On the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Sister Nivedita, it is worth reflecting and meditating upon the spirit and manner in which she identified with civilisational India
A civilisation, people who deliberately or through oversight weaken its collective memory can never really perpetuate and defend its civilisational identity. It can never, in the true sense, decolonise itself. In fact, it was this weakening of our collective memory which was one of the principle intentions of our erstwhile imperial masters. They had intended to make their subjects plus royaliste que le roi and in this they used an education that ‘largely de-nationalised…those whom it…touched’.
Such a method eventually spawned a section of trendsetters who ‘abjured most of the things which their fathers had prized — all that complex tradition which had been aforetime the very soul of their people…[these] leaders no longer had their root in their native soil; they were parasitic upon the West.’ The legacy of this training continues to manifests itself in the present day through this trend of forgetfulness. It is, perhaps, now an axiomatic truth that those who have experienced colonisation will never be able to internalise, in its entirety, the deep degeneration that subjugation initiates and those who have not experienced it will never fully comprehend its long lasting impact and devastating after effects.
Sister Nivedita identified with civilisational India in a manner few Westerners during that period had done or were prepared to do. Some of those who had closely observed her, as contemporaries, have described her approach to India and how it set her apart. Bipin Chandra Pal, early nationalist, leader and thinker, despite his many differences with Nivedita has, perhaps, best described her approach to India when he wrote that “few Indians, especially of the modern educated classes, have as yet been inspired by so all-consuming a passion for India, as transfigured this British [Irish] women.”
In essence, Pal articulates the spirit and manner in which Nivedita approached India and which was so starkly in contrast to the colonisers’ mindset or the dominant Eurocentric mindset of the epoch. “Nivedita came to us”, wrote Pal, “as no European had as yet come, not as an adept, but as a novice; not as a teacher but as a learner. She did not pose before us as a prophetess, but always stood in sincere love and reverence, as a worshipper. She had no ambition to play the role of a high-priestess of any new or old cult. She never claimed any sanctified privilege or any position of special honour...in the exuberance of her virgin love for the soul of India, a glimpse of which had been revealed to her by her guru or master, she came simply to lose herself in us, and by losing herself, to find herself back, per chance as a true seer of our spirit and culture. And her unique devotion to our land and people had its reward in the almost complete understanding of some aspects at least of our life and institutions that was vouchsafed unto her.”
It was this capacity of losing herself in the immensity of India, her ceaseless striving to understand India and to approach her in the spirit of the learner that left an impression on those who worked with her or came fleetingly in touch with her. Nivedita must have evolved this spirit inspired by her master, who was always seen taking ‘infinite pains’ to teach European disciples to eat with fingers, and perform the ordinary simple acts of ‘Hindu life’ while reminding them that if ‘you love India at all, you must love her as she is, not as you might wish her to become.’
It was Nivedita’s increasing exposure to Indian politics, to Swami Vivekananda’s words and her own work among Indian nationalists and intellectuals who were struggling to restate India in several fields which brought about in her that complete identification with her adopted mother country, India. ‘India “Mother India” had become her Ishta, the supreme object of her devotion, in which she perceived the aim of her life and the peace of her acceptance.’
Young students, who came in touch with Nivedita, were moved by her uncontrolled sense of oneness when it came to India. She would exhort them first to ‘know your motherland — your great MOTHER! MOTHER BHARAT VARSHA! You must not discriminate, distinguish or differentiate between them — mother country or mother.’ She urged these young minds, forming the kernel of nationalist workers, that she hoped to steadily churn out someday, to ‘go round her, to know her people, their religion, culture, literature, language, customs and traditions’ and their history. She directed them to mix with them (other people of India) intimately often whenever such an opportunity occurs to love them. Just as a son or a daughter behaves or mixes with his or her mother freely and intimately, so you should love her, respect her, serve her, worship her with the most reverential salutations!’ She had succeeded in internalising this sense of a deeper underlying unity in this land of apparently conflicting diversities.
“To love the soil and water of the land we live in” is what Nivedita exemplified with her life and action, “we should love the soil of the country”, she once wrote, (in this is included our religion which is the product of the land we live in.) We must do some work for the country each in his own humble way.’
Yet, seeing her compact and whirlwind contribution during a crucial phase of India’s early nationalist movement, one wonders as to how Nivedita’s legacy was eventually marginalised, the memories of her contributions limited to a few with she herself finding mention only within a limited circle.
Was she too identified with a certain narrative of India, which the intellectual gate-keepers of the country, especially post-independence have found too difficult to handleIJ Is it the case that Nivedita’s open and frank expressions of her positions on a number of issues afflicting India, her open advocacy of civilisational India, her frank, inspiring and detailed examination of Hinduism and her unequivocal call to regenerate and revivify Hinduness as a sine qua non for a many faceted national awakening — she was never hesitant to say that that ‘I belong to Hinduism more than I ever did’ — her appeal across geographical and ideological divides had made it politically incorrect to analyse and disseminate her thoughts and made those who have controlled the creation of the Indian narrative, through our many institutions, in the last four odd decades, try to marginalise her.
Why is it that we hear so less, or our young learners are taught next to nothing about Nivedita’s ideas of IndiaIJ Why is it that Nivedita, the nationalist, has so few interpreters, why is it that her prolific intellectual output, soaked in the sense of India, have not been included in our curricula and has not seen sufficient disseminationIJ
It is the narrative of Nivedita, the nationalist, that continues to remain of great interest, it this dimension that still retains the capacity to inspire. Every action that she did, in each area of activity that she focused upon, Nivedita did so through the prism of nationalism. As an unapologetic nationalist, an Indian nationalist, she demonstrated a complete identification with the movement for India’s self-recovery.
Vivekananda had directed her, in those early days of her adjustment to Indian conditions to strive to be to India’s future sons — ‘mistress, servant, friend in one.’ Nivedita, in the few years that were given to her in India, unwaveringly strove towards that. It is a narrative that is worth reflecting and meditating upon especially on the 150th year of her birth.
(The writer is director, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi)