BHUPENDRANATH DATTA -- A FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARY WHO THE YOUTH CAN YET SEEK INSPIRATION FROM IN A WORLD OF ROTTING IDEALS

BHUPENDRANATH DATTA -- A FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARY WHO THE YOUTH CAN YET SEEK INSPIRATION FROM IN A WORLD OF ROTTING IDEALS

Bhupendranath Datta -- a man of character in this world of terribly compromised ideals. Few have read the book written by him titled 'Swami Vivekananda -- Patriot-Prophet'. It is a masterpiece. It is, perhaps, the best description of the phenomenon that Swamiji was from the human perspective. Here Swamiji is portrayed not as the oft-quoted divine personage arising from his seat of meditation in the spiritual realm of the Saptarshi Mandal but as the then culmination of human historical development in India, a being arising from the sea of sunken humanity and responding to the challenges of the times. 

Bhupendranath (1880-1961), youngest brother of Swamiji, revolutionary and Marxist scholar, one who had to bear the worst side of poverty after the death of his father Vishwanath Datta, met Lenin in 1921 in the Soviet Union who advised him to work among the peasants in India to create the ground for the impending social revolution.

Bhupendranath had read Swamiji's genius from the socioeconomic standpoint and had attempted to estimate his contributions to the social revolutionary regeneration of India, Swamiji being the first one to give the clarion call to awaken the masses by way of seeking redemption for the motherland from its historical shackles -- colonialism, imperialism et al.

Bhupendranath Datta, a forgotten character in India, revolutionary, thinker, scholar, anthropologist, biographer and a man of noble ideals lived through and through a celibate life, deserves much more of our attention today as we hunt in vain for lived ideals in men masquerading as messiahs who in real are, though, 'hollow men', to quote T.S.Eliot. These brave sons of the soil who had embraced multiple incarceration to free the motherland from British occupation live in the periphery of our affections on account of our stupendous ignorance of our nation's history and our general apathy for depth-study. We so often introduce him as Swamiji's youngest brother and his biographer but he was much more than that. His life of epic struggle against familial poverty post his father's death, a misfortune he translated into delving deep into the causes of poverty en masse and emerged as a champion of the masses therefrom, shines luminous in the annals of modern Indian history and must be recounted more, far more than the insipid tales of lesser renunciates as has become the wont of missionary story-tellers to recounting, so that the youth today are fired up by genuine patriotic fervour and sincere concern for the suffering masses of humanity that is the real India.

Bhupendranath Datta was of the considered opinion that Swamiji had not been understood in all his comprehensive capacity, in all his universal vastness, in his social revolutionary aspect and in his prophethood of the masses by the Ramakrishna Mission monks in general and even by his own brother disciples. Theirs, in his opinion, was a superficial, unilinear understanding of Swamiji as preeminently a spiritual personality with patriotic derivations. But they could scarce comprehend Swamiji in the complex historical evolutionary context in his rightful sociological glory. Here their scant knowledge of historical processes stumped them in their understanding of this seminal sadhu, a warrior monk, a people's man voicing the muted aspirations of the masses suppressed for ages. Vivekananda, reckoned Bhupendranath, stood at the junction of the material and the spiritual, between the this-worldly and the other-worldly aspects of man, and strove to reshape the destiny of man. Vivekananda's sociocultural contributions far outstripped the Mission's superficial understanding of the varied elements of his being in terms of the typical bourgeois-capitalist conception.

I am not an anthropologist nor am I a sociologist nor revolutionary with Marxist ideological leanings. I am simply a rustic thinker along limited lines but am an ardent follower of the elder brother of Bhupendranath for whom I have dedicated my life from early youth. As such I have read multiple biographies of Swamiji including those two seminal studies of Sister Nivedita and Romain Rolland but have to my delight discovered a treasure-trove of gems in Bhupendranath Datta's biographical study of his elder brother. The depth of familial detail, the profundity of analysis and the accurate historical contextualisation of Swamiji by this author has literally dazzled me. I owe my best understanding of Swamiji in historical terms to this classic commentary on the Patriot-Prophet's life and times. My warmest regards to all and earnest entreaty to all such who are well-versed in the English language and take a trifle more than active interest in Swamiji that they read this book to know in greater depth what a wonderful sage Vivekananda was, a being without bounds, yet, forever bound to feeling the miseries of man and seeking solutions to freeing them from the shackles of material life, wholly and comprehensively. My prostrations at the blessed feet of the jewel-wombed mother who bore Narendranath, Mohendranath and Bhupendranath, the trinity of gems she carried within her and presented them to us as perennial gifts of her love and inspiration. I bow down not only to these three seminal souls but to their divine mother, the ever-sacrificing, all-suffering, all-forgiving, silent giver, Bhuvaneshwari Devi. 

Written by Sugata Bose