Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee once again attacked the “fundamentalist forces” for trying to usurp Hinduism and vitiate its charitable tenets by reinterpreting it in their own dogmatic way.
Stopping short of naming BJP and RSS for upholding an “intolerant ideology” in the name of Hinduism “which it is not” she said “today when someone tries to determine what others should eat and where they should live,” in the name of Hindu religion “I feel ashamed,” because tolerance is the essence of the Hindu religion which is the mother of all religions of the world.”
Banerjee was delivering a lecture at Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission order on the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s famous speech in the world conference of religions at Chicago.
Expressing her “great pain” because “some unholy clique conspired against me and created pressure on the Ramakrishna Mission so that I can be stopped from joining the Chicago conference this year,” Banerjee reminded “Hinduism is not an imported dogma preached by a handful of people these days but a religion that has emerged from the Indian soil. It is a great religion which preaches tolerance.”
Quoting Swami Vivekananda and his master Ramakrishna Paramahansa who preached unity of religions (sarva dharma samanvaya) Banerjee said in apparent reference to the BJP Government that “Swamiji said, ‘you may be the king and I may be a cobbler but that does not give you the license to demean me. You may recite from the Vedas with authority but I can stitch the shoes with equal proficiency,’” and added “a true leader is one who is dedicated to the service of the nation and not triggers division among the people.”
Attacking the powers that be for trying to usurp all the seats of spiritual liberalism including the Ramakrishna Mission Banerjee said, “I have been told that once Belur Math managed the affairs at the Vivekananda Rocks at Kanyakumari where Swamiji used meditate but today the place has been usurped by a particular group. I have also been told that they are trying to threaten the Ramakrishna Mission into submission in order to usurp this order too. But we will not allow that to happen.”
Referring to Vivekananda who had “once puffed from a hookah of a Muslim person to check whether that triggers a fall from the caste,” her brand of Hinduism did not depend on the one preached by some handful of bigots. “My analysis of Hinduism will depend upon what Ramarkishna and Swami Vivekananda and not what some fundamentalists propagate.”