In a recent essay (Why Vivekananda would have opposed any Ramakrishna Mission collaboration with the BJP), Mahitosh Mandal points out how the Ramakrishna Math and Mission appears to be indulging in a dangerous alliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, not least as the latter ramps up its efforts in advance of the 2021 West Bengal state election.
While acknowledging that the founder of the Mission, Swami Vivekananda, has for some time been co-opted by associations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Mandal is concerned to emphasise that any attempt to posit conformity between the Swami’s philosophy and the ideology of the BJP runs the risk of distorting core tenets of Vivekananda’s teaching. Above all, Mandal wishes to rescue Vivekananda’s “Vedantic approach” from any association with…