Swami Vivekananda
Prophet of Patriotism
By V. SUNDARAM, IAS (Retd.) December 1, 2013
1. When we are celebrating the 150th Jayanthi of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), it is the Paramount Public Duty of every Patriotic Hindu to recall Swami Vivekananda’s definition of OUR NATIONHOOD which he gave in the form of a VEDIC INJUNCTION: “Hindu Dharma is the Quintessence of our National Life, hold fast to it if you want your country to survive, or else you would be wiped out in three generations.”
2. No one can dispute that the traditional homeland of Hindus is the Bharatavarsha. It is a distinct geographical entity. There are few nations in the world the natural boundaries of whose homeland are as clearly drawn as that of ours. And the Hindus have been intimately associated with this land, lived on it, developed their culture and civilization on it, and regarded it as sacred soil for at least 6000 years, if not more. When I say Bharatavarasha in the sense of the Motherland of the Hindus, I do not refer to the boundaries of the truncated India created by Jinnah, and Nehru in 1947, but to those of our traditional homeland which extends continuously from Gandhara to Kamrup and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. This basically has been the concept of Hindu Nationhood or what we call HINDUTVA or Hindu Rashtra from times immemorial.
3. We remained subjugated for more than 1000 years when foreign rulers ruled over our country. By barbaric persecution or economic inducements, they compelled certain segments of our nation to abandon their ancestral culture and adopt the culture of those foreign invaders. These segments of our population forgot that the culture they had adopted was a foreign culture, a culture that belonged to another nation and had been forced on them.
4. But subjugation by hostile alien powers cannot by itself destroy the Nationhood of a Nation. Nor can the nature of the nation, the basic characteristic and disposition of the nation, get altered or changed by the fact of enslavement. Nations do not get destroyed. We Hindus are a nation just as the Germans are a nation, the Armenians are a nation, the Kurds are a nation, the Jews are a nation. Germany was divided into two after the II World War. But this did not abate their nationhood. Within 50 years, they achieved reunification of their motherland and the nation has been restored to its original character and complexion.
5. The fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION' is by no means a new idea. This idea has been with us from the dawn of history. Without going into the hoary past, let me trace it from the latter half of the 19th century. If we read the writings of Swami DAYANAND SARASWATI (1824-1883) of Arya Samaj, we can see the underlying notion that 'We Hindus are a Nation'. We can see the same refrain in the writings of BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJEE (1838-1894) of BANDE MATARAM fame and SRI AUROBINDO (1872-1950). In their writings we find a clear and confident assertion that 'We Hindus are a Nation' and not just a Religious Community. The basic perception of VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR (1883-1966) was also the same which he forcefully presented in his book 'HINDUTVA'. However, the saint, sage and seer SWAMI VIVEKANANDA made the most powerful pronouncement of this idea. Throughout his brief but momentous life, SWAMI VIVEKANANDA proclaimed loudly, clearly and consistently the fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION'.
6. In his brief 5-minute first address, SWAMI VIVEKANANDA declared at the inaugural session of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 11th September 1893: “I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects”. Then he spoke three sentences which were most significant. First, he said: “I am proud to belong to a Religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.” In the second sentence he said: “I am proud to belong to a Nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth”. In this context, he cited an example, namely, that when the sacred Temple of the Jews was demolished by the Romans, we Hindus gave shelter to the Jewish refugees and took care of them in India. In the third sentence, Swamiji said: “I am proud to belong to a Religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnants of the grand Zoroastrian nation”. In these three consecutive sentences, Swami Vivekananda proclaimed his pride of belonging first “TO A RELIGION”, then “TO A NATION” and again “TO A RELIGION”.
7. It will be clear that Swami Vivekananda used the words 'RELIGION' and 'NATION' as synonymous terms. No pseudo-secularist in India today can have any doubt about what RELIGION or NATION Swamiji was talking about and what his perception of nationhood was. Swami Vivekananda is emphatically clear that the essential feature of Hindu Nationhood is the Hindu religion, the 'SANATANA DHARMA'. He is only declaring that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION'.
8. In 1909, SRI AUROBINDO expressed the same view in his historic Uttarpara speech: “India is identical with 'Sanatana Dharma. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the 'Sanatana Dharma' that shall rise. When it is said that India shall expand and extend itself, it is the 'Sanatana Dharma' that shall expand and extend itself over the world. IT IS FOR THE DHARMA AND BY THE DHARMA THAT INDIA EXISTS. I SAY THAT IT IS THE 'SANATANA DHARMA' WHICH FOR US IS NATIONALISM'.”
9. The cardinal fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION' unto ourselves and not just a religious community formed the crucial plank of our first National Movement in 1905, viz. the 'Swadeshi Movement' in undivided Bengal. When Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon (1859-1925) in 1905, the entire Hindu society rose up with a National Inspiration. No one at that time had the slightest doubt that 'We Hindus are a Nation'. That is why in Calcutta city, on the first day of the agitation 50,000 people took a collective oath before Goddess Kali in the Holy Kalighat Temple to the effect that 'we shall throw the British out of our homeland'. The famous historian R.C. Majumdar (1888-1980) rightly concluded that he saw no difference in those days between Sanatana Dharma and Indian Nationalism.
10. After Indian independence, Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his concept of False Nationhood under the label of 'Secularism'. According to this 'Secularism' Concept, all the people who happen to reside on the soil of India form a Nation, whether he follows the culture of this Country or not, whether he is loyal to this Country or not. It does not matter if the State-aided Minorities dismiss the time-honored Culture of this Country 'Sanatana Dharma' as abominable and as a path of the Devil. Thus in a mischievous way Jawaharlal Nehru reduced the Concept of Nationhood into a geographic entity and bade good-bye to the established principles of Nationhood founded on Emotional-cum-Cultural Unity and all that it implies. According to this Nehru's notion, Hindus of India in majority have to voluntarily abandon the inheritance of their traditional homeland. Nehru used his political might to propagate this debilitating and Nation-decimating anti-Hindu ideology and this became the corner stone of all his policies and proved disastrous for the Hindu society. In short, Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his VICIOUS CONCEPT OF FALSE SEMITIC NATIONHOOD under the label of SECULARISM.
11. In 1949, Nehru said that “to talk of Hindu culture would injure India's interests”. What did ‘Maulana’ Nehru mean by “India”? He meant a De-Hinduized India in which no one can call himself a Hindu without feeling a sense of guilt or inferiority complex! An India where every terrorist Muslim would have a first charge on our National Resources and every proselytizing Christian Missionary would enjoy the full protection and patronage of the Indian State.
12. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) who was not either afraid or ashamed of proclaiming from roof top that he was a devout Hindu, and a staunch supporter of Sanatana Dharma, Jawaharlal Nehru took special pride in announcing his collosal ignorance of Sanatana Dharma and Hindu Culture from all public platforms. Dressed in brief mortal official authority, Nehru’s supercilious, purblind audacity reached its acme of irresponsibility while delivering a lecture at the Lucknow University in 1951 when he said: “The ideology of Hindu Dharma is completely out of tune with the present times and if it took root in India, it would smash the country to pieces.”
13. Jawaharlal Nehru himself had admitted more than once that by Education he was an Englishman, by Views an Internationalist (read, International Marxist!), by Culture a Muslim, and a Hindu only by a sheer accident of birth. With all this massive evidence, there is little scope for any doubt whatsoever that Nehru had total contempt for Hindu Religion, for Hindu Culture, for Hindu Society and for the average apathetic and listless Hindu.
14. Thus we have before us two alternative perceptions of our NATION and NATIONHOOD --- One of Swami Vivekananda and Other of Jawaharlal Nehru. Swami Vivekananda represented the Time–Defying sources and forces of ancient Vedic Wisdom rooted in Sanatana Dharma. Jawaharlal Nehru represented the sources and forces of anti-Hindu Semitic Cultures.
15. Swami Vivekananda was indeed a Phenomenon, an extraordinarily Divine Being who aroused an instantaneous world-wide awe, astonishment, surprise and admiration from the moment he addressed the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in September 1893.
16. Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) paid this tribute to Swami Vivekananda in 1977: “The best introduction to Swami Vivekananda is not to read about him, but to read him. The Swami’s personality, with all its charm and force, its courageousness, its spiritual authority, its fury and its fun, comes through to you very strongly in his writings and recorded words. Reading his printed words, we can catch something of the tone of his voice and even feel some sense of contact with his power. Swami Vivekananda’s English recreates his personality for us even now, three quarters of a Century later.”
17. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945?) paid the following tribute to Swami Vivekananda:
“It is very difficult to explain the versatile genius of Swami Vivekananda. The impact of Swami Vivekananda made on the students of our times by his works and speeches far outweighed that made by any other leader of the Country. He, as it were, expressed fully their hopes and aspirations. But Swami Vivekananda cannot be appreciated properly if he is not studied along with Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva (1836-1886). The foundation of the present freedom movement owes its origin to Swami Vivekananda’s Message. If India is to be free, it cannot be a land specially of Hinduism or of Islam --- it must be one UNITED LAND of different religious communities inspired the ideal of NATIONALISM. And for that Indians must accept whole heartedly the Gospel of Harmony of Religions, which is the Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda.”
18. Swami Vivekananda wanted the Youth of India to have “Muscles of Iron and Nerves of Steel”. Referring to this aspect of Swami Vivekananda’s radiant personality, Subhas Chandra Bose declared:
“Swami Vivekananda was a full-blooded MASCULINE PERSONALITY --- and a Fighter to the core of his being. He was consequently a Worshipper of SHAKTI and gave a practical interpretation to the VEDANTA for the practical uplift of his countrymen. STRENGTH, STRENGTH is what the UPANISHADS say --- that was a frequent cry of his. He laid the greatest stress on CHARACTER BUILDING. … He was so great, so profound, so complex. A YOGI of the highest spiritual level in direct communication with the TRUTH, who had for the time being, consecrated his whole life to the moral and spiritual upliftment of his nation and of humanity, that is how I would describe him. If he had been alive, I would have been at his feet.”
Swami Vivekananda harmonized EAST and WEST, RELIGION and SCIENCE, PAST and PRESENT. And that is why he is great. Our countrymen have gained unprecedented self-respect, self-confidence and self-assertion from his Teachings.
Finally, let me conclude with the immortal words of Romain Rolland (1866-1944) on Swami Vivekananda: “Vivekananda’s words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his at thirty years distance without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero!”
Finally, let me conclude with the immortal words of Romain Rolland (1866-1944) on Swami Vivekananda: “Vivekananda’s words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his at thirty years distance without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero!”
Prophet of Patriotism
By V. SUNDARAM, IAS (Retd.) December 1, 2013
1. When we are celebrating the 150th Jayanthi of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), it is the Paramount Public Duty of every Patriotic Hindu to recall Swami Vivekananda’s definition of OUR NATIONHOOD which he gave in the form of a VEDIC INJUNCTION: “Hindu Dharma is the Quintessence of our National Life, hold fast to it if you want your country to survive, or else you would be wiped out in three generations.”
2. No one can dispute that the traditional homeland of Hindus is the Bharatavarsha. It is a distinct geographical entity. There are few nations in the world the natural boundaries of whose homeland are as clearly drawn as that of ours. And the Hindus have been intimately associated with this land, lived on it, developed their culture and civilization on it, and regarded it as sacred soil for at least 6000 years, if not more. When I say Bharatavarasha in the sense of the Motherland of the Hindus, I do not refer to the boundaries of the truncated India created by Jinnah, and Nehru in 1947, but to those of our traditional homeland which extends continuously from Gandhara to Kamrup and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. This basically has been the concept of Hindu Nationhood or what we call HINDUTVA or Hindu Rashtra from times immemorial.
3. We remained subjugated for more than 1000 years when foreign rulers ruled over our country. By barbaric persecution or economic inducements, they compelled certain segments of our nation to abandon their ancestral culture and adopt the culture of those foreign invaders. These segments of our population forgot that the culture they had adopted was a foreign culture, a culture that belonged to another nation and had been forced on them.
4. But subjugation by hostile alien powers cannot by itself destroy the Nationhood of a Nation. Nor can the nature of the nation, the basic characteristic and disposition of the nation, get altered or changed by the fact of enslavement. Nations do not get destroyed. We Hindus are a nation just as the Germans are a nation, the Armenians are a nation, the Kurds are a nation, the Jews are a nation. Germany was divided into two after the II World War. But this did not abate their nationhood. Within 50 years, they achieved reunification of their motherland and the nation has been restored to its original character and complexion.
5. The fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION' is by no means a new idea. This idea has been with us from the dawn of history. Without going into the hoary past, let me trace it from the latter half of the 19th century. If we read the writings of Swami DAYANAND SARASWATI (1824-1883) of Arya Samaj, we can see the underlying notion that 'We Hindus are a Nation'. We can see the same refrain in the writings of BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJEE (1838-1894) of BANDE MATARAM fame and SRI AUROBINDO (1872-1950). In their writings we find a clear and confident assertion that 'We Hindus are a Nation' and not just a Religious Community. The basic perception of VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR (1883-1966) was also the same which he forcefully presented in his book 'HINDUTVA'. However, the saint, sage and seer SWAMI VIVEKANANDA made the most powerful pronouncement of this idea. Throughout his brief but momentous life, SWAMI VIVEKANANDA proclaimed loudly, clearly and consistently the fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION'.
6. In his brief 5-minute first address, SWAMI VIVEKANANDA declared at the inaugural session of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 11th September 1893: “I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects”. Then he spoke three sentences which were most significant. First, he said: “I am proud to belong to a Religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.” In the second sentence he said: “I am proud to belong to a Nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth”. In this context, he cited an example, namely, that when the sacred Temple of the Jews was demolished by the Romans, we Hindus gave shelter to the Jewish refugees and took care of them in India. In the third sentence, Swamiji said: “I am proud to belong to a Religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnants of the grand Zoroastrian nation”. In these three consecutive sentences, Swami Vivekananda proclaimed his pride of belonging first “TO A RELIGION”, then “TO A NATION” and again “TO A RELIGION”.
7. It will be clear that Swami Vivekananda used the words 'RELIGION' and 'NATION' as synonymous terms. No pseudo-secularist in India today can have any doubt about what RELIGION or NATION Swamiji was talking about and what his perception of nationhood was. Swami Vivekananda is emphatically clear that the essential feature of Hindu Nationhood is the Hindu religion, the 'SANATANA DHARMA'. He is only declaring that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION'.
8. In 1909, SRI AUROBINDO expressed the same view in his historic Uttarpara speech: “India is identical with 'Sanatana Dharma. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the 'Sanatana Dharma' that shall rise. When it is said that India shall expand and extend itself, it is the 'Sanatana Dharma' that shall expand and extend itself over the world. IT IS FOR THE DHARMA AND BY THE DHARMA THAT INDIA EXISTS. I SAY THAT IT IS THE 'SANATANA DHARMA' WHICH FOR US IS NATIONALISM'.”
9. The cardinal fact that 'WE HINDUS ARE A NATION' unto ourselves and not just a religious community formed the crucial plank of our first National Movement in 1905, viz. the 'Swadeshi Movement' in undivided Bengal. When Bengal was partitioned by Lord Curzon (1859-1925) in 1905, the entire Hindu society rose up with a National Inspiration. No one at that time had the slightest doubt that 'We Hindus are a Nation'. That is why in Calcutta city, on the first day of the agitation 50,000 people took a collective oath before Goddess Kali in the Holy Kalighat Temple to the effect that 'we shall throw the British out of our homeland'. The famous historian R.C. Majumdar (1888-1980) rightly concluded that he saw no difference in those days between Sanatana Dharma and Indian Nationalism.
10. After Indian independence, Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his concept of False Nationhood under the label of 'Secularism'. According to this 'Secularism' Concept, all the people who happen to reside on the soil of India form a Nation, whether he follows the culture of this Country or not, whether he is loyal to this Country or not. It does not matter if the State-aided Minorities dismiss the time-honored Culture of this Country 'Sanatana Dharma' as abominable and as a path of the Devil. Thus in a mischievous way Jawaharlal Nehru reduced the Concept of Nationhood into a geographic entity and bade good-bye to the established principles of Nationhood founded on Emotional-cum-Cultural Unity and all that it implies. According to this Nehru's notion, Hindus of India in majority have to voluntarily abandon the inheritance of their traditional homeland. Nehru used his political might to propagate this debilitating and Nation-decimating anti-Hindu ideology and this became the corner stone of all his policies and proved disastrous for the Hindu society. In short, Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his VICIOUS CONCEPT OF FALSE SEMITIC NATIONHOOD under the label of SECULARISM.
11. In 1949, Nehru said that “to talk of Hindu culture would injure India's interests”. What did ‘Maulana’ Nehru mean by “India”? He meant a De-Hinduized India in which no one can call himself a Hindu without feeling a sense of guilt or inferiority complex! An India where every terrorist Muslim would have a first charge on our National Resources and every proselytizing Christian Missionary would enjoy the full protection and patronage of the Indian State.
12. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) who was not either afraid or ashamed of proclaiming from roof top that he was a devout Hindu, and a staunch supporter of Sanatana Dharma, Jawaharlal Nehru took special pride in announcing his collosal ignorance of Sanatana Dharma and Hindu Culture from all public platforms. Dressed in brief mortal official authority, Nehru’s supercilious, purblind audacity reached its acme of irresponsibility while delivering a lecture at the Lucknow University in 1951 when he said: “The ideology of Hindu Dharma is completely out of tune with the present times and if it took root in India, it would smash the country to pieces.”
13. Jawaharlal Nehru himself had admitted more than once that by Education he was an Englishman, by Views an Internationalist (read, International Marxist!), by Culture a Muslim, and a Hindu only by a sheer accident of birth. With all this massive evidence, there is little scope for any doubt whatsoever that Nehru had total contempt for Hindu Religion, for Hindu Culture, for Hindu Society and for the average apathetic and listless Hindu.
14. Thus we have before us two alternative perceptions of our NATION and NATIONHOOD --- One of Swami Vivekananda and Other of Jawaharlal Nehru. Swami Vivekananda represented the Time–Defying sources and forces of ancient Vedic Wisdom rooted in Sanatana Dharma. Jawaharlal Nehru represented the sources and forces of anti-Hindu Semitic Cultures.
15. Swami Vivekananda was indeed a Phenomenon, an extraordinarily Divine Being who aroused an instantaneous world-wide awe, astonishment, surprise and admiration from the moment he addressed the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in September 1893.
16. Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) paid this tribute to Swami Vivekananda in 1977: “The best introduction to Swami Vivekananda is not to read about him, but to read him. The Swami’s personality, with all its charm and force, its courageousness, its spiritual authority, its fury and its fun, comes through to you very strongly in his writings and recorded words. Reading his printed words, we can catch something of the tone of his voice and even feel some sense of contact with his power. Swami Vivekananda’s English recreates his personality for us even now, three quarters of a Century later.”
17. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945?) paid the following tribute to Swami Vivekananda:
“It is very difficult to explain the versatile genius of Swami Vivekananda. The impact of Swami Vivekananda made on the students of our times by his works and speeches far outweighed that made by any other leader of the Country. He, as it were, expressed fully their hopes and aspirations. But Swami Vivekananda cannot be appreciated properly if he is not studied along with Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva (1836-1886). The foundation of the present freedom movement owes its origin to Swami Vivekananda’s Message. If India is to be free, it cannot be a land specially of Hinduism or of Islam --- it must be one UNITED LAND of different religious communities inspired the ideal of NATIONALISM. And for that Indians must accept whole heartedly the Gospel of Harmony of Religions, which is the Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda.”
18. Swami Vivekananda wanted the Youth of India to have “Muscles of Iron and Nerves of Steel”. Referring to this aspect of Swami Vivekananda’s radiant personality, Subhas Chandra Bose declared:
“Swami Vivekananda was a full-blooded MASCULINE PERSONALITY --- and a Fighter to the core of his being. He was consequently a Worshipper of SHAKTI and gave a practical interpretation to the VEDANTA for the practical uplift of his countrymen. STRENGTH, STRENGTH is what the UPANISHADS say --- that was a frequent cry of his. He laid the greatest stress on CHARACTER BUILDING. … He was so great, so profound, so complex. A YOGI of the highest spiritual level in direct communication with the TRUTH, who had for the time being, consecrated his whole life to the moral and spiritual upliftment of his nation and of humanity, that is how I would describe him. If he had been alive, I would have been at his feet.”
Swami Vivekananda harmonized EAST and WEST, RELIGION and SCIENCE, PAST and PRESENT. And that is why he is great. Our countrymen have gained unprecedented self-respect, self-confidence and self-assertion from his Teachings.
Finally, let me conclude with the immortal words of Romain Rolland (1866-1944) on Swami Vivekananda: “Vivekananda’s words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his at thirty years distance without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero!”
Finally, let me conclude with the immortal words of Romain Rolland (1866-1944) on Swami Vivekananda: “Vivekananda’s words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his at thirty years distance without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shock, what transport, must have been produced when, in burning words, they issued from the lips of the hero!”