RekhaAmbedkar21, an Ambedkarite account, shared a picture of a Hindi newspaper cutting (archived link) which has a headline “If you want to build the future of India, crush Brahminism under your feet! -Swami Vivekananda.” The newspaper tells a story of Swami Vivekananda’s visit to Chicago in 1893 where he gave a speech in the Chicago Parliament.
The news story claims that Swami Vivekananda went to Chicago in 1893 to attend the World Religious Conference. He did not have the credentials to deliver a speech there, so he sent a telegram to a Brahmin Shankaracharya (Shankaracharya is not named here) and asked him to send the authorization certificate of being the spokesperson of Hindu religion. But Shankaracharya refused to give him the certificate saying, “You do not belong to the Brahmin caste but to the “Shudra” caste; therefore, you cannot be made the spokesperson of the Hindus.” Swami ji was very hurt by the casteism that happened to him and this behavior of Brahmin Shankaracharya.
The news story further goes that seeing him upset, Anagarika Dhammapala Boudh Ji, who was the spokesperson of Sri Lankan “Buddhism” based in Chicago, gave a consent letter to Swamiji on his behalf. And in this way he got a chance to express his views in the Parliament of Religions. It is because of Shankaracharya’s misbehavior that Swamiji has said in his book “Future of India” that if you want to make the future of India, then crush Brahminism under your feet.
In today’s fact-checking report, we aim to verify the accuracy of the claim “If you want to build the future of India, crush Brahminism under your feet” attributed to Swami Vivekananda.
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We started our fact check research with the keyword search “Future of India by Swami Vivekananda” and found that Future of India is not a book but a speech that Swami Vivekananda gave in Madras (now Chennai) on February 14, 1897.
According to information available on several websites and media reports, on February 14, 1897, the last day of his visit to Madras, Swami Vivekananda delivered a lecture at the Harmston Circus Pavilion in front of a crowd of 3,000 people. The title of the lecture was “The Future of India”. In the next step, we tried to find the transcript of a speech given by Swamiji in 1987. On the website of rkmasohra.org, we successfully found the transcript of this significant speech of 1897.
In his speech “The Future of India”, Swami Vivekananda emphasized on the crucial role of spiritual strength, youth empowerment and religious harmony in shaping the future of the nation. He also stressed on necessity for social reforms and abolition of caste discrimination and highlighted the need for a united India. The focus of the speech was India becoming a self-reliant nation based on spiritual values, education and social harmony.
This claim is completely false and baseless. In the PDF of the transcript that we found on page 3, Swami Vivekananda talks about the potential of lower caste to improve the social status and promote caste equality by studying Sanskrit. He says that education is the strength of the upper caste and he encourages the lower caste to gain this strength by giving priority to education.
Furthermore, on page 4, he references the Mahabharata as to how the caste system originated. Discussing the solution to eradicate the caste problem from the nation, he said, “Therefore the solution to the caste problem in India is not to degrade the upper castes, not to crush the Brahmins.” Here Swami Vivekananda proposed a solution for the eradication of the caste problem which did not involve humiliating the upper castes or suppressing Brahminhood. He also emphasizes the importance of preserving Brahminism for the broader good and credits Brahmins for producing people who truly possess great Brahmin qualities.
Nowhere in his entire speech did he talk about crushing Brahminism underfoot to build a better future for the country. Swami Vivekananda’s actual words, as reflected in the transcript, reveal a different story.
According to the information available on Swami Vivekananda’s Wikipedia page, when he reached Chicago in 1893, he was surprised to learn that no person could participate as a representative in Parliament without the credentials of a recognized religious organization/church. Since he was neither sent by independent India nor he was sent by the official representative of any of India’s religions to the Parliament of the World’s Religions, he did not have credentials. He also learned that Parliament would not open until the first week of September, since he did not have enough money to sustain in Chicago, he moved to Boston. There he became acquainted with Professor John Henry Wright of Harvard University. He was amazed by Swamiji’s knowledge.
Furthermore, according to Wright’s Wikipedia page, he encouraged Swamiji to attend and deliver speech at the Chicago Parliament, but he found that Swami Vivekananda did not have the credentials and bona fide to attend the Parliament. Upon learning of this, Wright himself wrote a letter of introduction to the President of the Parliament of the World’s Religions and suggested him to invite Vivekananda as a speaker, saying – “Here is a man who is more learned than all our learned professors put together.” Thus, with the help of Professor Wright, Swamiji got the opportunity to give a speech in the Parliament of Chicago. This event marked his beginning to rise as a charismatic and influential speaker, philosopher and spiritual leader.
On June 18, 1894, Swami Vivekananda also wrote a letter to Wright, addressing him as brother and thanking him for his kindness.
Furthermore, regarding Anagarika Dhammapala’s meeting with Swami Vivekananda, they met at the Parliament of Chicago, where Dhammapala, a Buddhist revivalist and social activist from Sri Lanka, had also come to attend the Parliament of Religions. Since they both shared the same goal of spreading spiritual values, this marked the beginning of their friendship. Moreover, there is no evidence of Dhammapala helping Swamiji acquire the credentials to deliver speech in Parliament.
Conclusion: The claim that Brahmin Shankaracharya refused to give authorization letter to Swami Vivekananda to represent himself as the spokesperson of Hinduism in Chicago due to casteism is false. Another claim that casteism by Brahmin Shankaracharya compelled Swamiji to write about crushing Brahminism in his book Future of India was also found to be false.
| Claim | Swami Vivekananda in his book “Future of India” has written about crushing Brahminism to build a better future for the nation |
| Claimed by | Rekha Yadav |
| Fact Check | False |
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