On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, The Nehru Centre held a virtual conversation with author, historian and journalist Hindol Sengupta as he talked to the Director of The Nehru Centre, Amish Tripathi about “The Universal Appeal of Swami Vivekananda”.
Hindol Sengupta (born 1979 in Jamshedpur) is an Indian historian and journalist. Sengupta lives in Delhi and is Editor-at-Large at Fortune India where he writes a weekly column. He is also a columnist for Aspen Italia. He was educated in South Asian history and politics at Worcester College, Oxford, as a Chevening Scholar, in business and finance as a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and in journalism and film-making at Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University. In 2018, he became the only Indian to win the Wilbur Award given by the Religion Communicators Council of America for his book "Being Hindu". His books have been reviewed over multiple media outlets. In 2017, he was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Speaking about Swami Vivekananda, he said, “My family has been associated with the Ramkrishna Mission for three generations now. I myself got diksha, at the age of ten.” He went on to describe Swami Vivekananda’s legacy which traces back to him being a disciple of Ramkrishna Paramhansa. was an Indian Hindu mystic, saint, and religious leader in 19th century Bengal. Sri Ramakrishna experienced spiritual ecstasies from a young age, and was influenced by several religious traditions, including devotion toward the Goddess Kali, Tantra, Bhakti and Advaita Vedanta.
“Before Swami Vivekanada, there was nobody who really went out and told the civilisational message of India,” Sengupta said. He also remembered about the famous lecture of Vivekananda which increased his global appeal when he took the spiritual route instead and introduced Hinduism to the world in 1893 as he spoke at the World's Parliament of Religion.
Hindol said, “He was able to bring together the entire civilisational context and message of India and make it palatable, helping the west understand what India’s civilisation was all about. The universal appeal of Swami Vivekananda comes from the fact that he did not allow colonialism to restrict him. He broke the shackles of colonialism.”
Stating the uniqueness of Swami Vivekananda’s vision, he also said that unlike other monks and priests who were known to renounce and give up their personal lives to tread on the path of dharma, Swami Ji made a modern statement by highlighting that one doesn’t need to leave his or her life behind to spread the message of India in the world. Swami Ji wasn’t secluded. We can also be human while reaching out to the divine. He could marry his education with the most in depth philosophies of Hinduism and bring together a message that was modern, progressive and forward looking. This is how he made his global appeal and relevance bigger, not to forget that one of his biggest disciples, sister Nivedita was not Indian. He embedded and embodied the essence of east and the west to reach the divine.
Hindol Sengupta also spoke about how Swami Ji showed his brethren and followers the power of “detached ownership management style” which is why the Ramakrishna Mission has never allowed any one person to become the lodestone of the mission after Swami’s death. Sengupta also said that he likes to tell his younger friends that, “Swami Vivekananda was a rockstar,” and how he travelled from east to west. “In order to remain a legend, you have to die young,” said Sengupta as he spoke about Swami Ji’s secret to being a rockstar. “What Swami Vivekanand achieved at 39, most human beings don’t achieve in many many lifetimes,” he added.
During his last days, Swami Ji also said, “If I stay, all your journeys will be blocked,” as his disciples pleaded to him to not give up on life. Sengupta beautifully summed up Swami Ji’s relevance in today’s times during Covid that India has continued to help the world in sending medicines, and producing the vaccine with Oxford, which is in a way a reflection of supreme detachment from any material thing, which was after-all what Swami Ji wanted.
