Congress, BJP lock horns over Vivekananda anniversary

The Congress and the BJP were seen in a tussle over Swami Vivekananda’s legacy on the 125th anniversary of his famous address to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the youth to follow the ideals of Swami Vivekananda to build a “new and modern India” and highlighted the role of universities for nurturing creativity and innovation.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi highlighted Vivekananda’s views against sectarianism, bigotry and fanaticism.

“Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair,” Gandhi said in a statement quoting Vivekananda.

She said the universal message by Vivekananda was “time invariant” and relevant today as it was 124 years ago.

“In today’s atmosphere of intolerance and hate, Swamiji’s message should be the Magna Carta for the way forward,” she said noting that the present day India was “more tham ever engulfed with the same challenges of prejudices” that Vivekananda spoke about.

In his address at a function to mark 125th anniversary of Vivekananda’s address, Modi also spoke about respecting women and the importance of cleanliness.

The Congress lauded the prime minister for his thoughts but hit out at the actions of his government which the opposition party claimed were just the opposite.

“The Modi government decides ‘what we wear, what we eat, where do we move, what we practice, what we do and how we live our lives.’ It has completely strangulated any kind of dissent and divergence of views,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters here.

He said the recent incident of lynchings, the murder of free-thinkers, rationalists and dissenters was a grim reminder of the times “we live in”.

DH News Service