Let’s rediscover Vivekananda

Avijit Pathak

Sociologist

WRITING this piece in January, I recall Swami Vivekananda and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Vivekananda was born on January 12, 1863, and Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948. How can we make sense of the trajectory of Indian modernity through the eyes of the Swami and the Mahatma? Possibly, this question has acquired special relevance, particularly at a time when the assertive and militant Hindu nationalism seems to have occupied the collective imagination.

We need to make sense of the trajectory of Indian modernity through the eyes of Vivekananda and the Mahatma.

The location of religion, or for that matter Hinduism as a way of life, was always a major issue in the diverse and conflicting discourses of Indian modernity that emanated from Raja Rammohan Roy and Dayanand Saraswati, or Jyotirao Phule and Dr BR Ambedkar. And through their unique and innovative ways, both Vivekananda and Gandhi enriched this debate. It would not be wrong to say that Vivekananda sought to awaken a defeated nation — wounded by the dead weight of superstitions and prejudices, and the colonial invasion of an old civilisation, and associated cultural and psychic humiliation. He wanted to enrich its morale, redefine the meaning of religiosity in life, and arouse the confidence of people through what I would regard as engaged spirituality. From the famous speech he delivered in the 1893 world’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago to his missionary zeal in spreading the message of ‘Practical Vedanta’, he was trying to inspire the youth, or the team of saints, to fight the decadence, and create a new nation: spiritually elevated, self-confident, compassionate, educated and endowed with the zeal to serve people.

Likewise, Gandhi’s engagement with modernity was inseparable from his ‘experiments with truth’. And through these experiments, he negotiated with multiple sources — from Tolstoy and Ruskin to Thoreau and Emerson, or from the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ to the Bhagavadgita. The modernity that activates ceaseless desire for temporal material comforts, and causes psychic violence; or the modernity that causes heavy centralisation, anonymity and alienation was not Gandhi’s cup of tea. Instead, his modernity valued decentralisation of resources and power; it celebrated the skills of the artisan, the farmer and the local craftsman, and cherished a mode of living in harmony with the natural ecosystem; and yes, it saw religiosity as a process of self-purification, and a politico-cultural practice that values austerity, ahimsa and ethic of care. In a way, his experimental, politically nuanced and dialogic Hinduism was in tune with the idea of India that is great because of its plurality, diversity and peaceful coexistence. He dared to fight for this idea even when the Partition of the country brutalised our consciousness, and reduced religion into a mere identity marker filled with the waves of hatred and division.

In the imagination of modern India, both Vivekananda and Gandhi played an important role. Both gave us a new language of courage and social activism. They also played an important role in altering the meaning of being religious. Imagine the everyday practice of religion, say, Hinduism — the heavy load of ritualism and non-reflexive practices promoted by the unholy priestcraft, or the ghettoisation of mind through hierarchical caste practices. While Vivekananda sought to celebrate the liberating aspect of the Vedanta, and reconcile it with modern principles of social welfarism, Gandhi saw it as a path towards some sort of nonviolent socialism. It is true that not everyone necessarily agreed with Vivekananda’s or Gandhi’s understanding of modernity and Hinduism. From the Left to Ambedkarites and even Nehruvian modernists, there could be meaningful interrogations we ought to engage with.

However, what ought to worry us is that the contemporary adherents of Hindutva — an ideology of militant Hindu nationalism in tune with militarism, cultural narcissism and reckless techno-economic neoliberal developmentalism — are never tired of ‘playing’ with Vivekananda and Gandhi in instrumental and clever ways. They often speak of Vivekananda; they valorise him, and want us to believe that this saint was truly a founding father of Hindu nationalism. Through the iconisation of Vivekananda, they would possess him as their own property. And this appropriation would rob Vivekananda of the true spirit of religiosity of love and care. And ironically, the liberal-Left intelligentsia with their ‘enlightenment rationality’ would retain a safe distance from Vivekananda, and allow this appropriation to happen. Likewise, because of Gandhi’s international ‘brand’ value, Hindu nationalists cannot throw him into the dustbin of history. Instead, at times, they would talk about him, and garland his statue on October 2 and January 30. But the harsh reality is that the likes of Pragya Singh Thakur, or innumerable followers of Nathuram Godse who stimulate the mob psychology of Hindu nationalists, would continue to hate Gandhi, see him as ‘effeminate’ and ‘pro-Muslim’, hold him responsible for the Partition, laugh at his satyagraha, and ridicule his vision of techno-science, development, economy and environment.

In this month, we would witness this political drama again. And meanwhile, our modernity would continue to lose its emancipatory potential. Instead, it would rob religion of its redemptive power, and reduce it into an identity marker for erecting walls of separation; it would promote a hyper-masculine culture of narcissism. And amid the rise of select billionaires and mythologies of development, societal cleavages and inequalities would be intensified. Is it the time to wake up, rediscover the likes of Vivekananda and Gandhi, value the significance of spiritually enchanted modernity, and resist what we have been witnessing in these toxic times — loud religion, loud culture, loud nationalism?

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