THE HINDU PROPHET AND THE GERMAN-JEWISH PHILOSOPHER

THE HINDU PROPHET AND THE GERMAN-JEWISH PHILOSOPHER

Vivekananda's solution to India's problem of possible disintegration was to raise the masses to human conditions of living. He was of the firm conviction that the real strength of the emerging nation of India would lie in the vitality of the teeming millions groaning under the heels of upper-class tyranny for ages. 

Swamiji affirmed that despite its many philosophical flaws and deemed imperfection in future application, socialism was coming to being as the next phase of socioeconomic evolution of the human race. Marx had predicted that socialism would make its first revolution in a highly industrialised society like that of Germany or Britain. This was in accordance with his philosophy of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. It is unknown to us whether Swamiji at any point of time had studied Marxism as such but he for sure must had been acquainted with socialist thinking through his considerable study of European life and culture. Swamiji was not in agreement with the basic premise of socialism that a robotic society under the dictates of a few governing bosses could properly function and flourish, for it was against the fundamental law of life. Freedom snatched away from the individual would fail to produce the promised fruits of socialism -- this was Vivekananda's view, for freedom was intrinsic to the human species and more so in its current stage of social evolution. Nonetheless, Swamiji felt that, despite its flaws and imperfections, socialism was coming into being and it would manifest itself as 'great upheavals' in either Russia or China or both. How unerring was his prophecy as it came about exactly in the order that he had foreseen!

Both Russia and China were predominantly agrarian societies with hardly any visible industrialisation that classical communism of Marx mandated as the precondition for socialist revolution. And, yet, Vivekananda was right about the future of world history and Marx, the propounder of communism, was proved patently wrong.

Upon Swamiji's return from his first visit to the West he was interviewed by a friend in this regard and he said that like astronomers through their prolonged study of the heavens could predict the positions of celestial objects, so also he through his study of human behaviour for a long time could see through the future of the times. Long study and austerity had removed a scale from his eyes and his penetrative vision could now see through the foggy future. The shadow of future world events was cast on his purified mind and he could thus foretell events that were in the womb of futurity. Marx was also a perceptive visionary but his method was radically different. It was a rational understanding of things, the empirical study of history along strictly scientific lines which was not exclusive of intuitive insights but was not dependent on them. As such Marx predicted the future of communism on the basis of theory and was proved wrong. Vivekananda, on the other hand, went straight to the heart of the matter through the Rishi's (seer's) certitude of sight and came forth triumphant in his prophecy.

But philosophical disagreements and prophetic pronouncements apart, there was much in common between these two titanic thinkers of the nineteenth century. Both were ardent exponents of human freedom, especially of the masses that have been suppressed for ages and virtually treated like animals by fellow more privileged human beings. As such both felt intensely for the plight of the people and sought solutions to alleviating their misery. Both gave their life's labour to raising the masses from their savage conditions consequent upon human tyranny which they had endured for ages.

Written by Sugata Bose