As voters in 57 constituencies including Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh prepare to head to the polls for the final vote on June 1, there is silence in the Indian political movement. Leaders of all political parties who spearheaded the over a month and a half long campaign for the 18th Indian Lok Sabha elections are taking a rest. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not giving up on the campaign. No one has had such a gruelling, almost punitive campaign schedule as him. There are hardly any constituencies he has not visited, but he has no intention of stopping. He should have known that according to the Bhagavad Gita, maun (silence) is training the mind to be silent as well as the mouth. If he had found virtue by meditating in the caves of Kedarnath in the remaining days of the 2019 elections, this time he has chosen the Vivekananda Rock in Kanyakumari for the purpose.
At the confluence of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, where the east and west coasts of India meet, Modi is emulating one of the greatest monks of the 19th and 20th centuries, Swami Vivekananda, who considered everyone not as Hindu or Muslim but as his “brothers and sisters”. As in Kedarnath, here in the far reaches of the earth, a photo of Modi meditating will reach tens of millions of homes and mobilise some of the voters he has primarily targeted. He even claimed to be the “chosen one” to fulfil a divine mission. No wonder political parties like the DMK and the Trinamool Congress are against meditation, calling it “electioneering by other means”.
Modi knows that such protests will be in vain as the Election Commission chief is not a man like the late TN Seshan. Meditation or prayer is simply communion with God, best done in solitude, away from floodlights and flashlights. When Swami Vivekananda swam across the bay and meditated on a rock for three days, all he wanted was communion with God. Meditation helped him dedicate himself to the service of humanity. He did not bother the local fishermen or the general public who visit the tip of the country to witness the spectacular sunrises and sunsets. But Swami had no ambition to influence the electorate like Narendra Modi.
Release Date: Friday, May 31, 2024 6:00 AM
