Citing Swami Vivekananda’s uncompromising attitude towards truth as a glorious example for journalists, The Pioneer editor-in-chief Chandan Mitra on Saturday said, “His ideas have acquired greater relevance in today’s world. He was ahead of his times.”
He was speaking at a seminar for journalists, organised by Samachar Bharati in Hyderabad, on ‘Swami Vivekananda’s Dream about Bharat: Media’s Role’. Commemorating Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary, Mitra said the media has a very important role in achieving the vision of New India. “India is an idea which will never die. Armed with moral and material strength, unlike the past, today it has confidence to face any threat and reach its destiny of Jagat Guru (leader of the world),” he noted.
“The new generation knows nothing of the greatness of the past and what golden era lies ahead,” said the MP, exhorting media professionals to become the voice of the voiceless. “If we are not championing the cause of the underdog, we should not be in media,” he said. Mitra said that while it was not the duty of newspapers to report only good things, as the Government wants, it should have some sense of balance. “We journalists should inculcate the culture of balancing between the negative and the positive, bad and good,” he stressed.
According to Mitra, the media has done a good job - bringing down many Governments, destroyed many politicians and exposing corruption, right from the Jeep scandal to the 2G and Coalgate scams. Quoting Iqbal, Mitra said all the sages of India, irrespective of religion, had firm belief in the oneness and essence of India and its destiny.
Pointing out that subjugation by colonial powers — that denigrated everything Indian — and other powers that tried to destroy self-esteem in the country had occurred in the past and would be attempted again, Mitra said Vivekananda showed the way. “He stood up against it and told us that India was the soul of world and an eternal truth that can lead the world. He stood up with moral courage, articulation and knowledge,” the BJP MP added.
Uplifting the poor, quality education and spirituality are the three most important ingredients of Swami’s vision. “God lives in the poorest of the poor, Daliddar Narayana,” Mitra recalled Vivekananda as saying. But you cannot educate a man with an empty stomach. Hence, the poor should first be given food with dignity. Mitra also pointed out that despite all his differences with the West, Vivekananda never held it in contempt. “He was not against the west,” he said.
Ruing the fact that journalists today were not taught all this, Mitra urged all to read Vivekananda’s works. “The curriculum is Marxist-dominated and the same colonial mindset of running down India continues to rule us. After Independence, we allowed some people of depraved ideology to take over our educational institutions,” he said. On this occasion, Mitra also released a book, ‘Swami Vivekananda’s Vision on Indian Womanhood: Road Ahead,” written by Nivedita Pidea.