Prime Minister Modi sitting in apparent meditation on the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari in full glare of the media on the eve of voting of the last phase of the 18th general elections is completely antithetical to the idea of pursuing genuine meditation in solitude.
He who has gone on record in stating that Vivekananda very deeply impacted his life should have avoided marketised meditation. But this is not his first time. In May 2019 he did the same when he went to a Himalayan cave on the penultimate day of the last phase of 17th general elections.
Vivekananda and self-seeking action
Modi sitting for meditation on the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari should have been mindful of Swami Vivekananda. Notably, Vivekananda was wary of publicity he got for expounding spirituality in the USA. He remarked in 1900 that any selfish and self-seeking action launched with newspapers blazoning and the mobs standing and cheering, would fail to reach the mark. Swamiji said this while addressing the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena, in California, on January 27, 1900. No one can deny that the so-called meditation Modi did on sacred precincts with multiple cameras capturing him amounts to what Vivekananda called “self seeking action”. Newspapers, TV channels and other media platforms showed Modi’s meditation. Vivekananda, who as a celebrated monk got massive media coverage for his excellent exposition of Vedant in his numerous lectures in the USA, was once unsettled by such publicity and sought silence and quiet moments for reflection free from public attention. In a letter dispatched from the USA on September 27, 1894, to his Tamil disciple Alasinga, he wrote, “This nonsense of public life and newspaper blazoning has disgusted me thoroughly. I long to go back to the Himalayan quiet.”
Also read: As Modi Has Gone Off to ‘Meditate’ in Isolation in Kanniyakumari, Who is in Charge?
Polarising narratives
Modi has also relentlessly uttered one lie after another and vilified Muslims through his hate-filled articulations while campaigning for BJP during the elections. His hatred against a section of Indian citizens on account of their religious identity would have shaken and shocked Vivekananda who defined India in terms of possessing a Vedantic brain and Islamic body. Modi treating Muslims of India with utter contempt in his election speeches and later sitting on meditation on a rock named after him would have been ironical to Vivekananda who in his historic Chicago speech at the World Parliament of Religions in September 1893 urged humanity to eschew “sectarianism, bigotry and its horrible descendent fanaticism” and put an end to “all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”
Modi’s toxic and polarising words were nothing short of persecutions committed against Muslims. A century ago, Vivekananda fervently wanted such sentiments to come to an end.
A moratorium breached
In 2014, Modi while delivering his first address to the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort, called for a moratorium on divisive politics for 10 years. He referred to the communal tensions festering for ages and traced the Partition of India to it. While stating that the poison of communalism and casteism persisted after the country became free from colonial rule he asked, “How long will these evils continue? Whom does it benefit?” Observing that such scourges only cast a slur on Mother India and put obstacles on our way forward, he urged people to put a moratorium on all such activities for 10 years and promote peace, unity, good will and brotherhood.
Modi himself has breached his own moratorium by using communally divisive appeals and causing discord and disunity. That he did so more blatantly than ever before while campaigning this time is visible to all.
Such venomous appeals in the name of religion are contrary to the principles of meditation which is associated with a higher state of mind, free from any narrow outlook, sectarianism and bigotry.
Vivekananda would have been distressed beyond measure to see a purported follower engaging himself in such a poisonous pronouncements against a section of Indians on account of their faith and at the same time, showing the audacity to meditate on the rock where he meditated in 1892 before his departure for the USA to attend the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.
Modi himself should have stuck to the moratorium on hate speeches he himself announced in 2024. In doing so he should have extended it to a period beyond ten years and emerged as a leader adhering to its letter and spirit. Instead he has shown himself as someone who has gone against his own word.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to former President of India K.R. Narayanan.
