For survival the communists hijack Swami Vivekananda

By Dipin Damodharan

The Kerala state conference of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) was concluded in Trivandrum on January 11, 2009. In the posters of the conference we can see the picture of Swami Vivekananda along with Karl Marx and other Communist ideologues. How the youth organization of the Communist party of India can use Swami Vivekananda, the prophet of Hindu Nationalism, as their poster boy. Under these circumstances, in particular on the 147th birth anniversary of the great saint, a close look on the ideals and philosophy of Vivekananda is necessary.

Swami Vivekananda is a valiant monk who proclaimed the greatness of Hinduism in America at a time when the Europe and America considered Bharat as a land of superstitions. For him the land of Bharat has had special and sacred significance and he used to refer Bharat as the Punyabhumi. The basic ideology of communism is contrary to the ideology of cultural nationalism or Hindu Nationalism. The ultimate goal of Indian communists is to construct Bharat as a pure communist-autocratic state like China and Cuba. Their concept of nation is based on the communist ideology.

On the other side Swami Vivekananda’s concept about Bharat was a strong, powerful and aggressive Hindu Nation. Swamiji once said, Vedanta should be the very foundation on which Bharat has to build her edifice. According to Vivekananda, a Hindu or a Bharati is one who believes in the authority of the following: the authority of the Vedas, God, the cyclical order of creation and above all those who consider Mother and Motherland above heaven.

These are all alien to communists. The communists are never being a part of this order. Earlier they were not ready to accept Swami Vivekananda and national heroes like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel etc. History shows that the communists threw Vivekananda in the dust bin like a rotten egg, calling him a wild spiritualist; it was the RSS inspired organizations who found Swamiji as a big asset in the exercise of nation building. The relationship of Vivekananda with the Sangh movement is very much like a mother-son relationship. The second Sarsanghchalak of RSS, Shri Madhav Sadhashiv Golwalkar, was in Rama Krishna Mission in the 1930s. One of the most revered
leaders of the RSS, Baba Saheb Apte's life-long pet sentence was:
"Vivekananda is like Gita for the RSS."

For the Swayamsevaks Vivekananda’s philosophy has been an inspiration to perform selfless service to the nation. It was the RSS, under the leadership of Eknath Ranade, had built the Vivekananda memorial rock in Kanyakumari. Eknath Ranade also published a book on the ideals of Vivekananda titled, Rousing call to Hindu Nation in 1963. For the construction of rock, Ranade approached several leaders in India irrespective of their political parties. When he approached Jyoti Basu, the latter questioned, "How dare you come to me for Vivekananda, I am a communist.” This was the stand of communists on Vivekananda.

When the communists came to power in West Bengal, they removed Swami Vivekananda from several textbooks; these are only some instances of the anti-Hindu actions of the communists.

Now they are forced to change their stand on these great patriots because they realized that other wise they have no existence in this land of spirituality. Undoubtedly the present day communists will recognize Dr.Hedgewar and Madhav Sadhashiv Golwalkar in future. That means, in future the ideology of communism will be wiped out from Bharatavarsha.