Clarion Call to the Youth

Koka Satyanarayana Rao

Our country has great culture and heritage, which relates to over 5,000 years. However, foreign rulers on number of occasions have invaded this country in the past. Finally the British came to this country as East India Company and ruled this country till we got freedom on 15th August 1947. Our forefathers sacrificed their lives for attaining freedom of this country. We have to pay homage and reverence to them. We have to read about their lives and teachings particularly that of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, Lokamanya Balagangadhara Tilak, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Dr. Babu Rajendra Prasad, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and others. We have to imbibe their teachings and live up to their expectations.

In this Punya Bhoomi of Bharat great saints and seers like Goutham Buddha, Mahavir Jain, Sankaracharya, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi and several other divine personalities were born. The spiritual knowledge gives us firm moral base. Infact every moral rule has a spiritual base. We have seen Gandhiji, who, in spite of active political life, had a firm spiritual base. His statement demonstrates that life itself is an experiment in truth. In fact, he so named his autobiography. He named active resistance of evil as Satyagraha. He transcended religion, race and country. When a friend from abroad asked Gandhi “How is your family?” He said ‘All India is my family’. He could own the country and the country owned him. He also said that he got by heart the entire Bhagavad Gita and whenever he found difficulty he used to get an answer from Bhagavad Gita.

The Sage poet Tagore said that each religion should respect the other as each religion has its own spiritual heights. One in Truth, another in compassion, another in Love and yet another in Equality. Hence we should never try to destroy one another. As sages said: we should try to fulfil and not destroy.

Ours is a multi religious state. Secularism means that state cannot own a particular religion as a state religion. But that does not mean a multi religious state like ours is an irreligious one. A person who has no spiritual values cannot live in this country which is a multi religious state.

Each citizen must assimilate the spirit of others belonging to different religions and different communities and yet preserve his individuality and thus grow together.

A study of Swami Vivekananda’s literature will help us to develop the humanist fusion in our hearts and work with efficiency and dedication in the service of our motherland.

Jawaharlal Nehru refers to Swamiji in the following appreciative words (Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. pp.5-7).

“If you read Swami Vivekananda’s writings and speeches, the curious thing you will find is that they are not old. It was told 56 years ago, and they are fresh today, because what he wrote or spoke about dealt with certain fundamental matters and aspects of our problems, or the world’s problems.....

“He was no politician in the ordinary sense of the word, yet he was, I think, one of the great founders-if you like, you may use any other word-of the national movement in India, and a great number of people who took more or less an active part in that movement, in a later date, drew their inspiration from Swami Vivekananda. Directly or indirectly, he has powerfully influenced the India of today. And I think our younger generation will take advantage of this fountain of wisdom, and of fire, that flows through Swami Vivekananda.”

50 years before independence Swami Vivekananda on 25th January, 1897, delivered his first lecture on his return from the West at Ramnad, near Rameswaram and he expressed his ideas in the very opening sentences (complete works, Vol. III, Ninth Edition pp. 145-146):

“The longest night seems to be passing away, the sorest trouble seems to be coming to an end at last, the seeming corpse appears to be awaking..... India, this motherland of ours - a voice is coming unto us, gentle, firm, and yet unmistakable in its utterances, and is gaining volume as days pass by, and behold, the sleeper is awakening! Like a breeze from the Himalayas, it is bringing life into the almost dead bones and muscles, the lethargy is passing away, and only the blind cannot see, or the perverted will not see, that she is awakening, this motherland of ours, from her deep long sleep. None can resist her any more; never is she going to sleep any more; no outward powers can hold her any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.”

Swami Vivekananda in one of his letters says: “We as a Nation have lost our individuality and that is the cause of all the mischief in India. We have to give to the nation its lost individuality and uplift the masses. The Hindu, the Mohammedan; the Christian; all have trampled them under foot.” (Complete works vol., Sixth Edition, P. 255).

Swami Vivekananda summoned his country men to prepare morally and spiritually to render service now to the modern world (Complete works, Vol. III, P. 277)

Nine years before independence in 1938, Dr. K. M. Munshi established Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan with an object of reintegration of Indian culture. The Bhavan’s service derives from a single ideal: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The World is one Family.

* Speech delivered at Bhavan’s Sri Ramakrishna Vidyalaya, Hyderabad.