We must stop projecting Swamiji as merely a national icon with cultural contributions in every sphere. He was much more than that. He was a prophet of the modern world who encapsulated in his being the hopes and aspirations of the whole of humanity, who was the resolution of India's spiritual past and the forerunner of all humanistic developments that we see today the world over and which we will be the witness of for countless centuries in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.
Swamiji was a sage who realised the spiritual history of India not merely to rejuvenate his own motherland but to regenerate spirituality in the mass of humanity the world over, the world being no less his motherland as well, as so beautifully articulated by him when he said, 'What is India or America to us? We are the servants of that God who the ignorant address as man.'
India was the nucleus of this vast mission of world regeneration and the reserve from where Swamiji drew his inspiration, material and direction. But the message of eternal India being universal, the emphasis must ever be on such universality and not consistently on its national subset with its particular characteristics and components. Here we have largely localised Swamiji since the passage of the sage from the planet and done his mission a disservice which we must forthwith undo.
Written by Sugata Bose
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