History of Kolkata Chandra Pal]]. The early nationalists were inspired by [[Swami Vivekananda]], the foremost disciple of the [[Hindu]] mystic Sri [[Ramakrishna]] and helped by [[Sister Nivedita]], disciple of the former. The rousing cry that awakened India's soul was penned by [[Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay]]. Now the national song of the nation, it is an ode to the land of [[Names of India#Bharat|Bharat]] (India) as the Divine Mother, "[[Vande Mataram]]." The Elgin Road residence of [[Subhas Chandra Bose]] in Calcutta was the place from where he escaped the British to reach Germany during the [[World War II|Second World War]]. He was the co-founder of
Vande Mataram recommended the adoption. The entire song was not selected by Hindu leaders in order to respect the sentiments of non-Hindus, and the gathering agreed that anyone should be free to sing an alternate "unobjectionable song" at a national gathering if they do not want to sing Vande Mataram because they find it "objectionable" for a personal reason. According to the gathered leaders, including the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, though the first two stanzas began with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland, in later stanzas there are references to the Hindu goddess Durga. The Muslim League and Muhammad