Sri S Nijalingappa ji's message 31 Aug 1970

Sri S Nijalingappa, President, All India Congress Committee on 31 August 1970 sent the message which is attached herewith. He writes in the concluding para : It is only fitting that free India should erect a permanent monument to one of India's greatest sons. In honouring his memory we are only discharging a part of our obligation to him. India would be a better place if Vivekananda's ideal of social service is followed more effectively.

This  ideal of social service in the words of Swami Vivekananda :

Mark me,

Then and then alone you are a Hindu when the very name sends through you a galvanic shock of strength.

Then and then alone you are a Hindu when every man who bears the name, from any country, speaking our language or any other language, becomes at once the nearest and the dearest to you.

Then and then alone you are a Hindu when the distress of anyone bearing that name comes to your heart and makes you feel as if your own son were in distress.

Then and then alone you are a Hindu when you will be ready to bear everything for them, like the great example I have quoted at the beginning of this lecture, of your great Guru Govind Singh. Driven out from this country, fighting against its oppressors, after having shed his own blood for the defence of the Hindu religion, after having seen his children killed on the battlefield -ay, this example of the great Guru, left even by those for whose sake he was shedding his blood and the blood of his own nearest and dearest -he, the wounded lion, retired from the field calmly to die in the South, but not a word of curse escaped his lips against those who had ungratefully forsaken him!

Mark me,

Every one of you will have to be a Govind Singh, if you want to do good to your country. You may see thousands of defects in your countrymen, but mark their Hindu blood. They are the first Gods you will have to worship even if they do everything to hurt you, even if everyone of them send out a curse to you, you send out to them words of love. If they drive you out, retire to die in silence like that mighty lion, Govind Singh. Such a man is worthy of the name of Hindu; such an ideal ought to be before us always.

All our hatchets let us bury; send out this grand current of love all round.