Swami Vivekananda had left behind strong messages of revolutionary intent that the young men of Bengal picked up and dedicated their lives to realising them in practice. One such constant refrain of Swamiji was that the youth should renounce self-interest and sacrifice their lives to bringing about the welfare of the masses. There was an undertone of revolutionary intent in his messages which the freedom fighters of Bengal recognised and threw in their lot to trigger off a nationwide revolution to oust the British from India.
Jatindranath Mukherjee, commonly known as Bagha Jatin, met Swamiji several times and was specifically instructed by him to build up his body at a gymnasium and to read Bankimchandra Chatterjee's 'Ananda Math', a patriotic novel that had served its period of British ban for supposedly being seditious in content. Jatin Mukherjee was so inspired by Swamiji that he opened up a series of gymnasiums across Bengal with the express purpose of recruiting revolutionaries for the motherland's freedom.
Another great revolutionary to have been inspired by Swamiji was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who considered Ramakrishna-Vivekananda as his guiding light in life, and he also interpreted Vivekananda's message as containing directions to the youth to liberating the motherland from colonial shackles besides, of course, its lofty spiritual content of universal implications. In fact, Netaji was first awakened into genuine national feeling when he accidentally came across 'The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda' which he proceeded to voraciously read and thus underwent a permanent up-gradation of personality. In his climactic political years with the INA, Netaji's bedside table would always be adorned by the photograph of Swamiji who he considered his life's ideal and inspiration.
Netaji would also keep up close correspondence and contact with the Singapore Ramakrishna Mission during his INA years in Singapore and Burma. He held Swami Bhaswarananda, the head of RKM Singapore, and Brahmachari Kailasham in high regard and regularly interacted with them. At the Swami's express request, Netaji visited the Singapore centre, saw at first hand its terrible plight consequent on Japanese bombing and arranged for its rehabilitation. He personally donated 50,000 Singapore dollars and arranged from friends and associates another 50,000. He then arranged for constant rations for some 300 children housed in the Mission centre at a time when food was highly scarce in war-ravaged Singapore. Netaji personally opened the semi-permanent dormitory at the Mission that was constructed with the money donated by him and Swami Bhaswarananda saw to it that the children were given basic military training at the RKM school just as Netaji had requested.
Then the situation changed and Netaji left Singapore for Burma but he kept up correspondence with the Swami and the Brahmachari from there till 10 June, 1945. Thereafter, contact was broken as precipitous circumstances of war made it inexpedient to maintain contact. August 18, 1945 came and Netaji was lost to all. But he never lost his devotion to Ramakrishna-Vivekananda right till the unknown end.
Written by Sugata Bose
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