Yuva Bharati May 2011

Vol.38 No.10 Chaitra-Vaishakh 5112 May 2011 Rs.15/-

Editorial Hearts-Beat to Same Spiritual Tune! Hinduism Rediscovered Veer Savarkar: the Historian extraordinary Professor K.N. VASWANI RASH BEHARI BOSE : A Karma Yogi And Not A Revolutionary The Bait and the Cross All national leaders opposed conversions

V.Senthil Kumar

03 07 11

14 21

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28 33

Prosperous India-12 Sister Nivedita – Who Gave Her All to India - 8

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Invocation

Xyayaim nrisMhaKym! äü vedaNtgaecrm!, bvaiBx trnaepym! zNo c³drMprm!.

dhyäyämi narasimhäkyam brahma vedäntagocaram| baväbdhi taranopayam çankha cakradaramparam|| I am meditating on the Supreme Person known as Nrisimha who is attainable through Vedanta philosophy. He is the carrier of the conch and the Sudarshana disc, and He is the only means for crossing the ocean of birth and death.

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EDITORIAL

f there was one name that was on the majority of the population's lips over the last few weeks, it was Anna Hazare. A man who is known to take on malfunctioning systems and make these function, he comes with a history of fighting and winning battles for the people. And this time it is a hydra-headed monster that he is taking on - corruption. Ever since he announced the fast unto death, a new energy gripped the masses definitely where the english "news" channels have a large viewership. A surging and enthusiastic wave swept through people getting them on to the streets and making them voice their disgust at the pitiful state of affairs in the running of this nation at every level. This level of activity is something that has been woefully lacking in our masses and it is indeed very heartening to see that people do care about who is making the decisions for them, who runs their country, how they run it and how they want it to be run. Most of the people one meets are brimming with enthusiasm and believe they have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and say with a startling certainty that we are getting closer and the light brighter with every passing day. So much so that anybody who even advises caution is looked down upon as a wet blanket, a

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cynic and even a traitor. Fools rush in, they say, where the angels fear to tread. While it is most important that this momentum to clean up the system should be capitalized upon, it is also important that we make sure that we are not led blindly into a quicksand from where getting out becomes a greater battle than the one that got us in. It was with surprising speed and with great organization that the events unfolded – a fast, a media storm and ground-level activism and all of them simultaneously, lending credence to conspiracy theories that this was part of the “grand scheme” of some leading world powers to cause turbulence in the civil and political life of our nation to achieve its own ends, not unlike the series of color revolutions in Central Asia from orange to pink, blue, purple and green. Another curious fact is that Baba Ramdev's movement against corruption, while receiving similarly great enthusiasm and response from the masses, was totally ignored by the media. No one has even asked that question to the right people to get a reasonable answer. But thus far, the movement has remained true to its proclaimed goals and these remain only conspiracy theories and are yet to show any evidence of this movement being

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remotely controlled. Even so, if one can be known by the company he keeps, this movement and its figurehead are indeed in extreme trouble. The faces we see that have positioned themselves as representative voices of the agitation a.k.a movement a.k.a revolution, are ones that we can readily identify as anti-national. There is a long and dubious list from plain fifth columnists like “swami” Agnivesh, Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey (whose “AID India” took an entire chapter in a book by Radha Rajan on NGOs with anti-national designs) to snakes in the grass like the “danseuseactivist” Mallika Sarabhai (who was quoted as saying “neither the country nor its people for whom I have spent 25 years working deserve me”.) And for all the demands of transparency, the fund that is getting generated for the movement named “India Against Corruption” is being solicited in the name of Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) which has a not so bright accounting history as highlighted by Krishen Kak recently. These, of course, are not evidence of a hidden agenda, but they surely are a ground to check thoroughly for one. Sometimes one gets the feeling that this outpouring of emotion from the people has to do more with the guilt of not having done anything so far on such a critical issue. And even at this moment, it is perceived to be easier to outsource every individual's responsibility of making a corruption-free system to a Lokpal; that way we can comfortably lay to rest our conscience when in the meanwhile we continue to accept corruption as a part of

everyday life. Now we can have an entity that we can point to and pin the blame on for the corruption that exists. The corrupt politicians and executives should be punished, but the corruption of the masses apparently need not be addressed. “Oh! But then everybody fighting corruption every time is a Utopian dream” they say. The sloth of tamas is almost universal. If our ideals cannot be ideal, where are we headed? In summary, while the great enthusiasm can be tapped for a great national scheme, we should also make sure that this enthusiasm is not a synthetic product manufactured to meet a particular nation or group's agenda. While we should fully support every effort to root out corruption, we must also be smart enough to be circumspect and not land ourselves in a quagmire. It is not baking a cake but a nation that we are trying to build after all. We cannot afford to let carelessness cause mistakes for them to be corrected later or in the second attempt. This really can be our second freedom struggle as it is referred to commonly. And what Sri Aurobindo said about the first freedom struggle still applies to this as well: “The winning of freedom is an easy task, the keeping of it is less easy. The first needs only one tremendous effort in which all the energies of the country must be concentrated; the second requires a united, organized and settled strength”. May Krishna give us that strength! P.Vasanth YB-ET

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Swami Vivekananda on his return to India-3

Hearts-Beat to Same Spiritual Tune!

Nivedita Raghunath Bhide

ow India saw Swami Vivekananda on his return to India, how she adored him, addressed him and viewed his work in the West can be seen from the various welcome-addresses given to him. These welcome addresses were not just the formal greetings but the heart-pouring of Indians. Though Swami Vivekananda was addressed variously the feeling was same and the fullness of heart total. Though the words varied from 'the great-souled one' to 'brother' as the people of Calcutta addressed him, the acknowledgement of the significance of his advent was same. It was the same heartfelt adorations and adulations whether in South or North or East or West in India. He was variously called as, REVERED SIR in both Colombo and Jaffna, as YOUR HOLINESS in Pamban, as His Most Holiness b y R a j a o f R a m n a d , a s S R I M AT VIVEKANANDA SWAMI in Paramakudi, as MOST REVERED SIR, in Sivagangai and Manamadurai, as MOST REVERED SWAMI in Madurai, as REVERED SWAMIN in Madras, as YOUR HOLINESS by the Maharaja of

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Khetri, as DEAR BROTHER in Calcutta and as GREAT-SOULED ONE in Almora. In one of the addresses Swami Vivekananda was called as Sri Paramahamsa, Yati - Raja, Digvijaya - Kolahala, Sarvamata - Sampratipanna, Parama - Yogeeswara, Srimat Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Karakamala, Sanjata, Rajadhiraja – Sevita. These are all the appellations that are taken from in welcome addresses only. But what people called him in newspapers, in their conversations and articles are not included here. But even this gives us idea that why there are Vishnu sahasranama, Siva sahasranama, Lalita sahasranama, or Kali sahasranama. People need thousands of names to describe the multifaceted personality and his deep and all-dimensional work touching the core of the heart. Though the words varied in the welcome addresses the feelings were same. And of course even words were same when

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the common aspirations and achievements were voiced. The welcome address given at Pamban and from Khetri Maharaja refers India as Aryavarta i.e. land of Aryans. The welcome addresses of Kolkata and Almora mention Hindu religion as Aryan Dharma. Swami Vivekananda himself at Madras hailed Arya Dharma. The incident was like this: At Madras on his arrival the enthusiasm of the people was such that there were more people outside the hall than inside too eager to have a look at Swami Vivekananda and to listen to him. More than 30 welcome addresses were read in the hall. The people waiting outside were getting excited and were fervently hoping that they would get glimpse of Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda was moved by the eager crowd outside, so he left the hall and mounted the box-seat of a carriage in waiting. Swamiji started talking to people to which he himself referred as talking from a chariot in the Gita fashion. But after few minutes, the crowd became unmanageable due to continuously pouring of more and more people from all corners. In all this exuberance, Swamiji's voice was not reaching to the sea of humans. Thus Swami Vivekananda concluded his speech by proclaiming the Victory to Arya Dharma, to Sri Ramakrishna and to Bhagavan Sri Krishna to which the gathering enthusiastically responded by Jai Jai. The welcome addresses whether from south or north or west or east mentioned Aryavarta or Arya Dharma. Swami Vivekananda himself proclaimed victory to Arya Dharma at Madras and people enthusiastically responded by Jai Jai. Very clearly, the so-called Aryan-Dravidian theories floated later in India by Robert Caldwell, Risley etc. were yet to divide the mind of India. Arya did not mean to us then a race but we all considered ourselves as Arya-people

belonging to noble tradition and having noble thoughts and actions. India is a cultural nation. Her unity is the cultural unity to which Vincent Smith had referred to as the 'deeper unity'. It is not a nation-state defined by political power. In Indian history, it is seen that even if the political establishment was hostile the nation lived on. Nepal, Sri Lanka though politically different, are culturally one with India. We can discern that from the welcome addresses given to Swami Vivekananda in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and also from the speeches of Swami Vivekananda. It was said in the welcome speech at Colombo, “You have proclaimed to the nations of Europe and America the Hindu ideal of a universal religion, harmonizing all creeds, providing spiritual food for each soul according to its needs, and, lovingly drawing it unto God. You have preached the Truth and the Way, taught from remote ages by a succession of Masters whose blessed feet have walked and sanctified the soil of India, and whose gracious presence and inspiration have made her, through all her vicissitudes, the Light of the World. To the inspiration of such a Master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva, and to your self-sacrificing zeal, western nations owe the priceless boon of being placed in living contact with the spiritual genius of India, while to many of our own countrymen, delivered from the glamour of western civilization, the value of our glorious heritage has been brought home.” While replying to this welcome address at Colombo, Swami Vivekananda said, “Formerly I thought as every Hindu thinks, and as the Hon. President has just pointed out to you, that this is the Punya Bhumi, the land of

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Karma. Today I stand here and say, with the conviction of truth, that it is so. If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity, towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality -- it is India. Hence have started the founders of religions from the most ancient times, deluging the earth again and again with the pure and perennial waters of spiritual truth. Hence have proceeded the tidal waves of philosophy that have covered the earth, East or West, North or South, and hence again must start the wave which is going to spiritualize the material civilization of the world. Here is the life - giving water with which must be quenched the burning fire of materialism which is burning the core of the hearts of millions in other lands. Believe me, my friends, this is going to be.” Thus from the welcome address as well as from the speech of Swami Vivekananda at Colombo as quoted above, it is seen that Ceylon was not seen as separate from cultural India. Unfortunately today whenever we say India, in our mind only the present political India comes. In the welcome addresses that Swami Vivekananda received from all corners of our country, it can be seen that despite the apparent diversity the hearts of Indians beat to the same spiritual tune. Thus apart from the heartfelt gratitude to Swami Vivekananda, all the addresses made with more or less stress the following five points: Hinduism is a universal religion: “You have,

with an eloquence that is unsurpassed and in language plain and unmistakable, proclaimed to and convinced the cultured audiences in Europe and America that Hinduism fulfils all the requirements of the ideal of a universal religion and adapts itself to the temperament and needs of men and women of all races and creeds.” India is awakened and Hindu Dharma is revived due to work of Swami Vivekananda: “Above all, your labours in the West have indirectly and to a great extent tended to awaken the apathetic sons and daughters of India to a sense of the greatness and glory of their ancestral faith, and to create in them a genuine interest in the study and observance of their dear and priceless religion.” Or “We also express our thankfulness to you for initiating a movement for the revival of our ancient religion in this materialistic age when there is a decadence of faith and a disregard for search after spiritual truth.” Whole humanity is benefited: Welcome addresses further point out that it was not just the revival of Hindu dharma but the spiritual regeneration of the east and the west. The universal Hindu mind is seen in this appreciation. “We feel we cannot adequately convey in words our feelings of gratitude and thankfulness to your Holiness for your philanthropic labours towards the spiritual regeneration of the East and the West.” Or “The magnetic influence of your august person reminds us of our ancient holy Rishis whose realisation of the Self by asceticism and self-control made them the true guides and preceptors of the human race.” Or “…in making your way into western countries you have also been the bearer of a message of light and peace to the whole of mankind, based on the old teachings of India's "Religion Eternal.”

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Way to Universal Brotherhood is opened with harmonization of all creeds: “Your labours have now proved beyond the possibility of doubt that the contradictions of the world's numerous creeds are all reconciled in the universal light of the Vedanta, and that all the peoples of the world have need to understand and practically realise the great truth that "Unity in variety" is nature's plan in the evolution of the universe, and that only by harmony and brotherhood among religions and by mutual toleration and help can the mission and destiny of humanity be accomplished. Religion and Science are reconciled: “The rapid growth of clubs and societies for the comparative study of religions and the investigation of spiritual truth is witness to your labour in the far West.” Or “…heartfelt congratulation on the great success which has attended your unselfish efforts in western lands, where it is the boast of the highest

intellects that, "Not an inch of ground once conquered by science has ever been reconquered by religion"- although indeed science has hardly ever claimed to

oppose true religion.” India rose as one to welcome Swami Vivekananda, the hearts of Indians throbbed to the same spiritual tune in spite of the dividing theories that vested interests are spinning in India since British period. Today, when the th 150 Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda is approaching, all 'the scattered spiritual forces whose heartbeat to the same spiritual tune' have to come together, so that this five-fold work of Swami Vivekananda can start in right earnest.

Let New India arise….. Let her arise –out of the peasants' cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman, the cobbler, and the sweeper. Let her spring from the grocer's shop, from beside the oven of the fritterseller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from the markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains.

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Swami Chinmayananda Maharaj

Hinduism Rediscovered.

S.Aravindh

Swami Chinmayananda Maharaj (8 May 1916 – 3 August 1993), was born as Balakrishna Menon in Kerala. His predestination for the societal rejuvenation through Vedanta was stirred by the revolutionary Vedantist Chattampi Swamigal. The great Swami blessed the child when he was still in cradle. And Chattampi Swami had been an outspoken advocate for the right of all sections of the society to study Vedas. Balan himself was a free thinker and grew up into an intelligent youth. Naturally he was drawn towards freedom struggle. In 1940, he joined Lucknow University and took up the study of English Literature and law. Inspired by the Quit India Movement of 1942, he soon found himself immersed in the country's freedom struggle for which he even spent time in prison. The need for self-expression combined with the zest of the freedom struggle saw Menon shifting to Delhi to join the nationalist paper, the National Herald, in 1945. That too would come to pass. He was attracted, as it were by the unknown hands of destiny or his ever burning inner

quest, towards spirituality. He met Swami Shivananda. Two years after India obtained independence, on the great night of Siva, Mahasivarathri, Swami Shivananda gave initiation to Balan on the banks of Ganga. Balan became Chinmayananda Saraswathi. Swami Chinmayananda nevertheless was in search of the ultimate gnosis enshrined in Vedanta. The opportunity came in the form of Swami Tapovanam to whom Swami Shivananda himself directed the young sanyasi burning with the thirst for Gyana. Swami Tapovanam was a very tough task master. He slept with stone for his pillow and nothing as his belonging except the entire existence. He accepted Swami Chinmayananda with a condition: he would not repeat anything twice and he would ask any question any time for which the disciple should be ready to answer. Under such tough conditions Swami Chinmayananda mastered the Vedanta. But he wanted to take these great Vedantic ideas to the masses, to the changing, modern India. From the tranquility of Himalayas like the Ganga of wisdom Swami Chinmayananda

Every body dies, nobody dies.

-Swami Chinmayananda

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came into the social environment of modern India. And the environment was one of change…rapid change. Nehruvian India was thinking of all old thoughts as museum pieces. Giant technologies, capitalism, consumerism and socialism – they all, a heady mixture of utopian western worldviews, filled the minds of people – particularly youths. Those who felt concerned about the masses or at least wanted to show themselves that way, mouthed like parrots the Marxist and Socialist formulae. On the other hand people who wanted wealth and profit cared nothing about welfare and morals and went for cut-throat competition and lavishness. Among such intelligentsia, Swami Chinmayananda stood – with the unenviable task of making them listen to the age old eternal wisdom which was relevant to the problems of modern age. He had to make them listen. His Vedantic Guru Swami Tapovanam was a realist and had commanded his disciple to know the real world first hand before plunging into his mission. So he advised him to travel across India for a year, penniless, and see the real India. After a year of travel, On December 23, 1951 at a Ganesha temple in Divune, this new young Swamiji gave his first talk. And its title? Let us see how the Swamiji started the talk: A Hindu swami to talk. A Hindu temple for the background. A crowded hall of Hindus audience, and the subject for discussion: “Let us be Hindus.” Strange! It sounds like a ridiculous paradox and a meaningless contradiction. I can very well see that you are surprised at the audacity of this sadhu. Yes, the title of that talk was ‘Let us be Hindus’. Swami started humorously but went on to thunder:

Tt has become a new fashion with the educated Hindu to turn up his nose and sneer in contempt at the very mention of his religion in any discussion. Personally I too belong in my sympathies to these critics of our religion. But when this thoughtless team begins to declare we would benefit ourselves socially and nationally by running away from our sacred religion, I pause to reconsider my own stand. He went on to deplore the condition into which we have fallen: No doubt, in India Hinduism has come to mean nothing more than bundle of sacred superstitions, or a certain way of dressing, cooking, eating, talking and so on. Our gods have fallen to the mortal level of administration officers at whose alters the faithful Hindu might pray and get special permits of the things he desires; that is, if he pays the required fee to the priest! And he spared no mercy in condemning the deplorable stage into which Hinduism had fallen: Certainly, is Hinduism can breed for us only heartless lalas [shopkeepers], corrupt babus [clerks], cowardly men, loveless masters, faithless servants; if Hinduism can give us only a state of social living in which each man is put against his brother; if Hinduism can give us only starvation, nakedness, and destitution; if Hinduism can encourage us only to plunder, to loot, and to steal; if Hinduism can preach to us only intolerance, fanaticism, hardheartedness, and cruelty; then I too cry, “Down, Down” with that Hinduism. But as he knew it first hand and from his own experience that was not the true Hinduism, for

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him. -Swami Chinmayananda

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he declared: The present day Hindu ignoramuses prove the tragic success of these religious saboteurs. With their guidance we overlook the fundamental tenets in sacred scriptures that are the very backbone of Hinduism. True Hinduism is the Sanatana Dharma [Eternal Truth] of the Upanishads. The Upanishads declare in unmistakable terms that in reality, man-at the peak of his achievement- is God himself. He is advised to live his day to day experiences in life in such a systematic and scientific way that, hour by hour, consciously cleansing himself of all the encrustation of imperfections that have gathered to conceal the beauty and divinity of the true eternal personality in him. The methods by which an individual can consciously purify and evolve by his selfeffort to regain the status of his True Nature are the content of Hinduism. Hinduism in its vast amphitheater has preserved and worshiped, under the camouflage of the heavy descriptions contained in the Puranas, shastras [scriptures], and their commentaries of thousand different interpretations. This overgrowth has so effectively come to conceal that real beauty and grandeur of the tiny Temple of Truth that today the collegeeducated illiterates, in their ignorance of the language and style of the ancient Sanskrit writers, miss the Temple amidst its own festoons! And he ended with a clarion call to the youth and educated of India: Let us know what Hinduism is! Let us take an honest oath for ourselves, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the entire world: That we shall, when once we are convinced of the validity of the Eternal Truth, try honestly

to live as consistently as possible the values advocated by this ancient and sacred religion. Let us be Hindus, and thus build up a true Hindustan [home of the Hindu] people with thousands of Shankara, hundreds of Buddhas, and dozens of Vivekanandas!

This talk by Swami Chinmayananda with malice towards none and goodwill and benediction towards all needs to be counted as among the trinity of the speeches that mark the advent of resurgent Hinduism – the other two being the Chicago address of Swami Vivekananda and the Uttarpara address of Sri Aurobindo. Swami Chinmayananda was also a great institution builder. He had a great charisma, a gift of divine oratory and matchless intelligence. Still he did not fall into the trap of creating a personality cult around himself but created institutions and organic processes to propagate Dharma. Thanks to his efforts Gita and Vedanta became part and parcel of the psyche of Hindu youths and educated. People started having pride and faith in their own culture and spirituality. His Gita Gyana Yagnas became very famous in each and every town of India. The ganges of Vedanta started flowing in our towns. His lectures were conducted in packed halls. From government clerks to corporate MDs attended his lectures and received the essence of Vedanta into their lives. He still lives through his thriving institutions that are taking the message of Vedanta in modern vocabulary to the youths, students and intellectuals. His mission can be summarized in his own words, which despite the lighter vein carry the most serious truth: "I do not want to convert others to Hinduism. I want to convert Hindus to Hinduism first." The blessings of Chattambi Swamigal have borne fruit.

Comfort comes as a guest; lingers to become the host,- and stays to enslave us. -Swami Chinmayananda

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Veer Savarkar:

the Historian extraordinary

revolutionary and later a politician of extraordinary foresight. How he viewed history and learnt lessons from the past to understand the present as well as prepare for the future is an interesting dimension of this great patriot. At a very early stage, Savarkar the historian understood that the way history is constructed, the very terms of narrative are loaded with their own politics and power. For the very survival of a nation, it has to reclaim its past. Savarkar wrote: The nation that has no consciousness of its past has no future. Equally true it is that a nation must develop its capacity not only of claiming a past, but also of knowing how to use it for the furtherance of its future So when British historians and their Indian followers repeatedly termed the 1857 uprising as a 'mutiny', Savarkar rightly contested that by calling it a revolution. Savarkar wrote: The history of the tremendous Revolution that was enacted in the year 1857 has never been written in this scientific spirit by an author, Indian or foreign. It is interesting to note that Savarkar uses the

f one looks at history, great social leaders have also a keen sense of history. In fact what view the leaders have of history shapes their own actions. An example is Jawaharlal Nehru, whose romantic view of Indian history, which also accepted the colonial history handed down by the British, also shaped his politics. Ultimately this idealistic worldview coupled with a leftoriented romantic view of international politics won Nehru personal accolades but ended in great disaster for the nation. If we look at Ambedkar, we find a much better original thinker. He questioned the Aryan race theory and foresaw its demise. He constructed his own view of the social history of the downtrodden masses of India that showed that they had a rightful claim to the glories of India's past magnificence and thus an equally rightful share in the future of the nation. Veer Savarkar was also a historian. In fact he was primarily a historian. He was a also a

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term 'scientific spirit' and not nationalistic or patriotic spirit. What Savarkar the historian wanted was history as it happened and not an eulogizing history. Only if the past is understood rationally and objectively then only can it be used for understanding the present and prepare us for the future. Otherwise one may live in the fool's paradise. But it should also be remembered that Savarkar was not a dry historian piling facts with no emotions. As a historian he was brutally objective and the objective historian in him fed the emotional revolutionary. The scientific research into 1857 convinced the patriot Savarkar that what happened in 1857 was indeed a national revolution. Armed with the facts of history Savarkar the patriotic gave this emotional call to his fellow country men, to carry on the unfinished tasks of the revolutionaries of 1857: : We take up your cry, we revere your flag, we are determined to continue that fiery mission of 'away with the foreigner', which you uttered, amidst the prophetic thunderings of the revolutionary war. Savarkar chose 1907 to release his book which was the fiftieth anniversary of the great uprising. Consequently the book was banned by the British and became a must read for all Indian revolutionaries such as Madame Cama, Lala Har Dayal, Bhagat Singh, and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. When Savarkar brought out the work, British intelligence could lay their hand on only one chapter of the book. Such was the efficiency of his secrecy! But what they found shocked them. A report about this first chapter from an official with Home Department of the Government of Bombay's Home Department states with visible alarm:

The [chapter] is only a small fragment of a book containing nearly 470 pages, each page redolent of the most inflammatory language with quotations from English authors describing most pathetic and pitiably tragic scenes and so forth. Not an idle arm chair historian he is. Savarkar the historian understood one bitter truth from the history of 1857. The Indians have been de-militarized. Unless that condition was reversed another uprising is almost impossible. So he waited. When the opportunity came in the form of the Second World War, he urged Indian youths to join the army. It was not just national independence that Savarkar envisaged. He also saw military recruitment an opportunity for caste-ridden Hindu society to remove the ills of caste divisions. So he actively supported Dr.Ambedkar's call for Mahar youths to join the British army. Dhananjay Keer the official biographer of Dr.Ambedkar points out: Savarkar, who wished the Hindus to be reborn into a martial race, expressed his hope that under the able guidance of Ambedkar the Mahar brethren would be reanimated with the military qualities and their military uplift would contribute to the consolidation of Hindus. This move later helped Netaji Subash Chandra Bose in his organizing of INA. In fact Netaji openly acknowledged in his Azad Hind Radio broadcast (June 25, 1944), this vision and role of Savarkar: When due to misguided political whims and lack of vision, almost all the leaders of Congress party have been decrying all the soldiers in

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Indian Army as mercenaries, it is heartening to know that Veer Savarkar is fearlessly exhorting the youths of India to enlist in armed forces. These enlisted youths themselves provide us with trained men and soldiers for our Indian National Army. Perhaps the magnum opus as a historian is his 'Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History'. Any history text book of India that a student studies today shows India as being repeatedly overrun by invading foreigners. This is only natural because such a historical narrative helped British to inculcate in the minds of Indians the idea that they are a society born to be slaves of another foreign power or culture. The success of this approach is that even today we perceive ourselves as slaves of the mind and culture in front of the West. On the other hand Savarkar concentrated on the various freedom struggles and peoples' movements against the foreign invasions. He chronicled how Indian resistance to foreign invasions and imposition of foreign ways of life on Indian people happened. The six epochs present Indian history as a long epic narrative of Indians facing the onslaughts of the enemies, sometimes being overcome, but how they formed resistance and overthrew the enemies or assimilated them or made them subservient to Indic might. Savarkar the social historian was not given to fantasies of casteism and social stagnation. Rather he understood the social dynamics and presented the fact that only a society that regards the talent and not birth based ritualism as its civilizational ethos can successfully face and conquer the aggressive enemies. He decried the fabrication of fashionable genealogies constructed for great achievers. For example he derisively criticizes those who want to give Chandra Gupta Maurya a Kshatriya lineage: Was Chandragupta a social outcaste? Was he not a

Kshatriya? What matters though! Chandragupta could have said with justifiable pride, “More than any of you, nominal caste-born Kshatriyas, who bowed your heads to the Mlechhas, the Greek emperor and his commanders, I, a 'peerless' Chandragupta, have a greater claim to being a Kshatriya in as much as with my sword I have completely vanquished those very Mlenchhas in every battlefield.” With the same haughty affront of Kama, he could have flung in the face of those railing enemies the following words : “Whether a charioter or a charioter's son. or whoever (else) I may be, (that is of no consequence !) Birth in a (noble) family depends on fate; but manliness depends on me I” (Bhatta Narayan, Act III, 37 91). The son of Mura is a Maurya! That is precisely why Chandragupta is called a Maurya. Proud of his maternal extraction Chandrgupta designated his royal family as Maurya and immortalized the name of his mother, Muradevi in Indian h i s t o r y. T h e M a u r y a emperors accepted the same Moriya caste too, (one which traded in peacocks) that belonged to his mother. His another great work was 'Hindu Pad Padashahi'. The book described the Maratha struggle to re-establish the Hindu Empire in India. This was written in 1925. The book was written when Savarkar was still a political prisoner. Savarkar had no luxury of getting references from books and libraries. Yet when the book came the whole thesis could be

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substantiated from varied research works and well known authorities. Great Indian nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai exclaimed about the book thus: It is full of facts congested in a small space arranged with skill and made to speak with tongues of fore and love. In my opinion every Indian politician ought to read it. A question arises as to whether such a historiography would lead to furthering of the bitterness between Hindu and Muslim communities. Savarkar in his foreword to 'Hindu Pad Padashahi' answers this question both as a historian and as a humanistic nationalist. We ought to read history not with a view to finding out the best excuse to perpetuate the old strife and stress, bickerings and bloodsheds, whether in the name of our blessed motherland or of our Lord God, that divided man from man and race from race, but precisely for the contrary reason… …far from standing in the way of any real and honourable unity between our Hindus and our Muslim countrymen, it makes a frank and lasting union far more feasible than it would have otherwise have been and deserves therefore to be especially recommended to the attention of all Indian patriots, Muslims as well as Hindus. It cannot fail to act as a sedative on blustering snobbery on the one hand and as a stimulant to mopping self-diffidence on the other. In fact in this book Savarkar explains in great

detail how the Maratta navy defeated the European forces and how complacency brought the curtains on the last Hindu empire. His knowledge made him ask Hindu youths to join the Indian army in large numbers. For example in his call given on 24-3-1942 he asked the Hindu youths to join the army in large numbers, particularly the navy in Konkan area. He reasoned: Ever since I was in Ratnagiri the District Hindusabha there along with some of my distinguished Bhandari friends in Konkan have been demanding entry into the Navy for the Konkan Hindus. Now that the Government have thrown open, under pressure of circumstances, the services in the navy to the Hindus we shall be only harming our own interests if we lose this long expected chance to revive the naval military spirit in our people in Konkan…. It is these Hindus like the Dhandaris, Kharvis and others who once rendered the Maratha Navy a terror over the Portuguese and the English and had inflicted several crushing defeats in naval engagements on them as for example when in a seafight the well-known English war-ship 'Revenge” was captured by the Marathas. The children of Konkan, as it is said regarding the children of Britain, begin to play with the waves as soon as they begin to play with toys and have an inborn aptitude to make the best fighting material for the sea forces of our nation. Unfortunately these naval instincts were deliberately suppressed till today by the

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British Government…. Remember again that the proportion of Hindus in the military, naval and aerial forces today is already dangerously low. If even now the Hindus, through folly or fear fail to enter these forces, others, unconcerned with Hindu interests and in cases even ready to endanger them will rush in and we Hindus shall find ourselves in a worse plight and weaker by far even than what we are today.”

One can see here the genius of Savarkar the historian, able to relate history of the past with the present and intuit the future with its possibilities and dangers. History has witnessed this genius of Savarkar when during partition, thanks to the advice of Savarkar Indian army was dominated by Hindus and Sikhs. Had the romanticism of pacifism prevented Indian youths from joining the army in early 1940s, the whole of Kashmir, large chunks of Punjab, Bengal and Assam would have become part of Pakistan, not to speak of the humiliating ethnic cleansing that would have taken place in these provinces. Thus we owe our lives to Savarkar the historian than we really undestand.

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Professor K.N. VASWANI, (1911-2002)

aswani Khushiram Nebhraj, Educationist; Editor, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi; author of over 30 Publications; Gandhian Social Worker; VicePresident of Vivekananda Kendra - An All India Service Mission; Founder-President, Sindhu Samaj – Delhi, & Director, Gandhi Society, Delhi, was born in Hyderabad Sind (now in Pakistan) on 19th May, 1911 as the eldest child among ten, of a well-to-do family in the educated and enlightened Amil Community. Educated at Government High School and Dayaram Gidumal National College, Hyderabad Sind and at D.J. Sind College and Law college, Karachi and at Government Law College and University School of Economics and Sociology, Bombay, Shri K.N. Vaswani had a brilliant academic career - First Rank in the Bombay University in M.A. English and Constitutional History and First Class marks in Politics and Economics (1934), Honours in Economics and First Rank in B.A. (1932), and Fellowship in the National College, and was due for his I.C.S. Examination, when thanks to his activities as a student leader, he was telegraphically prevented from sitting for it by the Government of Bombay. Among the influences which moulded Shri K.N. Vaswani at school was that of GodLoving Litterateur, Sufi poet and Theosophist, Lilaram Premchand who was the Headmaster, and who loved Vaswani as his son, strengthened his idealism, which was brought to full bloom by the benign influence of the

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savant and sage Sadhu Vaswani, under whose spell Vaswani fell as a college student from 1928-29 onwards. Sadhu Vaswani, it was, who inspired and guided and moulded him, blessed him to blossom into a Brahmachari, Simple, pure and strong, firmly holding to his ideals, and under his inspiring influence it was that he grew into a positive thinker, a fine speaker, a gifted writer, and a devoted social worker, an educationist, author and editor of social service journals. Despite his Law Degree from Bombay University (1936) Vaswani did not join his father in the lucrative lawyer's profession, but preferred to become a Professor at the D.G. National College (1937-46) to continue his work among students. He was a Professor in Sind for 14 years (1934-48), first 3 years (193437) at Women's College, Hyderabad Sind, which owed its inspiration to Dr. Karve of Women's University fame and for the last 2 years (1946-48) at the Government College of Agriculture, Sakrand, Sind, as Professor and Head of Agricultural Economics Department. While Serving as Professor at the National College (1937-46), he continued as the Honorary Professor at Women's College and St. Mira College for Girls started by Sadhu

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Vaswani in 1939 in Hyderabad Sind and was the first Principal of St. Mira College for Girls, Pune, founded by Sadhu Vaswani in 1962. Prof. Vaswani founded Tagore Art Circle in Hyderabad (Sind) in 1941 and translated and published Tagore's Poems in Sindhi. A prolific writer, he issued in Sind 16 publications: on History (2), Politics (2), Economics (7) and Literature (4). One book was in Sindhi. After Partition, Vaswani left Sind, and on 26th January, 1948, joined as a Senior Marketing Research Officer, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. He requested for being posted in a College, but finding no response, he left after 7 years, in January, 1955, to become editor, English Monthly, “Bharat Sevak”, organ of All India Bharat Sevak Samaj, whose President was Jawaharlal Nehru. As Founder–President, Sindhu Samaj, Delhi (1956-57), Vaswani organized the Movement for Recognition of Sindhi by the Sahitya Academy and in the Constitution of India. He, organized the First All India Sindhi Conference in Delhi where Dr.Radhakrishnan assured the Sindhis of his support for recognition of Sindhi in the constitution. Prof. K.N.Vaswani also founded in Delhi a periodical “Sindhu Samaj”, to be the mouthpiece of the Sindhi people in India and inaugurated it with a powerful poem “We, The Sindhi People”, ”A Plea for the Recognition of Sindhi Language in the Constitution and 'Sindhiyat'” a stirring essay in Sindhi in 1958, to mobilize the Sindhi people for this purpose. He also instituted Sadhu Vaswani Prizes for services to Sindhi Literature, Culture and People, its first recipient being Tirath Basant, the Sindhi Litterateur, and its second recipient in 1959, being Hundraj 'Dukhayal', poet singer of the Sarvodaya Movement. At the suggestion of Shri Jairamdas Doulatram, the Chief Editor, he became Editor, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, for 14 years (1957-71), working with Professor K. Swaminathan, who became the Chief Editor

after Shri Jairamdas. He had published in 1969 and dedicated to Gandhi, Tagore and Sadhu Vaswani,, a book “Pushpanjali”, Flower offerings of Collections from his Sindhi writings, in three parts – 'Gandhi', - Message of the Mahatma, -'Tagore Darshan'- 'Vision of Tagore', and 'Sindhiyat Jo Sud', 'The Call of Sindhi Culture'. Retiring as Editor of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi in 1971, at the age of 60, he gladly went to Kanyakumari at the invitation o f S h r i E k n a t h R a n a d e , P re s i d e n t , Vi v e k a n a n d a R o c k M e m o r i a l a n d Vivekananda Kendra, and thus closely associated with them as Vice-President, Vivekananda Kendra, then onwards. He was the Editor of 'Yuva Bharati', Vivekananda Kendra's English Monthly Journal from (197375).He continued till his demise in 2002 as Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari. As a mark of our respect to the great soul, Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari has decided to erect a Commemoration hall on the occasion of the Centenary and dedicate the same to the Youth of India. The building will be named as “Prof. K.N. Vaswani Centenary Memorial hall”. The hall will be used for the multi-purpose training of dedicated young men and women who are ready to work for the upliftment of our society and nation as envisaged by Swami Vivekananda. The proposed building project is estimated to cost Rupees Two Crores only. We hereby appeal to all the friends, well wishers to donate liberally for this noble cause and perpetuate the memory of a great soul – Prof. K.N. Vaswani. All donations to Vivekananda Kendra are exempted perpetually under section 80G of the Income Tax Act.

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Our Heroes

RASH BEHARI BOSE : A KARMA YOGI AND NOT A REVOLUTIONARY

Prof. P. Ramani

'Action rightly performed brings Freedom'. Our divine mother, Bharath has given birth to a number of holy sons and daughters from time to time so that the human race may benefit and survive from the onslaughts of mercenaries, disgruntled elements, religious bigotry and hatred, racial discrimination, political hegemony and organized goondaism. The very fact that Bharath Mata and her children survived several brutal invasions, lootings and killings of varied kind from the period of the Mughals to the more recent period of the Europeans including the British stand a strong testimony to the strengths and beliefs of the great Indian mind. Traditionally, as Indians, we have always believed that enlightenment can be a reality if we followed any of the two distinctive paths. The people who are contemplative can achieve this through the path of knowledge (Gnana Yoga). The people who are active can attain enlightenment through the path of selfless action (Karma Yoga). Sri Krishna warns us that freedom from activity is never achieved by abstaining from action. Nobody can become perfect by merely ceasing to act. In fact, nobody can ever rest from his/her activity even for a moment. All are helplessly forced to act by the gunas. A man who renounces certain physical actions still lets his mind dwell on the objects of his sensual desire. In fact he is deceiving himself. He can only be called a hypocrite. The truly admirable man controls his senses by the power of his will. All his

Rash Behari Bose

actions result out of a disinterested innate nature of the self. All are directed along the path to union with Brahman. Activity is better than inertia. Act, with selfcontrol. If you are lazy, you cannot sustain your own body. The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God, the Almighty. Therefore, you must perform every action sacramentally, and be free from all attachments to results. There have been great sons and daughters of India who always believed in action (Karma Yoga) without ever worrying about the results. One of the finest examples to testify this belief can be seen through the selfless dedication of all the freedom fighters who fought tooth and nail the invaders of our motherland, whether it was Purushothama, who fought against Alexander, or Prithiviraj Chauhan who fought

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against the invading Muslims or a host of freedom fighters such as Lala Lajpat Roy, L o k a m a n y a B a l a g a n g a d a r Ti l a k , Gopalakrishna Gokhale, Veer Savarkar, Madan Lal Dhingra, Kadirram Bose, Madan Mohan Malavia, Abul Kalam Azad, Marudhu Brothers, Velu Nachiyar, Veerapandia K a t t a b o m m a n , Va n c h i n a t h a n , V.O.Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Bharati, Siva, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose or anyone for that matter, all have been Karma Yogis in their own path. The month of May reminds us of one such great son of India, namely, Rash Behari Bose, who was born on May 25, 1886. Rash Behari Bose, even as a young student was inspired by the great poet and thinker, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya through his thoughtprovoking novel 'Ananda Math (Abbey of Bliss). The very fact that millions of our people got inspired by his immortal verse 'Vande Mataram' is very well-known. He was also inspired by Navin Sen's collection of patriotic poems. He had already heard the speeches of Surendranath Banerjee, full of patriotic zeal and fervour. No doubt, Swami Vivekananda stood tall in inspiring Rash Behari Bose. His teacher, Charu Chand made Bose a strong man and helped him in taking strong and bold decisions. Though everyone believed that Rash Behari Bose a revolutionary, I don't think we should consider him a revolutionary. He was very much a normal Indian patriot. But his patriotic fervour does not find any parallel in the annals of Indian history. He could think generously and positively of the greatness of India and was quite unafraid of the British rulers. He was not an average human being satisfied with routine jobs. After shifting his jobs from Fort William to Shimla, Kasauli and Dehra Dun, he could not feel himself

comfortable. The partition of Golden Bengal in 1905 made Bose take a final decision in his career. Rash Behari Bose joined Jatin Banerjee, an eminent leader with patriotic fervour. He made Benares his headquarters. They planned to instil the patriotic fervour among the soldiers and probably instigate them into a rebellion against the British rulers. They established contacts with the soldiers from Dinapore to Jalandhar Cantonment. They planned to attack the British soldiers on the night of February 21, 1915, according to an original plan. They also planned to cut the telegraph-wires, loot the treasury and release the prisoners simultaneously. Unfortunately, a spy Kirpal Singh communicated this to the British police. Our freedom fighters were quick to advance their activity to February 19. Unfortunately, the spy succeeded in passing on this message to the enemy. The British swooped and arrested the suspects. Bose made his great escape. Rash Behari Bose was part of the planned attempt on the life of the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge. On December 23, 1912, Lord Hardinge was to enter Delhi in a procession. At 11.45 a.m. the procession reached Chandini Chowk when a bomb ripped through the procession. The Viceroy had escaped. However, the man next to him was killed and 20 others were injured. Master Amir Chand Avadh Behari and Bal Mukund were arrested and hanged in Delhi Jail. Basanta Biswas, who threw the bomb disguised as a lady was hanged in Ambala Jail. Rash Behari Bose escaped. Meanwhile, Bose came in contact with the Ghadar party established in 1913 in USA by expatriate Indians and patriots like Sachin Sanyal, Pingley and Satyen Sen. Sachin Sanyal

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formed the Hindustan Republican Association. Sanyal was arrested and was transported for life under the Benares conspiracy case. Pingley was arrested and executed. Rash Behari Bose went to Benares and stayed with Swami Vidyanand of Sandhya in a math. Rash Behari Bose left India on May 12, 1915. He reached Singapore on May 22 and Tokyo in June. Between 1915 and 1918, he would have shifted his residence at least 17 times. Japan was an ally of the British in the first world war and sought Rash Behari Bose's extradition. But he married Tosiko, daughter of the Soma family who were sympathetic to Bose's efforts and he became a citizen of Japan.

Rash Behari Bose wrote books and articles explaining the need for India's independence. He took efforts to organise a conference from March 28 to 30, 1942 to discuss the political issues. A second conference was organised in Bangkok from June 15 to 23. Rash Behari Bose hoisted the Indian tricolor and inaugurated Indian Independence League. He also handed over the Indian tricolor to Subash Chandra Bose. Rash Behari Bose shot into fame during the World War II. Bose, Capt. Mohan Singh and Sardar Pritam Singh formed Indian National Army (I.N.A) on September 1 1942. Rash Behari Bose was elected President. He handed over charge to Subhash Chandra Bose in 1943. The Japanese Government honoured him with the Order of the Rising Sun. Don't we adore Rash Behari Bose as a Karma Yogi rather than call him a revolutionary?

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The Bait and the Cross All national leaders opposed conversions

Anirban Ganguly

iscussing essential Hindu religious experiences in his thesis on India and her people, the redoubtable Swami Abhedananda made a striking observation. For Hindus he wrote, 'Both Krishna and Rama are manifestations of the same Vishnu, the Lord of the universe. This is a difficult thing for Western minds to grasp, and for that reason they think the Hindus polytheists. But they are not polytheists. They worship One God under different names and forms. Sri Rama was the incarnation of Vishnu, and so was Sri Krishna. In their spiritual essence they are one and the same, but in their manifestations they are different'. (Swami Abhedananda, India and Her People, Vedanta Society, New York, 1906, pp. 59-60). This defining essence of the core Indian religious experience has been negated by Christian missionaries in India and has been one of the principal sources of discord and disharmony in the country. Swami

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Abhedananda exposed the missionaries' skewed approach to this essential truth thus, “The Christian missionaries….not understanding the Hindu form of worship, have misrepresented these statues (of worship) and called them idols. Here let me assure you (his audience in the West especially Christian groups) that there is no such thing as idol-worship, in your sense of the term, in any part of India, not even among the most illiterate classes. I have seen more idolatry in Italy than in India. The Italian peasants even beat the Bambino (image of infant Jesus) when their prayers are not answered, but in India you will not find such spiritual darkness anywhere. There (India) the people worship the ideal, not the idol.” (Ibid..p. 60). Swami Abhedananda's analysis of education in India then (1900-1906) and its use by Christian missions to further their agendas of conversion and disruption has a rather

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contemporary ring to the whole affair. Talking of the missionary efforts of educating Indian girls in the absence of any Government effort towards it, he castigated both, their approach and method. He said, “The missionaries (are) trying their best to educate native girls in the tenets of Christianity, denouncing the religion of their forefathers and condemning everything of Hindu origin or which had to do with Hindu society and religion.” They did this with the boys as well. This he saw as one of the greatest drawback in the missionary method of education. “They condemn everything that is outside of their religion, their standards and their ideals. They are too narrow to see good in any but their creed and

doctrines and dogmas, and they are forced to leave the community of their parents and relatives and become converts to Christianity”. (Ibid. p. 201). On his return from the West in June 1906, after ten years of imparting the Vedanta there, Swami Abhedananda landed in Colombo and received, like his leonine spiritual-comrade before him, a rousing welcome. Addressing the Hindus of Colombo at a reception given in his honour, he made a telling point on the Christian religion, a truth that is actually gaining greater credence today in the West. “We must not believe the foreigners (though there are now in India equally well trained and equipped indigenous foot soldiers for carrying out proselytizing projects) who do not understand our philosophy and the Vedas when they say 'You will go to eternal hell if you do not believe in this.' In (the West) thinking people no longer believe in eternal punishment or hell. The intelligent classes do not go to church because the churches preach eternal hell-fire doctrine. They are now in doubt and that doubt can never be removed except by philosophy and the teachings of Vedanta.” (Abhedananda in India—in 1906, Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, Kolkata, 1968, p. 24). Interestingly a few years back the Pope Benedict XVI, is reported to have lamented the weakening of churches in Europe, Australia and the USA. “There's no longer evidence for a need of God, even less of Christ,” he told a congregation of Italian priests. “The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying.” Penning the report, Noelle Knox of the USA Today, wrote that, though many Europeans say they consider themselves Christians, far fewer actually attend services. One need only see the overwhelming number of gray-haired heads in church pews to know attendance will keep falling if something doesn't change dramatically… the Pope and other leaders of traditional churches admit that their struggle for souls in Western Europe is their greatest challenge…” (Noelle Knox, 'Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe,' USA Today,

Swami Abhedananda

dogmas. They do not consider the Hindu religion as a religion or the Hindu Saviours as Saviours; but they think that the Hindus are all going to eternal perdition… The poor Hindu boys and girls come to study and learn something, but instead of receiving the blessing of true education, their minds are filled with superstitious and unscientific

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August 10, 2005, cited in Expressions of Christianity, with a focus on India, Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan Trust, Chennai, 2007, p.584). To arrest the decay, countries with large youth populations, especially of the 'third-world' are thus increasingly targeted. The result of this heightened targeting is that the 'third-world' has begun increasingly supplying the clergyevangelist army. Catholic churches, especially in Europe 'rely on priests from the Philippines and India.' And while church attendance has sunk to 'single-digits in Western Europe' pushing Europe as a whole towards becoming perhaps a 'post-Christian society' and North America is a 'moderately observant' nation Asia, Africa and Latin America remain 'passionately devout.' (John O'Sullivan, 'Saving Our Religions: What may keep us praying', in National Review Online, July 25, 2002, cited in Expressions of Christianity, op.cit, pp. 574-575). It is to retain these geographical landmasses within the fold of this devoutness that Christian missionaries keep themselves active and organized and the instrument of conversion keeps being re-invented and restructured for effective usage. Swami Abhedananda made the observations on the workings of Christian missionaries in India long before any—to use a favourite term of the media and left—intellectuals, activists, 'Right-wing Hindu' groups were even conceived of or organized. He did not form part of any political-ideological group, as an itinerant scholar-monk and a nation-builder in the realm of the spirit, he forcefully, cogently and unequivocally described what he witnessed around him in the country. Swami Abhedananda and his group were, in a sense, far more global than those who at every occasion today seek to represent 'mankind.' Being universalists they were yet firmly rooted and committed to the soil of India, and to the vision of her future when she would finally truly express and assert her civilisational identity and disseminate her civilisational message. Had he uttered these words today, Swami Abhedananda would have perhaps

been hauled to court, or be accused of human rights violation, or of violating rights guaranteed by the Constitution or would simply be railed at for disturbing communal peace and engineering religious disturbances! But, as I had argued earlier, in the long run historical truths can never really be silenced and rarely expunged. Our true nation-builders never cared to be politically correct, especially when it came to the destructive habit of proselytizing and converting. In a lecture delivered at Detroit, USA, on 21 s t February, 1894, Swami

Ananda Coomaraswamy

Vivekananda, displayed that carelessness for politically-correct terminologies when he told the audience, 'You train and educate and clothe and pay men to do what? To come over to my country to curse and abuse all my forefathers, my religion, and everything. They walk near a temple and say, “You idolater, you will go to hell.” But they dare not do that to the Mohammedans of India; the sword would be out. But the Hindu is too mild; he smiles and passes on, and says, “Let the fools talk.” (Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works, Vol.8, Advaita Ashrama, 15th imp, 2008, pp. 211-212).

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As another of our nation-builder in the realm of art and culture, an early proponent of the concept of cultural-nationalism, Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) warned—without caring to be politicallycorrect—a century ago on the subversive missionary activities and the Hindu's proverbial tolerance of it, '…all that money, social influence, educational bribery and misrepresentation (of and by missionaries) can effect, is treated as legitimate…but even Hindu tolerance may some day be overstrained. If it be intolerance to force one's way into the house of another, it by no means necessarily follows that it would be intolerance on the owner's part to drive out the intruder.' (Ananda Coomaraswamy, Essasays in National Idealism (1909), Munshiram Manoharlal, 1st Indian ed., Delhi, 1981, p.131). Coomaraswamy has been recognized as and remains for all times a true Universalist but his words today would have created a hue and cry and if empanelled even he would have been perhaps denied an honorary doctorate/award by some ignorant political minion holding a

so-called august constitutional post! Courtesy : Organiser ******* An early proponent of the concept of cultural-nationalism, Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) warned-without caring to be politically-correct—a century ago on the subversive missionary activities and the Hindu's proverbial tolerance of it, '…all that money, social influence, educational bribery and misrepresentation (of and by missionaries) can effect, is treated as legitimate…but even Hindu tolerance may some day be overstrained. Swami Abhedananda and his group were, in a sense, far more global than those who at every occasion today seek to represent 'mankind.' Being universalists they were yet firmly rooted and committed to the soil of India, and to the vision of her future when she would finally truly express and assert her civilisational identity and disseminate her civilisational message.

Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force and competition its ceremonies, and the human soul its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be.

India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and love, the garb of the Sannyasin; not by the power of wealth, but by the power of the begging-bowl…..

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PROSPEROUS INDIA 12

Family orientation leads to higher savings and safer investments

Prof.P.Kanagasabapathi ndian life emphasizes restraint on consumption. From a very young age, Indians are inculcated with the habit of spending less and saving more. Overconsumption, excessive usage and wastage are treated as sins to be avoided. Indian tradition teaches her citizens to be very careful with regard to the usage of resources. Hence there is a natural tendency to conserve resources. Sacrifice for the near and dear ones and surrender of personal interests to that of the family is considered the foremost duty of the householders. As a result, it is normal to see parents foregoing their own comforts for the sake of their children. Every father and mother feels that it is his or her duty to save as much

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money as possible in order to give a better environment and education to their offsprings. Entrepreneurial ventures are initiated with the hope of leaving profitable enterprises to the succeeding generations. Cutting down expenditures to a bare minimum and saving the maximum amount of money for the betterment of families remain the mantra of Indians. As a result, the savings of the country has been continuously increasing over the years. The total amount of gross domestic savings was Rs.871 crores during 1950-51. It reached Rs.18,11,585 crores during 2009-10. The official saving rate that stood at 8.6 per cent of GDP in 1950-51 has reached 33.7 per cent during 2009-10. Table 1 below presents the growth in gross domestic saving rate from 1950-51 to 2009-10.

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Source: Economic Survey 2010-11 The table shows a continuous increase in the rate of saving in the country during the past sixty years. It is important to note that the household sector has been contributing the maximum share in the total saving. It means the ordinary people of our country have been

the official and other avenues. The details and figures are published by the governments for official savings. But such details and figures are not fully available for the other avenues of savings, including the indigenous methods. Hence the official rates of saving do not cover different types of savings that are in vogue. Even investment in gold, which is a highly popular mode of savings across the country, is not taken in the list of official savings. But even when we take the official rate of saving, it remains high. India has one of the highest rates of saving in the world. When compared with the saving rates of the richer countries of the world, the rates of saving in India are many times higher. It is relevant to note here that in the recent past, the saving rates of the developed countries such as the US and the UK went below zero per cent in some of the years. Indians prefer to invest in safer avenues as compared to the riskier ones. Bank deposits remain the most popular type of official saving in the country. Table 2 provides the percentage shares of different financial assets of the household sector between 2006-07 and 200809.

engaged in saving higher amounts of their earnings. The share of the household sector in the gross domestic saving was 70 per cent during 2009-10. The private corporate sector and the government sector have contributed the balance of 30 per cent. Indians make savings in a variety of avenues. It is difficult to list all of them here as there are many indigenous avenues preferred by people in different localities. Some of them may not even be known to the third parties. For the sake of convenience, all of them may be classified as

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P: Provisional #: Preliminary estimates Source: Annual Report 2008-09, Reserve Bank of India.

Table 2 shows the preference of the Indian public towards bank deposits, insurance funds and provident and pension funds. While investments under the category of bank deposits have been increasing over the years, c l a i m s o n government which used to attract a higher proportion of funds during the earlier periods have been declining in the recent years. The table shows the overall preference of the public towards secured investments. The proportion of funds invested in shares and debentures showed an increase during 2006-07 and 2007-08, from the lower rates during the earlier periods, only to decline again in the following year. Investments in shares and debentures of companies are not in the high priority list of the Indian public, though the stock markets have become popular in recent years among certain sections of the society. The total deposits in all the scheduled banks stood at Rs.1,99,643 crores during 1990-91. The deposits increased over the years reaching Rs.52,28,920 crores in February 2011. The per capita bank deposits have increased from

Rs.15,357 to Rs.20,146 thereby registering a growth of more than 31 per cent during 200506 to 2008-09. One has to keep in mind that the world witnessed the global economic crisis during the above period, with its ripple effects giving troubles to the Indian economy. The western countries faced severe financial crisis resulting in the collapse of many banking companies, particularly in the US. But at the same time the per capita deposits have risen in India to higher levels. Three different studies conducted by Kanagasabapathi among different sections of people belonging to the educated and professional/ business groups in the industrial city of Coimbatore reveal that people prefer investing their savings in safe and secured avenues such as the bank deposits, jewellery, house and insurance schemes. The reason mentioned for making such investments was the family orientation. The study showed that most of the respondents including the finance professors who teach stock market theories to the students do not like to invest insecurities as they are complicated and risky. References Economic Survey 2010-11, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, New Delhi. RBI Monthly Bulletin, April 2011, Mumbai. Annual Report 2008-09, Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai. P.Kanagasabapathi, ' Does family culture drive investments in bank deposits?', The Journal of Indian Management and Strategy, [Volume 15, No.3, Jagannath International Management School, New Delhi.]

The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be. MARIANNE E. NEIFERT

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Sister Nivedita: Who Gave Her All to India - 8

Towards India

ister Nivedita had a touchingly candid style when talking of herself especially her inner tribulations and spiritual movements. Her letters, unfortunately now out of print and mostly unavailable, are an ample proof of this aspect of her personality. An interesting letter she wrote to a friend from Calcutta in 1904 gives a poignant insight into how the transformation of Margaret Noble into 'Nivedita' manifested itself and what the Master's presence, his breezing in into her life really meant for her. She wrote, 'Always I had this burning voice within, but nothing to utter. How often and often I have sat down pen in hand to speak, and there was no speech! And now there is no end to it! As surely as I am fitted to my world, so surely is my world in need of me, waiting-ready. The arrow has found its place in the bow. But if he had not come! If he had meditated on the Himalayan peaks! …I, for one, had never been here…' 1 This acknowledging of one's debt to the Master – the rishi rin – was to be a constant leitmotif in her life. Her Master, the one who had worked most to fit the fiery arrow, did however express at times that attraction for the Himalayan peaks! Writing to her from Almora on 3rd June 1897, the Swami was in a deeply withdrawn state, 'I was born for the life of a scholar – retired, quiet, poring over my books. But the Mother dispenses otherwise – yet the tendency Anirban Ganguly

S

is there…' he concluded the short letter p ro m i s i n g M a rg a re t t h a t h e w o u l d nevertheless return to the plains to work once the 'rains set in.’2 The Master closely monitored and supported her efforts on the Vedanta front in London. The newly formed group in India needed to have wide support and understanding and Margaret put in great energies in developing

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and sustaining that support among her Master's western adherents. On 23rd June, in an active state of being, he wrote to her of the nature of the work she would have to do and the conditions in which she would have to undertake it. The letter also clearly displayed the trust that the Master had developed in his chosen instrument. 'Let me tell you plainly', the Master wrote, 'Every word you write I value, and every letter is welcome a hundred times. Write whenever you have a mind, and opportunity, and whatever you like, knowing that nothing will be misinterpreted, nothing unappreciated. I have not had any news of the work for so long. Can you tell me anything? ...A number of boys are already in training, but the recent earthquake [the massive Assam earthquake of 1897] has destroyed the poor shelter we had to work in, which was only rented, anyway. Never mind. The work must be done without shelter, and under difficulties. …As yet, it is shaven heads, rags and casual meals. This must change, however, and will, for are we not working for it, head and heart?’3 When it came to India the Swami, however, insisted that all his western disciples develop a different attitude and approach towards her, they would have to accept her in her entirety. He made it clear that he would not tolerate any criticism of her and demanded of Sister Nivedita and Josephine Macleod that they must come to India only if they were ready to unconditionally accept all her poverty, illiteracy and degradation.4 Sister herself had indicated this. It did not mean that they were to turn a blind eye to all the deprivation around but were to instead approach India and her proud people with the attitude of the true seekers and servitors who come forward in an attitude of true surrender and self-giving. Throughout this period i.e. 1897 the Swami kept encouraging Sister in her works in

London, though he did not as yet show any indication that he intended her to come to India, 'You can do more work for us from England than by coming here. Lord bless you for your great self-sacrifice for the poor Indians', he wrote to her. 5 He kept praising her efforts in London and reposed his constant faith in her approach and direction of the work, 'you may take for granted', he wrote to her once, 'my agreement with everything you will do in the future. I have entire faith in your ability and sympathy. I already owe you an immense debt and you are laying me everyday under infinite obligations. My only consolation is that it is for the good of others…’6 Margaret, on her part, awaited the call as never before and there was a developing sense of disappointment in her at her not being summoned to her destined land. At last, after an intense and final phase of waiting – the 'stand by you unto death' call did finally come. Enumerating the various excruciating difficulties that she would face in the work in her chosen land, the Swami gave her his unstinted, unconditional, unreserved divine support. Once this was settled, the Swami made a profound observation in a letter dated 1st October, 1897 written from Srinagar, it was a description of his own leadership of the whole new movement that was growing. “It is absolutely necessary to the work that I should have the enthusiastic love of as many as possible, while I myself remain entirely impersonal. Otherwise jealousy and quarrels would break up everything. A leader must be impersonal…I do not mean that one should be a brute, making use of the devotion of others for his own ends, and laughing in his sleeve meanwhile. What I mean is what I am, intensely personal in my love, but having the power to pluck out my own heart with my own hand, if it becomes necessary “for the

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good of many, for the welfare of many”, as Buddha said. Madness of love, and yet in it no bondage…' 7 ‘The way was open for Margaret to come to India. She could come when she would.’8 It was on a November evening in 1896 that the Master had told her, 'Yes, in India…that is where you belong. But only when you are ready…’9 That moment had finally come for Margaret. She asked for her mother's permission and received it. 'It was extraordinary for an orthodox Christian lady to readily allow her daughter to go to a strange land and cast her lot with a strange people,’10 she gave her consent because she remembered her dedicating her child to God, 'if it be Thy will, I dedicate my child to Thee' was the vow she had made years ago.11 Margaret coming to know of this, much later, must have 'marvelled to think that the course of life she came to take was as it were preordained even before her birth.’12 It was a cold rainy day when she left, everyone was waiting on the quay until the ship disappeared into the fog – Margaret stood on the deck, 'her face crowned with her golden hair. She was strangely beautiful and serene' already her eyes were 'seeking the far-off light toward which she moved.' In her hand was her Master's letter promising to stand by her unto death.

1.Lizelle Raymond, The Dedicated – a Biography of Nivedita, (New York: The John Day Company, 1953), P. 39. 2.Letters of Swami Vivekananda (1940), (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 6th imp, 2007), p. 341. 3.Pravrajika Atmaprana, Sister Nivedita of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, (Kolkata: Sister Nivedita Girl's School, 6th ed., 2007), p.26. 4.Sankari Prasad Basu, Nivedita Lokmata, Vol.1, (Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 5th ed. 1411, Beng. era), p. 81. 5.Letters, op. cit., p.358. 6.Sister Nivedita, op.cit., p.29. 7.Letters, op.cit., p.366. 8.Sister Nivedita, op. cit., p.30. 9.Raymond, op.cit., p. 53. 10.Swami Vedantananda, 'The Story of Sister Nivedita's Life' in The Vedanta Kesari, Vol. XIV, No. 5, September 1927, p. 179. 11.Raymond, op.cit., p. 64. 12.Swami Vedantananda, op.cit., p.179.

13.Raymond, op.cit., p.65.

If the many and the One be indeed the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion. To have and to hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid. Sister Nivedita

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VK Samachar

Pujya Swami Ramdev Baba visits to Vivekananda Rock Memorial

The Yoga Guru and the Head of Patanjali Yoga Vidyapith, Rishikesh, Pujya Swami Ramdev Baba visited Vivekanandapuram, Kanyakumari, in March. He was received with the Poornakumbha by Sri Balakrishnanji, Susri Nivedita Didi, Sri will be in good condition and whatever you do, do with commitment (Nishtha). He also spoke in a public programme held in our campus beach. 2000 people attended the programme. ***** Bhubaneswar The Foundation-stone laying programme for the Regional Centre-cum-Institute of Culture and Yoga, Bhubaneswar was held on 27th February. The Chief Guest, Sri Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, 'Honble M.P. (Rajya Sabha), unveiled the foundationstone at the start of the programme in the presence of Mananeeya A. Balakrishnanji, the Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra and Sri Anant Narayan Jena, Mayor, BMC, the Guest of Honour in the programme. The celebrations started with traditional Bhoomi puja and yagna in the morning. Mananeeya A. Balakrishnanji, spoke on the necessity of such Institute wherein

Hanumantha Raoji and other Kendra karyakartas and after that he visited Vivekananda Rock Memorial. He was very much delighted after seeing the great monument and when he came to know that Vivekananda Kendra is engaged in Man-Making and NationBuilding activities all over the country. He said, "When I recently visited Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, I myself had the glimpse of its work in a short duration. Our country needs this type of work and you are doing the wonderful work. My best wishes." In Vivekanandapuram, he addressed the Poornakaleen Karyakartas and Shiksharties, who are undergoing 4 months training at present. He stressed that we should use Swadeshi things so the village economy will increase and it will not allow the MNCs to grow more in number, practice yoga so that the health

special studies will be undertaken to identify and strengthen the commonalities amongst the various Janajatis, while strengthening their uniqueness. He also gave a broad overview of the 150th year celebrations of Swamiji and the role of Odisha in Kendra's future plans. The Chief Guest

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Sri Arvind Kejriwal, Dr. Jai Prakash Narayan, and foreign delegates

congratulated the Vivekananda Kendra for its efforts to spread Indian Culture and Swami Vivekananda's message. He suggested that a mass movement of fund collection should be done by Kendra so that even common people may feel a sense of owning, instead of approaching only the Industrialists. Sri Ananta Narayan Jena said the need of such organisations is very important for spreading the message of Swamiji. An Odiya book titled “Bharateeya Sanskriti”, published by the Vivekananda Kendra was earlier released by the Chief Guest. *****

including Rolland Lomme, David Spencer, Nuria Molina presented their opinions in the various panel discussions. The convention concluded with a public function addressed by Baba Ramdev and the launch of an anticorruption front on April 2. The Speakers at the convention focused on corruption as a core issue of malgovernance affecting national interest in diverse ways, including national economy, its security and

New Delhi

A two-day seminar on “Transparency and Accountability in Governance International experience in the Indian context” was organised by Vivekananda International Foundation in association with well-known civil society leaders and opinion makers like Dr. Subrahmania Swamy, Sri K.N. Govindacharya, Sri S. Gurumurthy, Prof. R. Vaidyanathan and others on 1st and 2nd April. The seminar was inaugurated by Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah. Luminaries like Justice J.S. Verma, Sri Subhash Kashyap and Sri N. Gopalaswamy spoke. Experts including Sri Joginder Singh, Sri B.R. Lal, Sri Amb. Satish Chandra, Sri Vijai Kapoor, Sri M.D. Nalapat, Prof. Arun Kumar, Sri Bhure Lal,

integrity. The seminar suggested the formulation and enabling of various legislations and watch-bodies against graft and malgovernance. *****

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