During his travels all over India, Swami Vivekananda was deeply moved to
see the appalling poverty and backwardness of the masses. He was the
first religious leader in India to understand and openly declare that
the real cause of India’s downfall was the neglect of the masses. The
immediate need was to provide food and other bare necessities of life
to the hungry millions. For this they should be taught improved methods
of agriculture, village industries, etc. It was in this context that
Vivekananda grasped the crux of the problem of poverty in India (which
had escaped the attention of social reformers of his days): owing to
centuries of oppression, the downtrodden masses had lost faith in their
capacity to improve their lot. It was first of all necessary to infuse
into their minds faith in themselves. For this they needed a
life-giving, inspiring message. Swamiji found this message in the
principle of the Atman, the doctrine of the potential divinity of the
soul, taught in Vedanta, the ancient system of religious philosophy of
India. He saw that, in spite of poverty, the masses clung to religion,
but they had never been taught the life-giving, ennobling principles of
Vedanta and how to apply them in practical life.
Thus the masses needed two kinds of knowledge: secular knowledge to
improve their economic condition, and spiritual knowledge to infuse in
them faith in themselves and strengthen their moral sense. The next
question was, how to spread these two kinds of knowledge among the
masses? Through education – this was the answer that Swamiji found.
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