Opposition reminds meditative PM Narendra Modi of Vivekananda’s take on religion

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, May 31

Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed a ritualistic salutation to the sun at Vivekananda Rock Memorial on Friday as his meditative stint in Kanyakumari, India’s southernmost tip in Tamil Nadu, entered the second day.

The images of a saffron-clad Modi performing “surya arghya” by the sea at the break of dawn went viral ahead of the conclusion of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll cycle, with the final phase voting scheduled for Saturday. Later through the day, Modi sat in a meditative posture at Dhyana Mandapam at the memorial, the same place where Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, seeking a clear vision of India, had meditated in 1892.

While the Congress-led Opposition again questioned the presence of cameras at Dhyana Mandapam during the silence period, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury asked if the Prime Minister was aware of Swami Vivekananda’s concluding words at the final session of the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago on September 27, 1893.

“If anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: ‘Help and not fight’, ‘Assimilation and not Destruction’, ‘Harmony and Peace and not Dissension’,” Yechury wrote on his X handle, sharing quotes from the historic speech Swami Vivekananda made at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago from September 11-27, 1893.

The ruling BJP, meanwhile, flooded its social media handles with videos and frames of the Prime Minister who, it said, was in deep introspection to find ways of taking India forward. “In India, spirituality has never been so powerful! In India, leaders in power have never been so spiritual!” said BJP IT segment chief Amit Malviya. Sources said the PM would remain on liquids during the 45-hour meditation, which will end on Saturday evening.