Swami Viekananda effortlessly summarized to the world the essence of Hindu Philosophy and the spirit of India. He and his words uniquely represented the then "Undivided INDIA" when he said, “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth.”
Swami Vivekananda realized even then, before the destructions of World War 1 and 2 and many wars there after, that the mankind was certainly heading towards a direction that only promoted regional, religious, sectarian and linguistic jingoism and bigotry. Almost a century has past and still we haven’t realized even a fraction of his legacy. A Man is inseparable from his religion because that is what a man derives his identity from and also the perceived salvation from the miseries of human life. Swami ji never advocated superiority of one religion over other but rather emphasized on the similarity of all the religions. With unwavering confidence he said “The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.”
As it stands today the erstwhile Undivided India is divided today and for the very reasons that great sages like Swami Vivekananda warned against. Population of Indian sub continent is united by common ancestry, blood, and emotions that is not only difficult but impossible to deny or erase irrespective of how many borders and fences we make on land.
May be its too late (or too soon) to disband the political constraints that we have placed on ourselves as citizens of different nations but the least that we can do is to cherish the commonality in culture and give our future generations a better place to live and thrive.
Attempts of peace in Indian sub continent have been difficult, very difficult indeed. Any peace initiative is considered futile and unrealistic, but nevertheless, there are people who find peace a worthy goal and any initiative in this regard, no matter how irrelevant or illogical, deserves a try.
The two great initiatives by Times of India – Aman ki Asha (with Pakistan) and Maitree Bandhan (with Bangladesh) – are worth commending. These initiatives may not solve our problems overnight but surely they give us hope and enthusiasm to strive for “peace” that has been so elusive.
"Differences divide us when we see the dissimilarities; Differences unite us when we see the similarities." Praying and hoping our coming generations will find more similarities in our differences and save themselves form the mutual destruction.
