Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
By
Saurav Basu
No national university was named after the man who encouraged J R D Tata
to build the world acclaimed Indian Institute of sciences. No national football
stadium or tournament has been ascribed to the man, who enthused Bengali
boys to go and play football, the matchless spirit which was vindicated when
a barefoot Mohan Bagan beat East Yorkshire to win the IFA shield of 1911.
The fashionable critics of his today claim he was a ‘status quoits’ in terms of
caste and women’s issues although nothing can be further from the truth.
Instead, Vivekananda found utterly objectionable the manner in which the
social reformers of the day appropriated Western critiques of Indian culture.
He refused to be one of those Hindus, who, having identified themselves
with a conquering nation held the misery of their own people up to ridicule
and contempt. Vivekananda rejected those destructive methods wherein an
alien system was forcibly transplanted on an unwilling subjugated people
through force of law and threat of punishment and in the process cut off
their identities. He reasoned that “No nation is great or good because
Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good….I do
not believe in reform; I believe in growth. Theirs is a method of destruction,
mine is that of construction”.
Vivekananda was again one who could appreciate the urgent need for
integrating women with the mainstream by giving them agency. Women had
to be empowered and educated, so they could take their decisions in their
best interests uninfluenced by men. “Our part of the duty lies in imparting
true education to all men and women in society. As an outcome of that
education, they will of themselves be able to know what is good for them
and what is bad, and will spontaneously eschew the latter. It will not be then
necessary to pull down or set up anything in society by coercion.”
Also, few know that Vivekananda supported the women suffrage movement
in the West, as also proposed training women in physical education and self
defense. He implored some notable Hindu women like Sarala Ghoshal, the
niece of Rabindranath to represent Indian womanhood on the world stage.
On the caste question, Vivekananda’s views were revolutionary and hitherto
unknown. He rejected both the Marxist doctrine of ‘class struggle’ along with
the communitarian view of ‘class co-operation’ and instead proposed
Vedantic socialism for organic development. “Man must love others because
all those others are Himself”, Vivekananda created a new philosophical
paradigm by stressing on the intellectual appreciation of conceptualizing the
Advaitic absolute even in the relative phenomenon. The difference between
the Brahmana and the Shudra being illusory eliminates caste conflicts and
caste privileges without necessarily breaking social distinctions and allows
nishkamma karma. The pernicious “reservation policy” of India which is
based on Marxist concepts of ‘class antagonism’ where a Brahmin and a
Shudra only work respectively for the interests of their own castes is
completely negated in the light of this higher Self affirming philosophy.
Sadly, no political party in India has considered internalizing this vital
message of Vivekananda in this age of divisive caste politics.
Vivekananda was the first Indian who impacted the West despite criticizing
Christianity and asserting Hindu superiority. Unlike Gandhi’s irrationality in
considering Western civilization to be a spurious antithesis of the pure Indian
counterpart despite himself imitating the ideas of Christ, Rosseau and
Tolstoy; Vivekananda cherished the values and achievements of both despite
the influence of no foreign thinker on him. His influence on Sri Aurobindo
who represents the last viable fusion of the East and the West is ample
testimony to this fact. His vision in the words of Sri Aurobindo has yet to find
fructification for; “the definite work he has left behind is quite
incommensurate with our impression of his creative might and energy. We
perceive his influence still working gigantically, we know not well where, in
something, that is not yet formed, something leonine, grand, and intuitive,
upheaving that has entered the soul of India.”
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