Nivedita : The Queen of the Indian Freedom Movement - 2

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

The man who does not strike because he is afraid is a coward'. Nivedita attended Benaras Congress in December 1905, where Balgangadhar Tilak was the President. She never came in front but worked from behind as a correspondent of The Statesman. The Congress session became a 'Nivedita show'. She tried her best to forge an understanding between the radicals and the moderates. Soon afterwards she came under police surveillance. Next, the 'Alipore Bomb Case' (1909) came up involving Aurobindo Ghosh and others. She arranged the escape of Bhupendra Nath Dutta (brother of Vivekananda) after his conviction for revolutionary activities. The British government accused her of treacherous action.

Nivedita felt that various fragmented groups of firebrand revolutionaries are to be brought under one umbrella. She also travelled to various corners of India and gave inspiring speeches to young people to rouse them to action. She realized from the teaching of Swami Vivekananda that unless a sense of nationalism is developed, India can never get her freedom. However, while working to kindle the spirit of nationalism, she did not neglect the school she founded. Though she had to dissociate herself officially from the Ramakrishna Mission after the death of Vivekananda, she maintained her deep personal relations with the monks of the Math and the Mission, and Holy Mother Sarada Devi. Nivedita not only advised the national leaders and patriots but she always tried to inspire a generation of young people in her own ways. Her methodology was quite different. Once she spread a huge map of undivided India (6 ft x 4 ft) in front of a large number of young people and said passionately: 'Look at your mother, she is chained. Now you decide what you should do'.

Nivedita tried her best to ignite the spirit of the revolutionaries in ways which were common in Ireland and Russia. During her visit to Ireland, she had asked her brother, Richard, to secretly send her the Irish revolutionary periodicals. She, in turn, used to distribute them among the Bengal revolutionaries. After the arrest of Lala Lajpat Rai and Sardar Ajit Singh, many protest meetings were held in and around Calcutta and Nivedita was always the main speaker. She used to quote passages from the Gità, where Krishna inspired reluctant Arjuna to start the battle, to encourage the youths to wage their battle against the British empire.

When a team of revolutionaries under the leadership of Ullaskar Dutta were at the finishing stage of developing bombs desperately needed a sophisticated laboratory, they approached Nivedita. Nivedita, who was a close friend and mentor of Jagadish Chandra Bose, the great scientist, requested the latter to talk to his friend, another leading chemist P. C. Ghosh, to allow Ullaskar and his team to use the chemistry laboratory of the Presidency College. The approval was obtained and the young men started their experiments in the late evening. By morning there was no trace of any objectionable chemicals. The rest is history—the famous Alipore Bomb Case. Ullaskar and many others were subsequently sentenced to long imprisonment in the Andamans. But the knowhow of bomb-making was developed. Nivedita always wanted the revolutionaries to have access to bombs in line with the Irish revolutionaries.All the leading revolutionaries of the first decade of the 20th century used to visit Nivedita regularly for inspiration and guidance.

To Be Continue..

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Nivedita : The Queen of the Indian Freedom Movement -1

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

The title may confuse many, even the serious readers of the Indian Freedom Movement. While there is not much confusion in the minds of political leaders who have enjoyed political power since independence about who is the king of the Indian freedom movement, there can be endless debate on the subject. While Gandhiji is regarded officially as the most acclaimed freedom fighter, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will definitely win hands down in Bengal, Punjab and quite a few other places. Many veterans of the defence forces also tend to side with the latter group against the Nehruvian protagonists in this matter.

Let us now turn to another side of the story. We all know that Indian women played a big role in the freedom movement. Starting from Laxmibai of Jhansi, there had been many such women including Anne Besant, Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sucheta Kripalani, Nelli Sengupta and the firebrand revolutionaries like Shanti-Suniti, Bina Das, Matangini Hazra, Kalpana Dutta, Pritilata, Laxmi Segal and many others. But there had been never a serious debate on whom the title of 'queen' of the Indian freedom movement can be bestowed. After a detailed study and assessment, the answer can be found. There is only one lady, in my view, on whom this title can be awarded. She is none other than Margaret Elizabeth Noble. Yes, it is Sister Nivedita (1867-1911), the ardent disciple of Swami Vivekananda, an Irish by birth and brought up in England, who came to India in 1898 at an age of thirty only and established a girls' school in Kolkata. However, her all-round contribution to the Indian freedom movement has never been properly assessed.

She was a born revolutionary. Before coming to India she was already well-known for her writing and new methods of children's education. She established a school near London at an age of 24 and was very much influenced by her father, Samuel Noble who was a priest with a dream of success of the Irish revolution. The course of his life, however, completely changed after she met Swami Vivekananda in November 1895 in London. Two years later she arrived in Calcutta in February 1898. She was possibly the first Christian lady who got herself converted to the Hindu faith and became a staunch Indian nationalist. She established a girls' school in North Calcutta, but she always felt that her Guru and Master, Swami Vivekananda, though a religious leader, always dreamt of a free India. She was a prolific writer and orator. All the leaders of the time like
Balgangadhar Tilak, Bipin Pal, C. R. Das, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, Lord S. P. Sinha and Rabindranath Tagore became her friends and admirers. So were the English intellectuals like Samuel Kerkham Ratcliffe, the then editor of The Statesman, Lady Minto and others. She became close to the firebrand revolutionaries of the early 20th century, many of whom got their inspiration from Vivekananda's writings which Nivedita spread across the country.

After Vivekananda's death on 4 July 1902, Nivedita's association with the freedom fighters and Indian political leaders increased. She travelled all over India and gave lectures in which she called for total upliftment of India and spread the message of Swamiji's 'Man-making' ideal. Pioneer revolutionary, Aurobindo Ghosh (later Sri Aurobindo of Pondicherry) formed a committee to unite various splinter groups of firebrand revolutionaries operating in different parts of India. Nivedita along with C. R. Das, Suren Tagore and others were members of this committee. She once remarked 'In Ireland, we have a saying that England yields nothing without bombs, every reform has to be wrested from government' (Agni Yug by Sailesh De, Purna Prakashan). In 1905 when Lord Curzon divided Bengal, Nivedita criticized the move saying 'Shame on my country of origin. But we shall continue to struggle'. Thus Nivedita got actively involved in politics by preaching an idea of dynamic religion. She used to say: 'The ideal struggle would come through non-violence as preached by our sages, but are we capable of it?. . . The man who does not strike because he is weak commits a sin.

To Be Continue..

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THE CRY OF THE MOTHER TO,INDIAN YOUTH

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Sons of the Indian past, awake !
From Jagannath to Dwarakanath,
From Kedaruath to Comorin,
Are ye not One ?

Your history, look ye, dieth not.
In you today lives all the greatness of your past,
Awake then, and arise !
Struggle ye on and stop not till the goal is reached !
Marshall ye in your armies !
March forth in your hosts !
Are ye not One ?

Children of one Motherhood,
Nurslings of one land,
Brethren of a single home,
Are ye not One ?

Sons of Bengal, heirs of ancient Magadh,
The one-time centre of a ring of sovereigns,
You who sent forth the word that bred strong peoples,
You who bore Gospels East and North and South,
You who created scriptures and made great learning,
Shall ye be nought,
My children of Bengal !
Lo the past lives in you !
Are ye not One ?

Sons of Ajodhya, children of Benares,
Dwellers in far-famed shrines and regal towns,
Awaken and arise ! In you lives all your past
Are you not One ?

Sons of Gurus ! People of the Prophet,
Children of heroes, strong and austere !
Even ye are One !

Rajput, Mahratta, Sikh, Mussulman and Dravid,
Is not your past yours ?
Fear not machines !
Assert the mind that lives, in you;
Include, create, assault and take by might
The strongest city of the mind of man.
Be not content to crawl
But leap ye high.

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The Power of Mind

Swami Vivekananda says : A carriage with four horses may rush down a hill unrestrained, or the coachman may curb the horses. Which is the greater manifestation of power, to let them go or to hold them? A cannonball flying through the air goes a long distance and falls. Another is cut short in its flight by striking against a wall, and the impact generates intense heat. All outgoing energy following a selfish motive is frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but if restrained, it will result in development of power. This self-control will tend to produce a mighty will, a character which makes a Christ or a Buddha.

Similar feelings are echoed by Sister Nivedita in The Power of Mind

All power is in the human mind. We can master anything, simply by giving our attention to it. Even the ideals of the West, the ideals of the new age, are within our grasp, if we study them, if we recognize their necessity, and proceed to work them out. It is natural, however, that under the circumstances, feeling as we do that the study of our own circumstances, and of the new ideals that are to initiate a new age, is the one duty that devolves upon us, it is natural that education should seem to us the supreme ground of battle for our national rights. No one who stands outside the Indian community can dream of the jealousy with which the students watch all attempts to curtail or limit their numbers. Records are kept, and accurate news is carried, that would astonish those most concerned, if they knew of it, as to how opportunities are shrinking, and by whose action, in this direction or

that. A short time ago fees were raised in a certain college. Now, nearly half the students are to be turned out. All this is noted and discussed amongst the students. Their eyes are not shut, nor are they slow to draw their own inferences from the facts. And there is nothing that so stirs them, for all the apparent silence that hangs over the country, as this withdrawal of the means of knowledge.  Nor is this unnatural. Education is our one overwhelming want, in this hour of the nation's history. Knowledge we must have. And knowledge we are determined to have. An immense force has been called into being, by the organization of schools and colleges. But once evoked, such forces must be fed and developed along sound lines. It is at their peril that mortals attempt to stand in the path of avalanche or the canon-ball. Is it imagined that mind-energy is less dangerous than material? Only the bravest or the grossest will attempt to thwart or baffle an awakened communal consciousness. The bravest, because he may offer himself as a sacrifice. The grossest, because he does not believe that mind is a force, like any other, and rules the world; does not believe that a poor weapon in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte is more deadly than the best, when used by a coward or a fool; cannot understand, till it has turned and rent him, the perils of the great force called into being, and then subjected to the crushing weight of suppression.

(CWSN- V)

{Daily Katha:1526} WOMAN IN MODERN INDIA - 3

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

All the problems of today have to be attacked on a national scale. The problem of problems is the achievement of nationality itself. But in this matter of the education of women, it will be well if our men can remember exactly what part of the task is its core and essence. Let us talk with our womankind about the affairs of the country. Let us appeal constantly to their growing judgment and enthusiasm. Let us create those qualities in them, if they do not already exist, by believing steadfastly in the Atman who is within all. The doctrine of the divinity of the human soul has no meaning whatever if it is not this, that each one of us, man or woman, high or low, learned or ignorant, is in spirit the Pure, the Free, the All wise, and that the one help we can render another is to evoke this realization in its fullness.

Daily the life of our Indian womanhood is shrinking. Day by day, their scope is being lessened. Unless we can capture for them the new world of expression, they will steadily continue to lose more and more of the world they had. If Sita and Savitri are ever to be born of Indian mothers, we must create new types for them, suited to the requirements of the modern age. Gandhari must live again, with new names to think of, but all the ancient faith and courage, steadfastness and sacrifice. Damayanti must return, and Draupadi, the fit wife for Yudhishthira, king of justice.

Awake ! Awake ! The greatness of Indian womanhood must be the cry of Indian men.

To be continued........

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The Test of Success

Unfortunately for us, however, the world is being remade, at this moment, by European culture. Its assimilation is the means and the test of success. With regard to it we are mere students. Then we are all students. It may be that when our lesson is learnt, there will be a compensating one for Europe to learn. That is not our business. Our business is to learn our own. Is it the foreign idea that we have to accept ? Not exactly. The foreign idea, as it stands, would merely give us moral indigestion. We should not become a nation of moral dyspeptics. But we have to find, in our own stock of ideas, that one which enables us to meet the foreign nation on its own terms. The Englishman, loves England, with a wonderful and often beautiful love. What we have to learn from this, is not to share his love for England. That would be the discipleship of monkeys, mere imitation.  We have to learn to meet his love for England with an equal, deeper, more tender and far more intelligent love for India. As he professes to make his country and his people the centre of every activity, every thought, so we have really to make our people and country the centre of our own. He has unity of national intention. We must realize our own national intention, and find an equal unity in it. Swadharma "Better for a man is his own duty, however badly done than the duty of another, though that be easy."

Sister Nivedita Complete Works Vol 5

 

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Indian Women - 3

All the problems of today have to be attacked on a national scale. The problem of problems is the achievement of nationality itself. But in this matter of the education of women, it will be well if our men can remember exactly what part of the task is its core and essence. Let us talk with our womankind about the affairs of the country. Let us appeal constantly to their growing judgment and enthusiasm. Let us create those qualities in them, if they do not already exist, by believing steadfastly in the Atman who is within all. The doctrine of the divinity of the human soul has no meaning whatever if it is not this, that each one of us, man or woman, high or low, learned or ignorant, is in spirit the Pure, the Free, the All wise, and that the one help we can render another is to evoke this realization in its fullness.

Daily the life of our Indian womanhood is shrinking. Day by day, their scope is being lessened. Unless we can capture for them the new world of expression, they will steadily continue to lose more and more of the world they had. If Sita and Savitri are ever to be born of Indian mothers, we must create new types for them, suited to the requirements of the modern age. Gandhari must live again, with new names to think of, but all the ancient faith and courage, steadfastness and sacrifice. Damayanti must return, and Draupadi, the fit wife for Yudhishthira, king of justice.

Awake ! Awake ! The greatness of Indian womanhood must be the cry of Indian men.

                                                                                                                                           

WOMAN IN MODERN INDIA - 2

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Reading and writing are not in themselves education. The power to use them well is vastly more important than the things themselves. A woman in whom the great compassion is awakened, a woman who understand the national history, a woman who has made some of the great Tirthas and has a notion of what her country looks like, is much more truly and deeply educated than one who has merely read much.

"Awake! Awake!" means, first of all, awake to the great multiform consciousness, let everything that is Indian breathe and work through you. Identify yourself, in thought, day by day, with all sorts of strange beings and strange interests, recognizing that they, with you, possess equally the common home. Dedicate some part of every puja, to this thought of the Mother who is Swadesh. Lay a few flowers before Her, pour out a little water in Her name. Think of her children, your own kindred, who are one in need. Let your hearts go out in infinite pity. "Mother and Motherland," says the proverb, "is better than Swarga!" Ah, the sorrow for those who are a hungered, and cannot feel this joy!

"Awake! Awake!" Rise up and get ye knowledge, womanhood of India! Womanhood of Bengal! Learn of your own past. Only so can you realize your future. Learn of your country and her needs. Only by this can you train your judgment, your will and power of choice. Only by growing knowledge can the heart be enriched, and thought become clearer.

"Awake! Awake! "' Be free and work. Let unselfishness guide the hand, and love inspire the will. So shall no sacrifice be defeated, and every movement shall avail. No bondage shall hinder those who have risen to this height. No ignorance shall stand. No vastness of the task before them shall dismay. "Bande Mataram."

To be continued........

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WOMAN IN MODERN INDIA - 1

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

The saying that Indian regeneration will come through Indian women is growing hackneyed (stale). The words are found on the lips of many who have not troubled to think clearly what they mean. The fact is, by the education of woman we mean today her civilization. The problem of the age, for India, as we have constantly insisted, is to supersede the family, as a motive, and even as a form of consciousness, by the civic and national unity. This cannot be done by men, as men, alone. It is still more necessary that it should be done by women. In all questions of the moral and personal life, woman is a far greater factor than man. In her care lies the synthesis of life. As she determines the character of the home, out of which man goes forth to his day's labour, so also it is her conception of what life as a whole should be that dominates and creates the world. Man is only a clever child; in woman's care and keeping is the well of life. It follows that while man must always take the lead in special departments of activity, it is at the same time of the highest importance that the general scheme of life should be understood by the women of a community, and should not be such as to shock and outrage their sense of right. We all know how important it is to individual happiness that men and women should be in substantial accord, and we can well believe that if a community is to put forth its utmost energy in any given direction, it will be necessary that its men and its women should be combined in the one great effort.

This is our position today. We are determined to initiate new developments. For this, it is essential that we make our own material, and of all our material, none is in this sense so important as the women. A great deal of our nationalizing energy, therefore, has to be given, during the coming years, to making the women of our families more devoted to the country then they are even to their fathers, husbands and brothers, and qualified to judge still better what will serve the welfare of the nation, than as to that of the family. This is all, the essence of the whole matter. It amounts to the reception of a new idea, for our women have not been accustomed to think much of larger areas than the village at utmost. The impingement of new ideas creates enormous energy. It is likely, therefore, that those who are really touched, will show the fact at once, by an eagerness to be taught reading and writing. It is obvious that if they can once read they will be in a position to feed their own national sense for themselves. But many will be too old, or will not have the faculty, to master the new methods of knowledge. Not on this account are any to be passed by.

To be continued........

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THE CRY OF THE MOTHER TO INDIAN YOUTH

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Sons of the Indian past, awake !
From Jagannath to Dwarakanath,
From Kedaruath to Comorin,
Are ye not One ?

Your history, look ye, dieth not.
In you today lives all the greatness of your past,
Awake then, and arise !
Struggle ye on and stop not till the goal is reached !
Marshall ye in your armies !
March forth in your hosts !
Are ye not One ?

Children of one Motherhood,
Nurslings of one land,
Brethren of a single home,
Are ye not One ?

Sons of Bengal, heirs of ancient Magadh,
The one-time centre of a ring of sovereigns,
You who sent forth the word that bred strong peoples,
You who bore Gospels East and North and South,
You who created scriptures and made great learning,
Shall ye be nought,
My children of Bengal !
Lo the past lives in you !
Are ye not One ?

Sons of Ajodhya, children of Benares,
Dwellers in far-famed shrines and regal towns,
Awaken and arise ! In you lives all your past
Are you not One ?

Sons of Gurus ! People of the Prophet,
Children of heroes, strong and austere !
Even ye are One !

Rajput, Mahratta, Sikh, Mussulman and Dravid,
Is not your past yours ?
Fear not machines !
Assert the mind that lives, in you;
Include, create, assault and take by might
The strongest city of the mind of man.
Be not content to crawl
But leap ye high.

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Nation

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

A Nation of Students

We are a nation of students. The whole East is full of students. No figure in the streets of an Asiatic city—whether the country be India, Persia, or China—is so representative as that of the student. No power is so pervasive as the schoolmaster's might make itself, if maintained in harmony with the general aspiration. Why this prominence of the learner? What is the explanation? Does it point to a national immaturity? If so, let us face the fact. There is no advantage to be gained, by shutting our eyes to the position of affairs, on the contrary clear thought is itself the starting point of a good fight with crudity and ignorance.

National Immaturity

We must remember that the very words are foreign, in which this question is being discussed. We are, in fact, measuring ourselves and the maturity of our culture, against a modern and Western standard. So measured, we are decidedly immature. There are many practical situations in life, where, beside the ease and mastery of the European, we feel ourselves mere children. Is this immaturity, then, an absolute, or only a relative truth? Is it perhaps true that all the people of the world are more or less immature? We cannot get the whole material advantage, out of a given situation as easily as the European can. But no one who has ever engaged in serious conversation with Europeans can doubt that there are many subjects on which they are, beside us, extremely childish. In the field of religious and philosophical speculation, they find it difficult to generalize, and propositions that are obvious to us will puzzle them severely. The same is true of the psychology of social relations. In the culture of the family, Europeans are curiously lacking. That whole idea of play that shines through all our domestic intercourse, and lubricates all the friction of intimacy, appears to be unborn amongst them. Here they are as immature as we in their field. Those strong faces, with their closed lips and air of instinctive mastery, notify us of nothing genial and easy, in the nature behind. Similarly, in us, the grave refined type of old men, indicates no large public experience. All the lineaments have been carved, in the one case, by contacts with the larger world, the world of struggle and complexities, of clashing interests, and grim affairs; and in the other, by quiet experience of love and suffering, by the thought of God, and by the garnered wisdom of the home.  Either European or Hindu, on his own ground, will appear unassailable; judged by the opposite standard, seem unripe, crude, but half-cultured and childish in his powers.

   
Complete Works of Sister Nivedita - V

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Thunderbolt : Vajra - 3

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

At the opening of the Mahabharata, it would be impossible to exaggerate the importance attributed to the Thunderbolt. "Wherever there is glory, or honour, or purity, great wisdom, or great sanctity or great energy, know that to be a fragment of the Thunderbolt." But the secret of this is a different matter. The gods, it is said, were looking for a divine weapon, that is to say, for the divine weapon, par excellence— and they were told that only if they could find a man willing to give his own bones for the substance of it, could the Invincible Sword be forged. Whereupon they trooped up to the Rishi Dadhichi and asked for his bones for the purpose. The request sounded like mockery. A man would give all but his own life-breath, assuredly, for a great end, but who, even to furnish forth a weapon for Indra, would hand over his body itself ? To the Rishi Dadhichi, however, this was no insuperable height of sacrifice. Smilingly he listened, smilingly he answered, and in that very moment laid himself down to die—yielding at a word the very utmost demanded of humanity.

Here, then, we have the significance of the Vajra. The selfless man is the thunderbolt. Let us strive only for selflessness, and we become the weapon in the hands of the gods. Not for us to ask how. Not for us to plan methods. For us, it is only to lay ourselves down at the altar-foot. The gods do the rest. The divine carries us. It is not the thunderbolt that is invincible, but the hand that hurls it. Mother ! Mother ! take away from us this self! Let not fame or gain or pleasure have dominion over us ! Be Thou the sun-light, we the dew dissolving in its heat.

To be continued.....

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Thunderbolt : Vajra - 2

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

The future is never exactly as the past. And the new symbol cannot be even as the old. Hence the Thunderbolt of present day use is crossed. That is to say, it is multiplied in power, as befits the aspiration that is not of a great man here and there, but of every soul in a vast nation, at the same time. It is India, in all her millions, not a few Indian saints or prophets, who is called today to attain selflessness. India, in the might of her brotherhood, India in her unity, India in the cohesion of a single body, has to go down, down, down, into the depths, in order to climb the mountains of perfect strength and gaze upon the Promised Land.

It is for this that the Thunderbolt is multiplied, that it may be the symbol, not of a hero, but of a nation of heroes. With the same idea, also, of expressing in the national emblem the unity of India, many people use the lotus for the reverse of the flag. Very few probably know the beautiful old map of Varaha-Mihira (about a.d. 550) in which India is represented as an eight-petalled lotus, where Panchala is the centre, and Magadha, Kalinga, Avanta, Amarta, Sindhu, Harhama, Madra, and Kulinda form the eight petals. India as the lotus, the lotus lying on the Ocean, or India as Uma practising austerities to be the bride of Mahadeva—it is difficult, sometimes, to believe that our old poets did not directly and deliberately idealize their country !

When we think of all that a national banner represents, we cannot wonder that the standards were the only things contained in the chapel of the Praetorium, in Roman times. We feel their sacredness, alike in war and peace. We thrill to the thought of the shot-riddled flags brought home from European battle-fields and hung beside the altar, in churches and cathedrals. To a people who understand their own nationality, no other guerdon can be half so precious. For a banner is at once a benison and a menace, a consecration and a rallying-cry. It is as an altar, at whose foot, whether for assault or defence, men's lives are freely offered up. Generations come and go. New combinations arrive and vanish, but that for which the national symbol stands—that ineffable union of jana-desh-dharma for ever which people fights—remains for ever, simple and steadfast as Eternity, mirrored in the fugitive minds of its myriad worshippers.

To be continued.....

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The Transformation OF Margaret Into Nivedita - 6

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Clash and Conflict - 4

But it will be seen that there was a more basic dimension to this psychological process of inner transformation than just an orientation to India. Nivedita herself perceived it to be so.

The basic dimension was the freeing of her mind from preconceived notions about the East in general and India particular Scholars who have studied the implications of Western dominance over various parts of the world speak of the psychological process by which the Westerner has successfully driven to the unconscious his nations about his own superiority and the alleged 'inferiority' of the colonized. This is the Westerner's authority complex.' Margaret was, for all her intelligence and independence and eagerness to know the truth, a product of her times and was not free from such complexes as characterised the typical Westerner of the nineteenth century. Swami Vivekananda, who, in the words of Nivedita, 'was nothing if not a breaker of bondage,' freed her from these complexes and prejudices. What he did was never the dictating of opinion or creed but emancipating the mind from partiality.

A mind thus purged of partiality will become capable of seeing the vital truths about an alien nation, which would no longer continue to be alien, once a true understanding is arrived at. In this instance that nation happened to be India. Were it to be Africa, Nivedita would have been as capable of understanding its indigenous people as she now was of Indians.

The great humanist that he was, Swamiji made his disciple see the truth and was helping her to free herself from complexes. A complex-free, open mind is capable of understanding others, rather the truth that there are no 'others' but only fellow beings, maybe distant, but never the 'other.' The schooling she received in Almora was an enabling experience which prepared Nivedita to understand all fellow human beings, Indians and others.

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The Transformation OF Margaret Into Nivedita - 5

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

Clash and Conflict - 3

And by thus ridding his disciple of pride and prejudice, Swami Vivekananda made it possible for her to enter into the real ethos of India and identify herself with the people of India. Nivedita frankly acknowledges that she understood that 'the greatest teachers may destroy in us a personal relation only in order to bestow the Impersonal Vision in its place.'

We may only add that the impersonal vision vouchsafed to her was not only a personal spiritual experience (which was her immediate experience), but a preparation for the vision of 'Bharata Mata'-a true understanding of Mother India to be attained by her, not so much in any single temporal experience as in an accumulated consciousness.

This could very well be the forerunner of the mutual understanding that should characterise international relationships and foster understanding when nations will realize that personal pride and racial prejudice should be given up.

Or to adapt the idiom of post-colonial criticism, it could be said that Swami Vivekananda enabled Nivedita to 'de-imperialise' her mind and transcend cultural limitations of birth and upbringing so that she would later help Bharatiyas to 'de-colonise' theirs.

Reminiscing about this painful but salutary experience at Almora, Nivedita wrote two years later to her friend Josephine MacLeod in her letter of 18 January 1900: 'how curious this mystery of pain! I see now as clear as daylight-how that awful suffering at Almora made India be born in my heart with all this passion of love."

The great care with which Swami Vivekananda trained Margaret Noble to make her Nivedita, the one dedicated to Bharata Varsha, in the process not hesitating to adopt harsh methods, has often been described as the Indianisation of a Western disciple. There is truth in this claim, because as a result of this training Nivedita, came to know intimately both the India of the past centuries from a historical perspective and the contemporary India and the true meaning of the British presence in Bharat.

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