Vivekananda’s Plan for India

RAINI BAKSHI

“At Cape Comorin sitting in Mother Kumar’s temple, sitting on the last bit of Indian rock – I hit upon a plan: We are so many sanyasis wandering about, and teaching the people metaphysics – it is all madness, did not our Gurudeva use to say. An empty stomach is no good for religion.”

The athletic young sanyasi sat perfectly still on an off-shore rock at Kanyakumari. Steeped in deep medita­tion he seemed to have reached a realm beyond time, space and the tingling salt spray of crashing ocean waves. This image, of Swami Viveka­nanda at the rock that now bears his name, is one of modern India’s most enduring legends.

The glare of adulation has tended to obscure the tumultuous human struggles of that legendary persona. And these struggles are the clue to why, a century later, Swami Vivekananda and his plans for India inspire people across the ideological spectrum.

Let us journey a hundred years to see what bothered Viveka­nanda and served as an impetus for his sense of mission.

Wandering as a pilgrim from the Himalayas to India’s southern most tip. Swami Vivekananda saw: “A country where millions of people live on flowers of the mohua plant, and a million or two of sadhus and a hundred million or so of Brahmins suck the blood out of the poor people, without even the least effort for their amelioration – is that a country or hell? Is that a religion, or the devil’s dance?”

So he resolved to undo these injustices and revitalise India by saying religion from those who made it a “devil’s dance.” But this ambitious aspiration had to contend with  global forces that were beyond any single man’s influence.

Looming large over the threshold of the 20th century. Swami Viveka­nanda saw “modern western science dazzling the eyes with the brilliancy of myriad suns and driving in the chariot of hard and fast facts.” By the late 19th century western materialism and colonialisam had come to dominate the world. By comparison the Indian civilisational endeavour seemed to have atrophied. The colonial encounter had the self-confidence of Indian soci­ety as never before.

In addition the efforts of Chris­tian missionaries to convert “hea­thens” had triggered anxieties within sections of Hindu society. Swami Vivekananda’s self-defined task was to simultaneously eliminate the evils in Hindu practice and also reaffirm the value of the tradition. Thus he felt compelled to assert that “Hinduism is not a mistake.” Herein lay one of his most intense struggles. As a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and a diligent spiritual aspirant Swami Vivekananda sought the essentials of Hindusim in pure spirituality. As an activist entangled in the throes of his­tory, he sought the common bases of Hindusim in order to unify its diverse strains. The insights of Vedanta pro­vided these common bases and gave the Swami a means of synthesising his inner quest and his worldly mission.

The essence of this mission was to demystify spiritual truths – bring­ing them out of the monastries and the hold of priest-craft. Since the objective was to retrieve the highest ideals of the existing religion, Swami Vivekananda placed the greatest onus for this revitalisation on orthodox Hindus. He held them responsible for the fact that essential principles had languished over the centuries and decayed inter­nally. What were these essentials?

Religion, Vivekananda said over and over again, is realisation. Rituals, colours, Mantras and idols may help, but these were not the essentials of a spiritual life, for, he said. “If your heart has not opened, if you have not real­ised God, it is all in vain”. And purifi­cation of the heart requires “worship of the Virat – of all those around us.”

Religion and spirituality, so de­fined was in Vivekananda’s view the common ground for the amalgam of cultures in India. And restoring health to these essentials of religion was for the Swami, a necessary prerequisite for the rejuvenation of India.

All these convictions added up not to one but many ‘plans.’ There had to be a “man-making” education, both spiritual and scientific, that would give strength to the people. Additionally, for the making of a great future India required “organisation, accumulation of power, coordination of wills.”

But when he arose from his meditation on the rock at Kan­yakumari the high tide of ideas was also accompanied by a dogged restlessness. He was not sure exactly how all this would add up to both, filling empty stomachs and saving religion. Besides, all plans demanded selfless dedicated workers and funds. The wandering mendicant had a few followers but no funds. So he decided to go to America to spread the message of Indian spirituality and earn money.

Behind the glitter of western affluence Swami Vivekananda sensed another kind of decay and crisis. So he saw himself as a missionary who must seek a mutually enriching synthesis of eastern and western thought. But would preaching “the incompa­rable glory of the  Vedas and the Ve­danta” necessarily be compatible with his goal of fostering universal religion? For Vivekananda, the two were one and the same. His notion of “conquer­ing” the world with spirituality was based on the faith that “love must conquer hatred, hatred cannot con­quer itself.”

Thus bursting with “a tremendous power and energy” Vivekananda set forth on the solitary voyage to America and the Parliament of Relig­ions where history waited to test his faith.