The Hindu : Karnataka News : `Youth should take the nation to progress'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

`Youth should take the nation to progress'

By Our Staff Correspondent

TUMKUR, JUNE 9. The Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, has lamented that India had become a "nation of grumblers'' while underlining the need for the youth to take over the reins of administration and put the nation on the path of peace, progress and prosperity. Inaugurating the Swami Vivekananda Youth Conference at the Birla Auditorium here on Wednesday, Mr. Chaturvedi said freedom had not brought any happiness to the poor. People grumbled against governments. People's representatives blamed officials and the bureaucrats blamed the politicians. There was hardly any accountability in public life. Every section of administration had failed to gain social acceptability. People had lost confidence in the governments. One envied the other. Fall in values and mutual mistrust had become the norm of the day.

Mr. Chaturvedi said in the pre-Independence days, Vivekananda asked: "Are we ready for freedom?'' He wanted to prepare the people for freedom, because, for him, freedom was responsibility. C. Rajagopalachari shared this view and asked (from Vellore Jail): "How will we use freedom?'' Mahatma Gandhi's main concern, after the country attained freedom, was: "What will we do (with freedom).''

Recalling what Ram Manohar Lohia had said about Vivekananda meditating on the "Rock Memorial'' in Kanyakumari (that Vivekananda only reflected upon the pathetic conditions of the people from there to the Himalayas), Mr. Chaturvedi said Vivekananda focussed on the youth, the women and the poor. Time had come for the youth to take over leadership and wipe out poverty from the country.

Reaffirming that Vivekananda's vision was the reason for the State's supremacy in information technology, Mr. Chaturvedi said the doyen of industry, J.R.D. Tata, set up the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore only after being told by Vivekananda that it was important to prepare people in science to be able to run industry. "M. Visvesvaraya talked of `productivity' and Vivekananda advocated team work and cooperative effort, during their days. Management experts have now been teaching them as techniques,'' Mr. Chaturvedi said.

"Education, besides enabling one to stand on his legs, must manifest the perfection which is in him,'' he said and added that Vivekananda wanted education to be relevant and perfect, not just useful and good.

Swami Harshanandaji Maharaj, President of Sri Ramakrishna Math, Bangalore, said the youth should work hard. Several people worked round the clock for several years in the U.S. to put a man on the Moon in 1969. It was this hard work that had enabled the U.S. to achieve supremacy in the world. He said any plan of education should include preparation of the body, art of expression and growth of intellectual power.

The Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission of Valmikinagar and Tumkur Metro Junior Chamber had organised the conference. Ravi Sastry recited Vedic hymns. Hajira Banu welcomed the gathering. The Mission President, Swami Nirmalanandaji, and the Chamber President, B. Umesh, and senior officials were present. T.V. Narasimha Murthy, the chamber's national Vice-President, proposed a vote of thanks.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka