‘The Future of India’

I have read Swami Vivekananda’s idea of ‘The Future of India’. Here I have penned down my personal thoughts after reading a few other articles and opinions which are almost in line with Swamiji’s thoughts with slight modifications.

At some places in this article I did not complete Swamiji’s ideas because I have consciously thought that the same idea could be expanded without making any changes to the essence of the idea as it could possibly which could pass a more inclusive message to the society where we all live. I think that the need of the hour is to follow Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s ideas for India.

I have envisioned my idea of the future of India here in line with Swami Vivekananda’a ideas of ‘The Future of India’. I am always open to a new idea but it should be an organized and structured thought. This could be in the form a constructive criticism or a discussion as well.

Kindly read below and try to understand the thought process behind each idea and criticize if required but only constructive criticism will be considered.

Organization –

Before laying out any plan there should be an organized thought or idea in one’s mind. Any idea that is meant for upliftment of the society is always liberating. There could not be any greater idea than serving people of this country.

But first of all, I believe that one should uplift oneself before trying to make any positive impact on the society because leading through an example of the self helps people to relate themselves with the one who wants to bring that positive change in their lives.

Hence concluding from the previous statements, I would like to say that upliftment of oneself should start from education. As Swami Vivekananda had said, “We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.” Education is not about putting an amount of information in our brain and then running riots there, undigested all our life. Assimilating five ideas and making them our life and character is better than getting a whole library by heart.

Only an organized human being can influence others for a better life. Therefore, irrespective of the subject on which one wants to improve the society one must think about an idea. Reading from great minds I have concluded that there is no idea better than the idea of education. Education in this regard has to be spiritual and secular in this country. Why I say that? Well you have to study Swami Vivekananda’s idea about ‘The Future of India’.

However just to give you an idea I would say that given the sheer numbers of non-Hindus (according to the Census data: 272 million out of the current population, around 1360 million) and the constitutional mandate of being a secular nation, we have to not only constantly recognize the existence of minority religions but do everything to establish our secular nature. We would find the practice of keeping a Saraswati statue, the mythological goddess of knowledge and wisdom among Hindus and students offering prayers or poems every morning in assemblies. I think that the students need to be realized that the ‘emphasis is not on the religious and ritualistic recital of such prayers but on understanding the symbolic and philosophical significance of the presence of such a statue. Efforts should be made to develop understanding among students on how humanity goes beyond all religions and that the essence of all religions is similar when interpreted constructively.’

Spirituality should be carried out as well. Different religion and sects should have perfect liberty to teach their doctrines but only restricting them from quarreling with other religion and sects. An education should also introduce the idea of understanding the basics of what different religions believe as it would prevent the misconceptions and hate that is spreading throughout the world today.

I think that minority schools should not be given the right to enforce the practices of only a particular religion in the school. ‘No school can have rights beyond the constitutional obligations of developing a just, equitable, humane and secular society.’ Constitutional values are supreme and one should always remember that.

The idea here is to not go against prayers and hymns or against any particular religion but to understand the message, its context, lyricism and so on. Instead of preaching the religious – ritualistic aspect from activities like singing prayers we should try to bring out the scientific, rational and philosophical aspect of each activity to the students.

History needs to be treated with significance. I do agree with the notion that instead of forgetting the past one needs to drink deep from the oceans of history because it will not only teach us about the good things in life but also about the evil things. Here one should always be careful not to ignore the mistakes of the past since it can be repeated at any point of time. We must realize the greatness of our past and we must build an India greater than what she has been. History had been the witness of many great personalities whose thoughts turned into actions were able to bring greater good to the people of this country. We must realize that those were no normal thoughts but clearly organized and well-planned ideas vested for achieving a greater purpose in life.

Accumulation of power –

Well it’s impossible to deny that money at often times has been a greater form of resource than any other material thing in this world. It can eventually earn someone a very powerful and respectable position in the society. But in order to accumulate great wealth, one needs to have that will power which can only be achieved if one is internally motivated. I believe that if one envisions a greater goal that relates to the welfare or upliftment of oneself and subsequently the poorer people of this country with all good intentions of serving them then it could surely be achieved come whatever might be the situation.

A powerful individual can infuse his thoughts into us and when many of us come to have the same thoughts, we become powerful. We must not forget that 40 million Britishers could rule 300 million Indians because they had put their wills together while ours were separate from each other. The INA was able to fight the same powerful and mighty British army which had ultimately decided to leave India because INA’s will to free India from those foreign invaders were quite strong under the leadership of one of India’s greatest patriot, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and it had left a huge impact upon the soldiers of this nation who were fighting for the Britishers until then but later on refused to fight for them. Thus, accumulation of will power is of utmost importance in order to bring a greater positive change in this country.

Co-ordination of will –

I think that the poor people in this country should be encouraged for pursuing education by supporting them with money. But before we tend to do that, we should definitely first think about how to eradicate this poverty from people’s minds and this could be achieved by removing that weak mindset which has been created in their minds by the richer class of the society. Only by imposing a stronger will of free, spiritual and secular education can one prepare a person to think better about his or her future. Therefore, co-ordination of will is extremely important to turn such noble ideas into actions. The solution is not to bring down the higher but by raising the lower up to the level of the higher.

Final thoughts:

I know that we have religious differences but there has to be some common grounds as well. We need to bring out the common principles so that everyone can benefit out of it. Therefore, religion should also be preached but not with the intention of spreading hatred or by symbolizing differences in anyway so as to influence the people of this nation in a negative way. I believe that when such a culture is born people would care less about their religious differences but live with harmony, peace and correct moral standards. This would unite people of all religion, sects and castes for they will have clear idea about a secular India as well the fundamentals of religion and not get influenced by any kind of evil provocations from the negative people in the society.

Having said all of these let us be determined and may the Lord, who “comes again and again for the salvation of his own people”, (quoting from the scriptures) ‘the great Krishna bless us and lead us all to the fulfillment of our aims!’