THE WAR THAT SWAMIJI FOUGHT

THE WAR THAT SWAMIJI FOUGHT

The war that Swamiji fought in foreign lands was an ideological one. It bled him to the bone and cost him his life at an early age. Even at home he hardly had sympathy from his fellow men, especially his Bengalee brethren. 

An ideological war is no less consuming than a hot war of weaponry if it is fought at that intensity as Swamiji fought it alone against an array of hostile adversaries who spared no means to neutralise him through their maligning of his personality, literally character-assassination of the worst form. This was in America where a sinister counter-campaign was carried out by Christian missionaries in alliance with Theosophists and the renowned Brahmo leader Pratap Chunder Mozoomdar. Invited by Christian missionaries to a reconciliation meet, Swamiji narrowly escaped death through poisoning by divine intervention. Ramakrishna appeared before him and forbade him to drink the coffee. Swamiji was chased through the streets of Chicago by an incensed mob intolerant of his attire and narrowly escaped being lynched. But the deepest cut of all came from eminent Bengalees who refused to recognise his efforts at awakening his countrymen, ignored him, challenged his caste credibility in relation to his monasticism and put up hindrances of all sorts which greatly undermined his work. But the leonine moral fibre that he was made of, Vivekananda advanced nonchalantly on his way to part-fulfil his mission on earth, failing to fully achieve in his lifetime what he had set out for, the setting up of India on her feet by laying its rock-solid foundation. What in effect he managed was the founding of the twin spiritual organsations in the name of his Master, that is, the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, levers for national and global welfare that he believed would in time to come raise humanity everywhere and help usher a spiritual revolution on earth. But all this came at a terrible price and that was the body of Swamiji which was laid prostrate at the altar of rising humanity before the sage touched forty.

To recapitulate and to reiterate then, Swamiji battled on every front a terrible ideological war which took him away prematurely. The war rages on more than century after Swamiji left the world. Shall we mutely witness the spectacle of Hindu civilisation being decimated or shall we, following Swamiji, struggle to save our civilisation? Must Swamiji alone live and die for his countrymen or is it binding on all of us to do likewise?

Written by Sugata Bose