STATUE OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA DEFACED IN WEST BENGAL DISTRICT

A statue of Swami Vivekananda was found smeared with black ink in Nandakumar in Bengal’s East Midnapore district, about 97 km from Kolkata on Thursday.

Statues of various personalities including Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee, first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru, Bengali poet-playwright Michael Madhusudan Dutt have been defaced in Bengal recently. Reports of defacing and vandalism have also come from a number of other states.

The statue of the monk was erected a couple of years ago.

Officers of Nandakumar police station said they were trying to clean it at the earliest.

A war of words erupted between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in the area over the defacing. “It is matter of great shame that a statue of Vivekananda has been defaced. Swami Vivekananda is a pride of our country. Whoever has done it should be punished,” said Pradeep Das, BJP district president in East Midnapore.

Sukumar De, Trinamool Congress MLA from Nandakumar shot back, “Swami Vivekananda is our pride. We are surprised to learn that BJP is playing dirty politics after the statue was defaced. We have asked the police and local administration to find out the culprits and take suitable action.”

A disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Narendranath Dutta who became famous as Swami Vivekananda, was a Hindu monk who is regarded as a liberal face of Hinduism who reached out to the West with a message of harmony.

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