At our own peril 2

Here are some facts and figures. “CIC pulled up NCERT because it reduced the content on Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Bose in its history books. The content on Swami Vivekananda, which originally stood at 1,250 words in the Class 12 history books, has now been reduced to only 37 words. Additionally, in the history books of Class 8, mention of Vivekananda was removed from the syllabus altogether (indiatoday.in, Jan 2016). The CIC order also mentions 36 other Indian revolutionaries who played a part in the freedom struggle against the British rule, but have not been given space in the textbooks. 37 history book pages were reserved for cricket and the history of fabric. (ibid)” Seems like a joke, but this is alarming. And precisely this has kept happening with school, college and university education in the past 70 years. It had happened during British Raj, but then education was mostly in the hands of Nationalist leaders who, even while working under tremendous pressure from British authorities, tried to remain firm with the content of education delivered. They emphasized on value based education and on leaders who could shape such values. And with the erase of values and the degradation of the value based education, the society begins breeding monsters who have no way to get truly educated. All learning in such an environment generates self-seeking, selfish, self-conceited egotist brutes on the one hand and good natured but directionless, purposeless and thoroughly demoralized cynic individuals who have lost faith on pretty much everything, including themselves on the other. 

So 150^th birth anniversary of Vivekananda did not evoke the same response in the country as it should have. Media deliberately missed the celebrations. School kids and college goers as well as adults are vastly ignorant of his biography, writings or speeches. Pseudo intellectuals, secularists and few in academia berate him in public. Post-independence we aped Western values and took their political and social structures. The result is evident today in our administration and politics. Less we talk about our social degradation today the better. So it would seem that we have really neglected him at our own peril. Even our academicians were and are largely influenced by the vast anti Vivekananda lobby among American and English scholars, who are also promoted by certain virulently fundamentalist Christian denominations, who consider Vivekananda’s liberal legacy as the main thorn to uproot Hinduism and all such pagan beliefs and establish the superiority of “their Christianity”. The Vedanta as interpreted by Vivekananda, is unacceptable to them. According to them Vedanta is always a utopia, a “detached from the world” phenomenon which has no practical side and all practical interpretations were superimposed by Vivekananda and his followers by taking them from Christianity and Bible.  In the guise of being secular, this lobby is funded by noted religious councils and bodies. This lobby is powerful and has many followers and many reputed names across universities in US and Europe. They dominate academic discussions. This academic lobby has renamed Vivekananda’s legacy as “Neo Hinduism” which they dismiss as charlatanism, largely influenced by Western thoughts and vastly different from Shankara’s interpretations of what they call “a dreamy, non-worldly version”. They also dismiss Vivekananda’s hypothesis of “religion as realization” (and rightly so for them, realization has no place in a sensual and intellectual world). 

So genuine Vivekananda scholars and sympathizers has a formidable task, to overcome this mountain of mudslinging, misinterpretations and muscle power. This lobby has also accused Vivekananda of being the chief architect of militant Hinduism and several scholars and intellectuals of India, esp. belonging to the “secular” and “liberal” lobby, eulogize them and quote them quite often in their own denunciation of Vivekananda. However we need to remember that the power of such a lobby was always there, even during the times of Vivekananda and probably they were hundred times more powerful than they are now at that time. As Swamiji himself had said in a letter to Mary Hell, that the amount of calumny heaped on by Christian missionaries and their pet intellectuals on India in general and Hinduism in particular cannot be compensated for, even if the entire mud from the bottom of  Indian Ocean is scooped and heaped on them. We need to remember and take heart from the fact that it is with this lobby that Swami Vivekananda fought with and won in their own territories conveniently. Also such scholars and intellectuals are what they are, in the language of Sri Ramakrishna, vultures and kites who soar high but feed on carrions of name, fame and fortune. And curiously enough, along with foreigners, some Indians have taken up the lead in belittling their own country, culture and esteemed sons of their country. However that was there even during Vivekananda’s time, Pratap Mazumdars and Ramabais are in abundance everywhere in this blessed country. But the key question is, how far have they been successful?