Tale of two Narendras: Ram Madhav and Jayant Sinha compare PM Modi to Swami Vivekananda

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and Union minister Jayant Sinha on Tuesday likened Narendra Modi to the revered spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, saying the two share same traits such as courage and giving hope to people.

"Why is that we feel Swami ji is so inspiring, personal to us? I think there are three aspects. First, he is very humane... he is also universal. In some ways, he might have been the first global leader," Sinha said."It is a very, very rare quality, we come across such quality once in a generation, we are very fortunate to have a prime minister who has the quality, that he fills us with hope," he added. Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, made the remarks at the launch of Hindol Sengupta's book 'The Modern Monk: What Vivekananda Means To Us Today', published by Penguin.

Speaking at the event, Madhav said there were two qualities of the spiritual leader which stand out: "One, he was fearless, and the other that he had a clear understanding of the Hindu religion and about the land (India)." Recalling how Vivekananda, born as Narendranath, took the World Religion Parliament in Chicago in 1893 by storm, despite being from a then colonised country, Madhav said it was courageous on his part to have done so during those days. "He was fearless... he was courageous... there is some inherent connection between Narendras and courage. Narendras stand to be courageous," Madhav remarked, without making a direct mention of the complete name of the prime minister.

Lauding Vivekananda for being a "proud Hindu", Madhav said he had a clear understanding of dharma (religion) and this desha(land) and hailed him for transforming perception of India among people world over.
"He had a clear understanding of the dharma. He had the courage to say religion must have scrutiny of science. If there is no scientific scrutiny, the religion would die, he used to say...he also used to describe India as 'dharma pranah bharat' (religion is soul of India)," the BJP leader said.

Among others, the event was attended by Nehru Memorial Museum and Library director Shakti Sinha and Ramkrishna Mission's (Delhi) Swami Shantatmananda.