Who is Bharat mata?

(it is quite funny to see the same question coming again and again with slight modification)

The question is what is the meaning of Mata (mother)?

Is Mata associated with particular cultures and religions or is Mata a secular conception, making it possible for people of diverse religions, who call themselves Indian, to pay obeisance to the nation as motherland?

The idea of Bharat Mata is largely of twentieth century vintage, born out of Bengali and Marathi vernacular nationalism. She was famously painted by Abanindranath Tagore in a lyrical wash image.

Abanindranath Tagore portrayed Bhārat Mātā as a four-armed Hindu goddess wearing saffron-colored robes, holding the vedas, sheaves of rice, a mala, and a white cloth. The image of Bharatmata was an icon to create nationalist feeling in Indians during the freedom struggle.

The depiction of India as a Hindu goddess implies that it is not just the patriotic but also the religious duty of all Indians to participate in the nationalist struggle to defend the nation.

Prayer of Bharat Mata :

Ratnakaradhautapadam Himalyakirtitinim I
  Brahmarajarsiratnamdhyam vande Bharatamataram II

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya’s well known novel Ananda Math celebrated the motherland as a goddess. But it was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founding ideologue of Hindutva, who propounded the idea of rendering “whole hearted love to our common Mother” and recognising her not only as “Pitarbhu but even as a Punyabhu,” i.e. as fatherland and holy land. A Muslim or Christian who does so will be welcomed into the Hindu-fold and recognised as Hindu, Savarkar argues in Essentials of Hindutva (1923).

Thus it is possible for Muslims and Christians to make a choice, he held, “a choice of love”. Till such time as Bohras, Khojas, Memons and other Muslim and Christian communities do not make this choice they cannot be recognised as Hindus, Savarkar wrote. Savarkar celebrated the Sindhu and sanskriti and sages and seers who have founded or revealed the “schools of religion, the Thought of the Saptasindhus,” which have the indelible stamp of Hindu culture and sanskriti. “The essentials of Hindutva then are a common Rashtar, a common Jati and a common Sanskriti. The first two are connoted by Pitarbhu (Fatherland) and the last by Punyabhu (Holyland).”

The much larger and popular understanding of Mata is the divine feminine. She has an amazingly diverse presence as Parvati, Durga or the collective goddess.

To ask of Muslims or Christians to proclaim ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ is violative the concept of monotheism concepts that is at the theological core of their religions. ‘Jai Hind’ rather than ‘Jai Bharat Mata’ is what some might proclaim – a few will even proclaim Victory to Bharat Mata – but choice is the essence of the matter and there must be no compulsion or pressure to constantly wear one’s patriotism on one’s sleeve and demonstrate it continually in one’s speech!

Who is the Mata in Bharat Mata?