Thursday 28 Mar 2024

Out of tune?

On the occasion of Swami Vivekanand’s birth anniversary on Tuesday the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan sent pictures of Swami Vivekanand to be framed in over 2.5 lakh centres of the organization across the country.

| JANUARY 14, 2016, 03:00 AM IST
 The slogan is: Vivekanand’s soul in Nehru’s body. The vice president of the Sangathan Perala Shekar Rao said the mandate for 2016- 17 is to build a ‘yuva sena’ with ‘Bharatiya thought’, whatever that means. The problem with most icons is that their image and name is used extensively, while their teachings are largely ignored. Swami Vivekanand was an extraordinary human being who played a major role in shaping nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although he was a Hindu who was proud of
his religion and his country and stunned a western audience
at the Parliament of World Religions in 1893, he believed that
there was truth in every religion. “Holiness, purity and charity
are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world
and every system has produced men and women of most exalted
character,” he said in his address to the parliament and
concluded by adding, “Help and not fight,” “Assimilation
and not Destruction,” “Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.”
Is the mandate of the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan to
build a yuva sena with ‘bharatiya thought’ in tune with Swami
Vivekanand’s philosophy?
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