Swami Vivekananda: An Inspiration to the Modern Youth

The youth today celebrates Rose Day, Valentine’s Day, Friendship Day and much more but the National Youth Day is barely given notice. “Youth life is the most precious life. Youth is the best time. The way in which you utilize this period will decide the nature of coming years that lie ahead of you,” said the great philosopher Swami Vivekananda. As the nation celebrates the National Youth Day on 12 January, the birthday of Swami Vivekananda, it’s time to draw inspiration and look at what the youth around the world can learn from his teachings.

What the youth can learn from youth icon Swami Vivekananda?

The youth is what a nation has, which will pave its path into the future. But, with the recent number of cases of crime such as rape, etc coming into light, it has certainly raised an alarm on what the youth of the nation is heading towards. In a sad state where rape by juveniles has become a trend, what is it that can draw them back on track? It must be inculcated in the people and the youth that women must be respected.

Swami Vivekananda said in his biography that “Americans look with veneration upon women, who play a most prominent part in their lives. Here this form of worship has attained its perfection — this is the long and short of it. I am almost at my wit’s end to see the women of this country. They are Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, in beauty, and Sarasvati, the Goddess of Learning, in virtues — they are the Divine Mother incarnate. If I can raise a thousand such Madonnas — incarnations of the Divine Mother — in our country before I die, I shall die in peace. Then only will our countrymen become worthy of their name.”

He once had said “To all women every man save her husband should be as her son. To all men every woman save his own wife should be as his mother. When I look about me and see what you call gallantry, my soul is filled with disgust. Not until you learn to ignore the question of sex and to meet on a ground of common humanity will your women really develop. Until then they are playthings, nothing more.”

The right direction to guide the youth from straying

In recent times the increasing crime rate by the juveniles in the country has alarmed the nation. It was noted that in 2011, around 34,000 criminals held were juvenile, which is a 10 percent jump from 2010.

The Government of India‘s was quoted saying “it was felt that the philosophy of Swamiji and the ideals for which he lived and worked could be a great source of inspiration for the Indian Youth.”

Swami Vivekananda was a youth saint and is an example to the world with the teachings he shared. The youth can know and learn about his ideals, life and achievements.

A generation exposed to drug abuse calls for a savior!

Substance abuse is another trend seen among the youth, not just in India but around the world. It is seen that there is an increased number of minors addicted to drugs. Many of them use their money to buy cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.

Swami Vivekananda was once quoted saying “This wonderful period of the first state of your life is related to you as the soft wet clay in the hands of the potter. Skillfully the potter gives it the right and correct shapes and forms, which he intends to give. Even so, you can wisely mould your life, your character, your physical health and strength, in short your entire nature in any way in which you make up your mind to do. And you must do this now.”

The final message

Rabindranath Tagore had said “If you want to know India, study Swami Vivekananda- in him everything is positive and nothing is negative.”  The message of the youth icon Swami Vivekananda would be to spread the message of positivity.

“You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. All you can do is on the negative side — you can only help. It is a manifestation from within; it develops its own nature — you can only take away obstructions,” said the great philosopher.

Also Read

• Swami Vivekananda: Youth icon at 150 years (ktrmurali.wordpress.com)
• Five Initiatives Inspired By Swami Vivekananda (ktrmurali.wordpress.com)

Anna Hazare’s Dandi March moment of August 16

It is difficult not to laugh, and we imagine that will be the mood of most thinking Indians. There is something almost childishly theatrical in challenging in this way the salt monopoly of the Government.

Said Calcutta’s British-owned newspaper, “The Statesman”.

The year was 1930 and Gandhi had just sent a letter to lord Irwin, the Viceroy on his 11 point demands, which, if agreed and implemented, would make him stop his non-violent agitation against the British rule.

Earlier that year, on being questioned by Rabindranath Tagore, as to what his strategy and direction would be henceforth, Gandhi had said dejectedly:

I am furiously thinking night and day and I do not see light.

He knew the movement henceforth, from his side, had to be non-violent but strong enough. When later that year, on January 26, Congress intervened and discussed on this issue, many ideas came forth:

Subhash Bose: Creation of a Parallel Government
Jamnalal Bajaj: march to Viceroy’s House in New Delhi
Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel: fight over land revenue (because of the Bardoli incidents)
Rajagopalchari: attach on sale of liquor.

In any case, the decision to plan and direct the main assault was left with Gandhi by the Congress Working Committee. In mid-February, Gandhi finally got the idea that he was “furiously” searching for. Salt.

He pictured himself heading a sea of humanity to the sea on the coastline to make salt. Something that was extremely important for everyone – from rich to poor. Police action could be against one person, but not against millions marching against the tyrannical British army.

Gandhi let the idea marinate in his mind and informed very few. In late February the framework for the disobedience movement was readied. And on March 2, Gandhi wrote the letter to Lord Irwin, where he wrote of his 11 demands, without singling out Salt. The letter was taken to the Viceroy by a Brit staying in the Ashram, Reginald Reynolds.

The 11 points of his demands were:

1. Total Prohibition
2. A better Rupee-Sterling rate
3. 50% reduction in Land Revenue
4. Abolition of Salt tax
5. 50% reduction in military expenditure
6. Reduction in Official Salaries
7. Tariffs on foreign cloth
8. Reservation of coastal shipping for Indian ships
9. Release of political prisoners except those convicted for murder or attempted murder
10. Abolition of Criminal Intelligence Department (and control over it by elected representatives)
11. Right of Indians to licensed firearms

On March 5th, Gandhi announced that Salt would be the object of his Satyagraha.

It was a major shock for everyone. Jawaharlal and his father were disappointed and Patel didn’t want to associate with any of the plannings. Indulal Yagnik said of the idea that it was like “Striking the fly of Salt Act with the Sledge hammer of Satyagaraha”.

The British reaction, as described earlier, was no less dismissive.

Yet, the Salt Satyagraha was able to bring together a sea of humanity and drove the point of Independence into the minds of common people. It wasn’t able to deliver anything in concrete terms to Indians – neither freedom, neither their own representative, nor any concessions. But, it woke the Indians up – specially in the rural areas – from slumber.

Anna Hazare’ Jan Lokpal bill

When Anna Hazare goes on his hunger strike on August 16th, it will be the second Dandi March moment in our history.

I see Anna Hazare’s Jan Lokpal bill as the Salt of the the Dandi March. To stop the corruption.. plunder really, what is needed is something totally different. We need to throw the politicians in jail and have a completely new system of Governance. People like P. Chidambaram and Sonia Gandhi should be tried in court and summarily sentenced. And that is not where Jan Lokpal bill will do anything.

The blight is deep and the plunder is at a new level facilitated by a combination of politicians, media and businessmen that is unprecedented. Never before have the country’s own denuded it with such impudence since the days of Mughals and Nawabs. But the system isn’t the same, nor is the level of educated so low. It is time that such education and awareness MAKES A DIFFERENCE!

Jan Lokpal bill will not solve the problems anymore than Salt Satyagraha couldn’t. But it is critical. In a country where even the educated and intellectual have lost the ability to discriminate and even understand their own present and future, it is critical that someone can give that message in a simple way but telling enough to make them stand up.

In a world of viral Youtube videos, Facebook campaigns and succinct tweets – the power of a SYMBOLIC idea, however trite and simple looking it may be – just as Gandhi used to the horror of Patel and Nehru in 1930 – cannot be over-rated!

Ironical as it may seem, educated will have to be taught a lesson in self interest by a 7th standard drop out. It is time we at least have the same humility that the villagers who walked the Dandi March, which began on March 12, 1930. Anna Hazare is no Gandhi, but the education and the intellect of Indians, for which they are known the world over, will hopefully fill in for the gap.

Jan Lokpal Bill should be followed up

Jan Lokpal Bill will set into motion a movement which will be difficult to predict or control. That is why it can also wane off unceremoniously as well. It has to be followed by something that is more concrete and a strong alternative to the present governance.

As much as the urban masses find issues with Baba Ramdev’s campaign, he neverheless – for all his faults in sophistication – appeals to rural masses like no other. Anna Hazare, on the other hand, has more appeal to the urban masses, who most often have a rudimentary and uninformed opinions and ideas of “purity”, Spirituality and “Good” – counched in very self confident words.

Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev will go down in history as those who did the equivalent of the Dandi March. But this time, we cannot let a dynastic foundation to take shape. The successors of Hazare-Ramdev combine have to be people of better judgment and integrity than people like Nehru and Azad. And that is where Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal come in. They both have impeccable credentials of intellectual ability and social good attempted by very few in India in the last many decades!