Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

The Monk Who Shook The Nation

The Monk Who Shook The Nation

Towards the end of the last century, Indians were a dispirited lot. A century of British rule had sapped their self-confidence. Reform movements had brought about much-needed reforms but at the same time, had exposed the rot that had set into society. Matters were not helped by Christian missionaries from the west constantly ridiculing native religious practices. It was at such a time, when morale was low and foreign influences strong, that a man emerged who was to give his people a new pride in themselves. This was Swami Vivekananda. The Swami stood like a colossus towering above the inadequacies of a bonded nation. Even while urging his people to think, reform and change, the Swami kept reminding them that they were the torch-bearers of a glorious tradition. "The Indian nationalist movement smouldered for a long time until Vivekananda's breath blew the ashes into flame and it erupted violently three years after his death in 1905," wrote Romain Rolland. Subhash Chandra Bose was in agreement with Rolland. "Though the Swami never gave any political message," wrote Bose, "everyone who came into contact with him or his writings developed a spirit of patriotism." Confirmation of Rolland's theory that Swami Vivekananda was the high priest of Indian nationalism came from the Sedition Committee Report which stated that to the revolutionaries, Vivekananda was god. The personal effects of the revolutionaries usually consisted of a copy of the Gita and volumes of Swami Vivekananda's works. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru explains how Vivekananda galvanized the nation, leading it out of self-inflicted fear to the realm of fearlessness. "The one constant refrain of his speech and writing was abhay — be fearless, be strong," wrote Nehru.

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Vivekananda identified himself with the masses. "Give them bread not religion," he thundered. "Where should one go to seek for God? Are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, God?" he asked. "The poor, the ignorant, the illiterate, the afflicted —let these be your God : know that service to these is the highest religion," he proclaimed,
Vivekananda played a significant role in hammering India into a nation.
"Who cares for your Bhakti and Mukti?" the monk once exclaimed. "I will go into a thousand hells cheerfully, if I can rouse my countrymen, immersed in tamas (darkness) to stand on their feet."
"For the next fifty years," he said elsewhere, "this alone shall be our keynote—this, our great Mother India. Let all other vain gods disappear for that time from our minds."
By projecting the concept of Mother India, Swami Vivekananda gave Indians a cause which transcended the barriers of caste and community.
He earnestly believed that Hindus and Muslims had to come together to build the nation.
In one of his letters he wrote : "For our motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam – Vedanta Brain and Islam Body – is the only hope.
"I see in my mind's eye the future perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife, glorious and invincible with Vedanta Brain and Islam Body."

Make Me A Man "India!...Wouldst thou attain, by means of thy disgraceful cowardice, that freedom deserved only by the brave and the heroic?… Forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian and proudly proclaim, 'I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother.' Say, 'The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahman Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother.' Thou too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice … Say, Brother, 'the soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good,' and repeat and pray day and night, 'O Thou Lord of Gauri, O Thou Mother of the Universe, vouchsafe manliness unto me. O Thou Mother of Strength, take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness, and—Make me a Man.'" — Swami Vivekananda