In 1893, Swami Vivekananda travelled to Chicago to attend the Parliament of
World Religions. There, amidst representatives of the various religions of the
world, Vivekananda-who grew up in an affluent Bengali household in Calcutta,
studied to be a lawyer, only to give it up to become a wandering monk-spoke
of Universal Religion-'a religion which will have no place for persecution
or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize the divinity in every man and
woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding
humanity to realize its own true divine nature'. Although a devout Hindu, he had
always been someone who felt a deep sense of belonging to the plural heritage of
the Indian sub-continent. Through his learnings and travels he sought to galvanize
society on the basis of love.
Comprising three insightful essays, Vivekananda and Our Times situates the
Swami in today's world. Rajni Bakshi's endeavour-which began a century
after the Chicago address, when the country was reeling from the shock
of the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign and the consequent demolition of the
Babri Masjid-attempts to seek a space for reflection and shows us, through
Vivekananda's ideologies, the need to reconcile with the 'other' in a 'shared quest
for freedom from fear'.
