By Ambrose Pinto, SJ
Bengaluru: National Youth Day is celebrated on January 12, the birthday of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) since 1984. With the coming of the BJP to power the day has acquired political significance. The Sangh Parivar has commemorated the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda with fervor and has made use of Swami Vivekananda as a Hindu ideologue for their interests.
No doubt Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu but his Hinduism is not the one propagated by Hindutvavadis. In fact Swami Vivekananda could have followed the path shown by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and join Brahma Samaj or the path of total renunciation and go to Himalayas to attain the goal of liberation. But he followed the path of service to society and dedicated himself to create social awakening in the minds of people.
While the Sangh Parivar makes much of his being a Hindu what the Sangh does not highlight is his understanding of Hinduism very different from the Hindutva of the Sangh Privar. The Sangh Parivar looks at only the religious aspect of Vivekananda nationalism. He held hat religion constituted the ‘centre, the keynote of the whole of music of national life of India and he had defended Hinduism in the parliament of Religions in New York and the participants there had admired him.
His Vedanta philosophy is very different. a. He believed in the oneness between God and man and the solidarity of the universe. 2. He did not stand for a life of renunciation but stood for selfless action in the services of humanity. 3. He propagated the principle of universal tolerance and believed that different religious faiths were different paths to reach the goal of liberation.
His new Vedanta philosophy stood for service, sacrifice and freedom. As Prophet of Indian nationalism he wanted to see the emergence of a strong and self confident India but he was aware caste was an obstacle. He had held that the evils of caste system divided the Indian society into classes and created the feeling of inferiority and superiority among them.
He had exhorted Indians not to get involved in the divisive issue of race and language and imbibe the spirit of unity. He had even said that Hindus should not blame Muslims for their numerous invasions because the Muslim conquest came as a salvation to the downtrodden masses in India. National unity, according to him, could not be fostered by caste conflict.
For the growth of national spirit in India, independence of mind was necessary. Indians should be proud of their motherland and declare that all Indians, despite their caste, linguistic and religious differences, are brothers.
The main component of Vivekananda’s concept of nationalism is that young people by devoting their life to social service and national awakening should serve their country. He not only stood for spiritual freedom but also wanted the material or external freedom of humans.
According to Vivekananda, society is only a social agency and it should not encroach on individual freedom. He held that liberty becomes meaningless without equality or rights. His recognition of the natural rights of an individual, in fact, puts to an end to all kinds of privileges in society and establishes the right to individual equality.
He wanted to get rid of all evil ideas of class and caste superiority and tyranny which have made the Hindu society loose, stratified and disintegrated. He mercilessly denounced the evils of untouchability and condemned all forms of inhuman practices prevalent.
Being intensely conscious of the miseries of India’s millions he had mercilessly denounced the sophistication, the arrogance and the wickedness of the upper classes of Indian society making them responsible for exploiting the millions of masses throughout India’s history.
Once Swami Vivekananda declared thus: “I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread.’ His gospel of social equalitarianism is fundamentally socialistic. Secondly, Vivekananda was a socialist because he championed the concept of equal chance ‘for all the inhabitants of the country. He was in favor of violent revolution for achieving the goal of socialism.
He was a great social realist who was conscious of caste oppressiveness in Indian society. While presenting the country as an icon of Hindu Nationalism why should the BJP hide the real Swami Vivekananda?
(Dr. Ambrose Pinto SJ is the Principal of St. Aloysius Degree College, Bangalore 560005)