Social philosophy of Swami Vivekananda

by Baruah Debajit | 2017 | 87,227 words

This study deals with Swami Vivekananda’s social philosophy and his concept of religion. He was the disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Important subjects are discussed viz., nature of religion, reason and religion, goal of religion, religious experience, ways to God, etc. All in the context of Vivekananda....

Chapter 2.0 - Vivekananda as a Social Reformer (Introduction)

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Social philosophy discusses the social evils. It is the duty of social philosophy to set ideals to remove these social evils so that every individual of the society can live respectfully and peacefully. The philosophy of Vivekananda is mainly originated due to the evils of Indian society prevailing at that time. Before we go to the reforms of Vivekananda we just have a look into the socio-economic condition of India in the 19th century. During the time of swami Vivekananda India’s socio economic condition was miserable. Problems like poverty, superstition, sati etc. were widely prevailing at that time. Moreover the British at that time were ruling the country. Though the British rule had some good aspects like establishment of telegraph, railway etc. they ruined country’s economy.

Indian society in the nineteenth century was caught in a vicious web created by religious superstition and social obscurantism. Hinduism as max Weber observed had become a compound of magic, animism and superstition. Abominable rites like animal sacrifice and physical torture had replaced the worship of god. The priests exercised an overwhelming and, indeed unhealthy influence on the minds of the people. Idolatry and polytheism helped to reinforce their position. As suggested by Raja Rammohan Roy, their monopoly of scriptural knowledge and of ritual interpretation imparted a deceptive character to all religious systems. The faithful lived in submission, not only to God, but even to the whims, fancies and wishes of the priests. There was nothing that religious ideology could not persuade people to do. Indian women even went to the extent of offering themselves to priestess to satisfy their carnal pleasure.

The condition of the women was the most distressing. The birth of a girl was unwelcome. Her marriage was considered a burden and her widowhood inauspicious. Attempts to kill girl infants at birth were not unusual. Those who escaped this brutality were subjected to the violence of marriage at a tender age. Often the marriage was device to escape social ignominy and hence marital life did not turn out to be a pleasant experience.

Other debilitating factor was caste. It sought to maintain a system of segregation, hierarchically ordained on the basis of ritual status. The rules and regulations of caste hampered social mobility. It fostered social divisions and sapped individual initiative. Above all were the humiliations of untouchability which militated against human dignity. There were innumerable other practices marked by constraint, credulity, status, and blind fatalism.

Like other social reformer of the 19th century India, Swami Vivekananda was also greatly influenced by the golden past of India. He did not like to condemn even the most superstitious and the most irrational institution. He says, “Have no word of condemnation even for the most superstitions, for they also must have served some good in the past. Remember always that there is not in the world any other country whose institutions are really better in their aims and objects than the institutions of this land. I have seen castes in almost every country in the world, but nowhere is their plan and purpose so glorious as here.”^[1] He says that even those customs that are now appearing very low have been positively life-giving in times past. According to him if we have to remove these customs, we must not do so with curses, but with blessing.

Vivekananda did not want to reform India only with the western means and methods of work. He says, “I am sorry to say that most of our modern reform movements have been in-considerate imitations of western means and methods of work, and that surely will not do for India; therefore it is that all our recent reform movements have had so result.”^[2] It is because Indian reformers tried to reform the Indian society with the help of imitation of the western methods and by utter denunciation of our own, they have failed in their aims. Vivekananda says that most of the reform proposals in India are good. Most of the social reformers are also good, well-meaning men and their aims too are very laudable on certain points. But it is quite a patent fact that hundreds of years of social reform has produced no permanent and valuable result appreciable throughout the country.He says, “platform speeches have been made by the thousand, denunciation in volumes after volumes have been hurled upon the devoted head of the Hindu race and its civilization and yet no good practical result has been achieved and where is the reason for that? The reason is not hard to find. It is in the denunciation itself.”^[3] Thus it is clear that Vivekananda was in favour of reforming the Indian society with the help of the methods of India. He was of the view that former reformer did not pay any heed to our own methods and that is why their efforts went in vain.

While reforming India society Vivekananda did not try abolish the systems prevalent in India. His role was like a doctor who tries to root out the causes of the disease, but not to kill the patient.He says “my method of treatment is to take out by the roots the very causes of the disease and not to keep them merely suppressed.”^[4] Mere suppression of any problem always carries the fear of rising it again.

Vivekananda therefore tried to root out very causes of social evils. He says we must go down to the very root of the matter, then to put the fix there and let it burn upwards and make an Indian nation. This is called radical reform according to Vivekananda.

In our previous chapter it is mentioned that Swami Vivekananda to uplift the downtrodden Indian masses first of all tried to remind their real nature. He through his lectures tried to make people realize that the soul of every individual is the same, that everyone is one with the Absolute. There is no difference between man and God, rather man itself is God. The real nature of man is its divine nature. Through this he tried to get them back their lost confidence as well as he tried to persuade the upper class peoples of India not to look down upon the poor peoples and to come forward to uplift them. Along with this he gave importance on education for the reformation of the Indian society. It is his conviction that for social reform the first duty is to educate the people. He says most of the reform that have been agitated for during the past century have been ornamental. But every one of these reforms only touched the first two castes (Brahman and khatriya) and not other. For example the question of widow marriage would not touch seventy percent of the Indian women. All such questions only reached the higher castes of Indian people who were educated. According to Vivekananda this is not reformations at all. There for he gave importance on educating every individual of India. He asked to educate the people of India so that they may be able to solve their problems themselves. He was aware of the fact that without education ideal reforms will remain as ideals only.

He had a two-fold personality-one is spiritual and the other social. Vivekananda was a great social reformer and has done many social activities to change the Indian socio-economic condition. He felt that the three problems are the resistance of our progress. Those are education, poverty and castism. He was the first leader in modern India to speak for the poor and the downtrodden masses. He travelled extensively within the country to understand their problem. He firmly believed that the main cause of India’s’ downfall was the neglect and exploitation of the poor. He spoke about the basic necessities of life such as food, clothes and shelter for the poor Indian. Being a great patriot he dedicated his life in the service of his motherland. But he did not allow his love for India to limit his love for humanity. He loved and treated all human beings as equal without any distinction of caste, religion, race, nationality or gender.