'WHAT BENGAL THINKS TODAY ... '

'WHAT BENGAL THINKS TODAY ... '

A spiritless, lifeless race given to soft feelings, softer sentiments and devoid of the power to rise manfully to the defence of the Dharma. Song, selfie, dance, poetry, recitation, politics gone putrid and effeminacy of the worst kind have come to characterise Bengal. No wonder corruption runs skyhigh in public life with private life gone romantic the wrong way. Such superficiality, such advertising of self, such blazoning of attributes of hardly any consequence, such petty politics, puerile pastimes, such wholesale hollowness in culture and craft, in endeavour and enterprise---all these are eating into the vitals of Bengal with the commercial instinct making men jokers and the joking instinct make of life a commercial enterprise. Alas, Gokhale was right! "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow." Thus even today, Bengal in her fall is ahead of the rest of India by miles. Then imagine India's state! What is to become of her with such a vast populace fast losing its bearings to artificial westernisation, consumer culture and commercial greed? India, indeed, is at the crossroads. Will effeminacy help in guiding course?

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo: top--Swami Vivekananda; middle--Sudhirā Devi (educationist, revolutionary nationalist); bottom--Swami Prajnānanda/Debabrata Maharaj (revolutionary, monk, yogi).