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Who Was Swami Pranavananda And Why Should You Be Knowing About Him?
Aravindan Neelakandan
Jul 15, 2018, 07:13 PM | Updated 07:13 PM IST
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In 1984, Prof Ninian Smart (1927-2001), an authority in religious studies in the Western academia, co-authored along with Hindu monk Swami Purananada, a biography of a Bengali monk who had attained samadhi in 1941. That monk was Swami Pranavananda - founder of Bharat Sevashram Sangha (BSS). His life was short, but an intense period of 45 years.
For a non-Bengali, Swami Pranavananda is mainly known, if known at all, through two sources: Amar Chitra Katha and the morning prayer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS (Ekatmata Stotra). So it comes as a surprise that Ninian Smart should have chosen to write the biography of this monk. Even though Prof Smart has been credited with attempts of making the religious study departments of the Western academia less Christian-centric in their approach, given the general Hindu-phobic nature of academia, it was with caution that this writer started reading his work.
In the1980s, Purananda, a direct disciple of Pranavananda, brought Smart the draft of the biography of his guru that he had written. It outlined the life and teachings of Pranavananda. Smart took this material as a ‘general basis’ and started working on it using other sources like the biography written by Swami Vedananda, etc. The result is the book, which is currently under review. The special emphasis of Smart was “on giving a sense of the actual fabric of the Hinduism in which the acharya was himself so important a strand”.
This would help in making his readers’ “views of the Hindu tradition alter somewhat”. His contribution to the biography concentrates mainly on the question “if (Pranavananda's) dynamism has helped to create a new consciousness within Hinduism which can lead to a restoration of Hindu values and a flourishing of genuine religion in the sub-continent” which according to Smart “is something of vital moment to global civilisation, in which Hindu values must surely play a major role.”
First brought out in 1984 (George Allen & Unwin), the book has been republished by Routledge as a part of a series on Indians under the British. The book also sets the Hindutva movement in its historical, spiritual and civilisational contexts.
Swami Pranavananda
Born as Binod in 1896, Pranavananda was given a special initiation by Baba Gambhirananda Maharaj of Gorakhpur on the new moon day of October 1913. In 1924, he was given complete monk-hood by Swami Govindananda Giri. In terms of spirituality, “he was a master of nirvikalpa samadhi - the deepest image-less trance in which the mystic attains unity with the formless Brahman”. He was equally aware of the need for Hindu unity and passionately worked towards achieving it. He simultaneously countered the Islamist aggression and social stagnation in the Hindu society. When Ninian Smart discusses the enlightenment (full moon day of Magha 1916), he reveals his own in-depth understanding of Hinduism:
There has been debate as to whether he was a Monist or a Dualist. It should be pointed out that these terms have to be seen in their Hindu context. ... Within the context of orthodox theology as seen in the Vedanta, the mainstream of Hindu interpretation of the sacred texts, probably the most genuine and important line of thinking lies uneasily between the two extremes. It is known as the Bhedabheda school, that is the ‘identity and difference’ school. ... It would probably be best to see the consciousness of Binod as expressed through the ‘identity-and-difference’ formula.
Already a band of brilliant young men had gathered around Biond. People around the village he lived, irrespective of caste and creed had started seeing him as a humanist saviour. The book provides instances of an untouchable suffering from a terminal illness, whom Pranavananda nursed. When he died, the monk himself conducted his funeral like Adi Sankara lighting the pyre of his mother. Similarly, when a Muslim had a respiratory block and was given up for dead, the timely intervention of the swami and the first aid provided by him, saved him. Many were ready to believe that the swami had brought the dead Muslim back to life.
Between 1919 and 1921, as epidemics, famine and cyclone ravaged Bengal Pranavananda and his disciples carried out selfless humanitarian work. Here, Smart makes an important observation:
Binod and his small band of self-denying youths travelled the villages of East Bengal, helping the starving, cremating and disposing of the dead, and giving advice on hygiene, diet and spiritual matters. … He and his followers were servants of the people, especially the poor and suffering, both Hindu and Muslim. His regard for Muslims is significant in view of the fact that he was also very firm on the need to have a self-reliant Hindu consciousness.
In his relief work, not only was there no communal discrimination, he even convinced the rich Hindus to provide shelter to the Muslims affected by the disaster. He converted his own home as a refugee centre. His mother, who had just lost a son in a tragedy, was fearfully looking at her other son walking into the storm. Smart gives a moving picture:
His mother held his hand, trying to keep him there. She clung to his hand in terrible fear. It was not long since Bhola’s death. ... Trees were snapping like matches, roofs were being blown away, walls crumbled, the streams were swollen, and the wind made it hard even to stand up. ... After two hours of work, his home began to look like a refugee camp. He then went to the Muslim quarter, where many of the poor were waiting to die, in the name of Allah, accepting his will. He gathered twenty-five or thirty of the worst sufferers and took them to the house of the zamindar, who could hardly refuse the brahmachari’s plea that he should shelter his unfortunate tenants... He went to the village of the untouchables, poor cobblers and leather-workers, and escorted them too to relative safety. Everyone is equal: there is no untouchability – such was his conviction.
Smart approaches even small details of Hindu life in a refreshingly respectful way without diluting academic rigour. When speaking about the Krishna Bhakthi Bhajans sung in the ashram, he cautions his readers that “the charm and spiritual attractiveness of the Krishna stories are important for us to understand, and are not always clearly perceived by Western readers”. Smart explains the diagnosis that was made by Swami Pranavananda on what was affecting the national life:
In particular he wished to reinvigorate the Hindu community. As we have seen he related well to Muslims and often helped them. But his heart lay with the Hindu community. They had been enfeebled and humiliated by a double conquest. On the one hand they had fallen under the yoke of the Mughals. Even the holy city of Banaras bore the imprint of Islamic rule; Aurangzeb’s tall mosque dominated the skyline above the myriad temples which huddled along the ghats. On the other hand India was now under alien British governance and the sacred religion was often attacked by Christian missionaries and arrogant administrators. No wonder Hindus often displayed unwelcome sycophancy and a servile lack of spirit.
Bharat Sevashram Sangha (BSS), which he created, combined inner sadhana seamlessly with national resurgence and social emancipation. Already the great scientist Acharya P C Roy had seen and appreciated the organising abilities of Pranavananda during the cyclone and famine relief. As chairman of the Famine Relief Committee, P C Roy marvelled that “hundreds of workers he recruited in no time” and “the management of a competent leader that made the famine relief successful”.
When after famine relief work, Rs 60,000 remained with the committee, a princely sum those days, the visionary in Pranavananda suggested to P C Roy that they could be used to create new cottage industries. Here is an eye-witness account of how the ravished villages remarkably bounced back to life, thanks to Pranavananda’s initiative, then just in his twenties:
Still fresh in my memory is the picture of the reviving of the dying villages:thousands of spinning wheels revolving; hand looms day and night making noise in weaving cloth; cane and bamboo baskets being stored in bulk; new free schools introducing a different sort of curriculum; libraries getting new kinds of books; charitable dispensaries treating not only men but animals as well; the workers constantly going round the whole area to supervise these activities;bells echoing three times a day from ashram temples during prayer.
Pranavananda never compromised on equality. To him “the problem of Hindu independence was brought about by the social divisions within the people" and “greater equality was a precondition of national liberation”. He opposed untouchability and caste divisions both in principle and practice. His Hindu Milan or Unity Centers aimed to annihilate these fissiparous tendencies:
He argued that there was a divine element in every person and each individual, therefore, should have reverence for others. He was insistent that nearly all the social injustices in Hindu society were due to the lack of free mixing between people. All castes and classes should mingle together on an equal footing in the Hindu Unity Centres. Egalitarianism and mutual help were preconditions for the resurrection of the true, vibrant, courageous spirit of the Hindus.
Ninian Smart quotes Swami Pranavananda on why Hindu society should be well organised:
I like to remind the leaders in this connection that even if the much-talked-of Hindu-Muslim unity is established in the political field, still the necessity of reorganising Hindu society will not diminish in the least; the real object of which is to reform and reconstruct the disintegrated Hindu social system and to reorganise and reunite the scattered Hindu masses into a well-compact brotherhood on the basis of Hindu religion and culture. I assure you that in my Hindu organisational work, there is no room for fanaticism or communal hatred.I believe on the contrary that the more the Hindus are organised and united,the more the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity will draw nearer to fulfillment …
Dharma Rashtra
Despite his failing health due to diabetes, he was travelling. Smart describes an incident of the swami sleeping in the railway station so that he would not waste time travelling and attend the rally the very next day morning. In his speeches, he emphasised his vision of future independent India as dharma rashtra. Ninian Smart deserves all respect and appreciation for the holistic understanding he provides about the term:
The Hindu State was to be an open and tolerant one, although built according to the age-old structures of Hindu culture. The Acharya combined militancy with pluralism and so wished to blend toleration with the vigorous self-defence and re-creation of society which he saw as necessary to the advancement of the Hindu cause.
Ninian Smart goes to a great extent to explain what the dharma rashtra is and is not. At the outset he points out that the dharma rashtra as "a religious state" is "different from that of a theocratic State”. The year Smart was writing this book was 1984. He was wondering if the dynastic nature of Indian democracy led by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi lineage was actually a dharmic democratic monarchy. But then Smart raises some really prophetic questions:
Thus for practical purposes India seems to be acquiring at least the formal properties of Dharma Rashtra, even if in some ways it may lack the substance. But if we count the plural philosophy of neo-Vedanta as expounded by Swami Vivekananda as the new substance of Hindu doctrines, then it may be that even the substance of a newly-interpreted Dharma may be getting woven into the fabric of India long after Gandhi. In this respect it could be argued that Swami Pranavananda was more prophetic of the shape of things to come than was the Mahatma. Can we, then, see signs that the ideal order towards which he strove and which he helped to sum up and symbolise in his own crowned figure and royal robe may be developing as India goes beyond its Congress heritage? Will there be a more conscious attempt to realise the Dharma State, modified for operation in the changing modern world? Was the Acharya in that sense the Prophet of a new age in Hindu evolution?Emphasis not in the original
Answering his own questions with a passage from Sri Aurobindo, Ninian Smart uses the term ‘Hinduness’ positively as a phenomenon that makes social justice and equality crucial. As other religions are increasingly becoming organised in India, Hindus need organisational infrastructure to attain their unity. Swami Pranavananda was providing exactly that. The holistic view that Ninian Smart provides in understanding and even defending the concept of Dharma Rashtra is worth internalising by all students of Indian history, religion and politics:
It is a cliche, but a false cliche, that Hinduism is world-negating. The Sangha belied this judgement in a double way. On the one hand it incarnated the Dharma Rashtra ideal, which is the reverse of world-negating; on the other, it linked the most profound austerity and the most absorbed sense of the Transcendent through meditation and prayer to the most energetic kind of social and medical service to others. ... (T) he Acharya stood for that more widespread sense in Hinduism that the Dharma runs like an electric pulse through the whole of cosmic and social existence.
The book is important for two reasons. One: it brings out vividly the life of an extraordinary nation builder and a unique spiritual leader. Two, it shows the exceptional insights Ninian Smart one of the internationally acclaimed scholar of world religions showed in studying Hindutva movement – refreshingly different from the run-of-the-mill Hindu-phobic academics like Wendy Doniger and Christopher Jaffrelot etc, outside India and our own home grown anti-Hindus like Romila Thapar and D N Jha.
It is a timely reprint but costly. One can only wish the Indian government soon acquires the copyright of this book and publishes it through Publication Division or a Hindu organisation subsidises the book and takes the inspiring life of Swami Pranavananda and his far reaching vision to the people of India.
Prophet of a New Hindu Age: The Life and Times of Acharya Pranavananda: Volume 19 (Routledge Library Editions: British in India), 2017; Ninian Smart and Swami Purnananda; Kindle edition: Rs 1,452.55
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Aravindan is a contributing editor at Swarajya.
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