Other Legacies of Vivekananda

Some of my friends questioned the main contention of my previous post on Swami Vivekananda - they felt that I tried to give an impression that introducing Hinduism and Indian philosophy to general population abroad is Swamiji’s chief legacy. In fact I tried to highlight just one aspect of his enduring legacy as a pioneer of Indian soft power ascendancy in the West. Within India I feel there are two important legacies of Swami Vivekananda – a proud nationalism more in a cultural sense than political and the legacy of service. Two separate organizations – Sangh Parivar and Ramakrishna Mission, respectively, have emerged as the primary torch-bearers for these two distinct legacies. It is important to remember that if one goes by his writings and recorded speeches, Swami Vivekananda was not always consistent in terms of his views and at times was even self-contradictory. Today therefore when we look at his legacy we must remember that this is how he has been interpreted by different people and organizations, which in turn led to continuation of these legacies.

M S Golwalkar

In 1963, while Ramakrishna Mission made acquisition of Vivekananda’s ancestral house the chief focus of their centenary celebration, RSS decided to build a national memorial and a nation-wide movement around it. Ramakrishna Mission’s project eventually was completed almost four decades later following a protracted legal battle. On the other hand, RSS Chief Golwalkar appointed Eknath Ranade, an energetic former Secretary General of RSS to spearhead this project. Before talking about Ranade’s spectacular success, let me go back to Guru Golwalkar – in his youth he joined Ramakrishna Mission and took diksha from Swami Akhandananda, a direct disciple of Ramakrishna and a pioneer of service in the Mission. Golwalkar went back to RSS after Akhandananda’s death – reportedly following his guru’s last wishes. Though founded by Hedgewar, who took inspiration from Savarkar and Maharastrian variety of Hindu nationalism (Hedgewar himself studied medicine in Calcutta between 1910-14 and admired Aurobindo Ghosh and Bankim Chandra), it was Golwalkar who defined the RSS philosophy for successive generations in his book – We or Our Nationhood Defined. Perhaps it was his short stay at Ramakrishna Mission with Swami Akhandananda, which prompted Golwalkar to introduce the concept of service in RSS fold.

Vivekananda Rock Memorial

After deciding on the site for Vivekananda Memorial at Kanyakumari, where Swamiji meditated for three days before leaving for Chicago, Ranade started building a full-fledged movement to collect necessary resources. He enlisted the support of a large number of politicians cutting across party lines; collected money from more than 30 lakh ordinary citizens by distributing Vivekananda’s posters/folders and even army units contributed for the project. It took four years to build the now famous monument at the southern tip of the country. Once it was done, the focus shifted to building of an organization – Vivekananda Kendras. This was to be the service affiliate of RSS, focusing on its twin objectives – man-making and nation-building. In half a century since then this organization – formally a special affiliate of RSS – has grown into one of the largest socio-cultural organizations in the country. Today it has 234 branches and runs a large number of schools, medical camps, and cultural organizations across the country with millions of people directly associated with it. It tries to reach out through soft cultural or social messages to marginal population or those who are not enamoured by open right-wing political campaigning. Other Sangh parivar outfits, particularly ABVP, routinely project Vivekananda as a youth icon. Vivekananda was responsible for instilling a great degree of pride in our (mainly Hindu) heritage and that way it may not be out of place to hail him as a nationalist icon. But the crucial difference is in approach – Sangh Parivar’s nationalist agenda is exclusionary whereas his was always inclusionary.

RK Mission Relief Work (from Mission's official website

Between 1890 and 1893, Swami Vivekananda travelled through a large part of India, mostly on foot and begging for food, not always successfully. Before this, from 1887 to 1890, he was trying to establish Ramakrishna Math with his brother monks braving crushing poverty. This tryst with poverty and real India opened his eyes in a way unseen in case of other great Indians of 19th and early 20th century. His experience of widespread starvation, illiteracy and resultant backwardness forced him to adopt seva (service to humanity) as sadhana instead of sticking only to religious activities. He was continuously writing to his brother monks to emphasize that a person has to be first provided food, educated and then only he would be in a position to appreciate his own spirituality. It is also important to remember that in his lifetime service was hardly the central theme of the Mission and even his attitude to service was at times ambivalent. Over the years, Ramakrishna Math and Mission has evolved into India’s premier humanitarian agency, providing healthcare, education and other facilities not only in towns and villages but also in remotest parts of the country from Arunachal to insurgency-affected areas of central India. It is also a pioneer in disaster relief – a service, through which the likes of Akhandananda, initiated the Math and Mission’s commitment to daridra-narayan-seva. Ramakrishna Mission does run programmes focusing on Vedanta, cultural heritage and other themes. In the USA, it mainly focuses on such activities. But today the main focus of the organization, which is the living embodiment of Vivekananda’s visions, is on managing and perfecting a complex web of service it offers across a vast geography of the subcontinent, including Bangladesh.

Though RSS and its affiliates have appropriated and in a sense expanded Vivekananda’s legacy of proud nationalism, it incorporated service also in its agenda, mainly through Vivekananda Kendras. On the other hand, within India, over the years, service has become prime focus of Ramakrishna Mission though it continues to work on his legacy of cultural nationalism/projection of Indian spirituality both in India and abroad.

Swami Vivekananda at the Confluence of East and West

Shrinwantu vishwe amritasya putra/arya dhamani divyani tashtu/vedamayetam purusham mahantam/aditya varanam tamasa parastath/tvameva vidithvati, mrityu methi/nanyah pantha vidyathe ayanaya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdl7sC-Dg7g

“Sisters and brothers of America!” – this opening invocation of Swami Vivekananda was followed by thunderous applause. It was 9/11, 1893. Chicago Art Institute was the venue for World Parliament of Religions, celebrating 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World. The young Vedantic went on to greet the youngest nation in the world on behalf of the most ancient order of monks in the world. At a stage, where every speaker was bent upon claiming superior status for his own religion or sect, Vivekananda humbly submitted that no religion was superior and all the streams would meet eventually in the ocean. He struggled very hard to cross half the world and reach Chicago uninvited. But finally when his moment came, Swami Vivekananda became the cynosure of all eyes. This epoch-making speech would soon open the door for Indian philosophy and religion in the West and help to pave the way for revitalization of Hinduism back home.

Swami Vivekananda at World Parliament of Religions

For the next two years Vivekananda gave public lectures and private classes in the USA on Hinduism, Indian philosophy and Yoga. This was West’s first direct introduction to Indian spirituality. Before him only a handful of academicians in the West were acquainted with these subjects. Through Vivekananda, common people for the first time came to realize India’s great spiritual wealth. Till then India was regarded as a backward colony, where – they thought – the only way of salvation was to send more missionaries to spread the message of Christ. On the other hand, a new generation aware of the strains caused by materiality of industrialization and mass urbanization found solace in Vivekananda’s teachings. As Romain Rolland – the great French writer and biographer of both Ramakrishna and Vivekananda – was to write later, the impact of Vivekananda’s lectures was simply electrifying. From the USA, he travelled twice to England in 1895 and 1896. He met some of the great thinkers of his age in London and also attracted a large number of followers. When he travelled back to India, a number of them came along with him – one of them was Margaret Elizabeth Noble, Sister Nivedita, who would stay back to promote women’s education in India.

Belur Math

On May 1, 1897, when Ramakrishna Mission was formally inaugurated at Belur, it had three units – Belur, Ramakrishna Mission of Madras and Vedanta Society New York, which Swamiji founded back in 1894. Very few people know that almost the entire Belur Math was built through the donation of Swamiji’s select western pupils. Even today Ramakrishna Mission, which has its branches in 20 countries outside India, has maximum number of centres outside India in the USA. Unlike in India, where Ramakrishna Mission centres typically combine education and social service with promotion of Vedantic philosophy and classical culture; centres in the US solely focus on philosophy and culture. Today transcendental meditation, Yoga, Indian philosophy, Hindu and Buddhist religions are some of the strongest points in enhancing India’s soft power quotient in the West. Many Indian religious teachers and organizations have since followed the same path to their Western audiences but it was the pioneering mission of Swami Vivekananda to introduce spiritual India in the West.

A part of Chicago's busy Michigan Avenue is named after Swami Vivekananda
 

It was his reception in the West, which brought the spotlight on him back home. He sailed abroad at a time, when others were busy in deciding the punishment for kalapani for a monk. When he came back triumphant, a subjugated nation found her confidence in his success. In Sri Aurobindo’s language, Vivekananda awakened India spiritually. This awakening came in the context of emerging nationalism and helped young people of India to find their inspiration in their civilization. Like all great Indians of his generations – Rabindranath, Jamshedji Tata – Vivekananda was greatly inspired by the success of Japan. In Japanese success they saw India’s future. On one side, Vivekananda acknowledged India’s past greatness but on the other hand he was equally pained to see ignorance and poverty all around. He was unwavering in his belief that the only way to rescue this country was through education and science and technology – nanyah pantha vidyathe ayanaya. Impressed by this young sadhu, when his co-passenger Jamshedji Tata offered him a large amount for his math, Swamiji asked him to build a scientific institution with that money – this led to the foundation of Indian Institute of Science, IISc Bangalore.