Its been amusing to watch the Congress' new found love for the Mahatma.Trapped as they are between the Left and the BJP , both of which have strong ideological moorings, the Congress has tried to resurrect the Mahatma's name in an attempt to gain electoral dividend among today's youth. But it may be a fallacy to miss the particular for the general. The Mahatma's opinions on various subjects may come as an unwelcome surprise to his topiwala followers.
"If I had the power and could legislate, I should stop all proselytising.... It is the deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth." No, this opinion on religious conversion was not expressed by Hegdewar , nor by Guru Golwalker.These words carry some weight, for they were written by the Father of the Nation.
In recent times, a figure who has historically been identified with the Hindutva movement has been sought to be appropiated by the Indian Left .Iam talking of none other than Swami Vivekananda. Sample this."Of course, Hindus who became Muslims must be taken back into the Hindu fold. Otherwise our numbers will keep dwindling -- we used to be around 600 million by the reckoning of Ferishta, the oldest Muslim historian, now we are just 200 million. And then every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more."
This is Swami Vivekananda, answering questions put to him by the editor of Prabuddha Bharat.
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5 comments:
Is it a case like our media quoting politicians out of context to create stories. Gandhi or Vivekanda should be judged by their entire body of work rather than a quote. I for one grew up with lot of admiration for Vivekanada and never considered him an icon of the right. His message was more towards rekindling India's rich spiritual heritage.
These are just politicians on their vote bank game. Consider the recent appropriation of Ambedkar by the Right
Wasn't Jesus the fist communist when he chased the money lenders out of the church and fed the poor
@redwaterstew - I beg to differ . Agreed the quotes I chose were more forceful than others, but these two greats had been consistently opposed to religious coversions. In fact,Gandhiji had this to say about the doctrine of "Extra ecclessiam nulla salus" meaning "Outside the church tere is no salvation". He said , ""It is an essentially untrue position to take, for a seeker after truth, that he alone is in absolute possession of truth." And that in essence, is the best argument against conversion, for if you support it, you are essentially saying yours is the only True Way.
I do agree on their positions on conversation. But what I meant is that it would be unfair to judge their legacy on just that. It was the same Gandhi who paid with his blood to create an inclusive nation. Gandhi factored in India's spiritual and religious heterogeneity into his politics which was divergent form Nehru's strictly secular approach which kept them out of the mainstream. The renaissance of the right could have its genesis in Nehru's secular politics. Had Bapu been alive for some time there would have seen a totally different type of nation. This article in Malayalam sheds some light on it http://madhyamamonline.in/featurestory.asp?fid=27&iid=401&hid=148&id=3017&page=55
Point taken :)
I wrote this post after seeing stories on the various news channels about how the Congress is organising various seminars about Gandhi ( milking him , to put it crassly ).
This was never intended to belittle these two greats, whom I admire personally.
Not able to access that link :(
It can be observed to be part of human nature to feel the urge to enlist the buy-in of one's fellow beings in any ideology that one strongly believes in. That might be the chethovikaram behind conversion. Probably only artists and philosophers have broken free from the pull of that instinct and had a powerful enough courage of conviction to follow a path alone and commentate impartially (even thay may not be always impartial) on the path without forcing those around them. Also coming down to earth, on a more practical level, in a democracy one has to get large enough numbers for greater negotiability for one's flock.
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