old monuments Ajanta, Ellora and the Elephanta Caves. He sees the lovely buildings in Agra and Delhi where every stone tells its story of India’s past. At Saranath, near Banaras, he could almost hear the Buddha’s first sermon. The inscriptions on the Ashoka Pillars of stone make their inscriptions speak to him. At Fatehpur—Sikri, he almost hears Akbar converse with the learned of all faiths. Slowly, the long panorama of India’s history unfolds itself before him with its ups and downs, its triumphs and tragedies. To him, there is something unique about the continuity of a cultural tradition through 5000 years of an unbroken history.