Lamenting the growing trend of anti-India sloganeering in some universities, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said some people thriving on the resources of the country are trying to throw it in the cauldron of terrorism, Naxalism and extremism.
Addressing the inaugural function of the five-day National Youth Festival on Swami Vivekananda's 157 birth anniversary here, the chief minister also exhorted youths to get out of Macaulay's mindset and appreciate that the world today expects India to mediate between America and Iran, unlike in the past when only the US or Russia was expecrted to broker peace.
Swami Vivekanand was born on January 12, 1863.
"The same people who thrive on the resources of the country are trying to throw India in the cauldron of terrorism, Naxalism and extremism. This is confirmed by their statements," the chief minister said.
"The slogans being raised in certain institutes of higher education in the country continuously trouble us. They warn us about where the centres of conspiracy against the country are located," the chief minister said.
Recalling Vivekananda's observation that "when a person starts being ashamed of his ancestors, it indicates that his end has come", Adityanath said, "When we are unable to take pride in the glorious moments of our past and the deeds of our great men, we are making our future bleak."
"Therefore, it has been said that a person, cut off from his past, is a 'Trishanku' (a person suspended midair upside down, midway his desired goal)," said the chief minister, adding, "A trishanku has no future, it remains disconnected."
Adityanath said, "The country got Independence in 1947 and at that time there were many people who thought the country came into being in 1947 and so those having the mentality of Macaulay exaggerated that we are in the process of becoming a nation. Some others went further and said I am Hindu by accident."
In his famous "Memorandum on (Indian) Education", he had argued that "Western learning was superior, and currently could only be taught (in India) through the medium of English. There was, therefore, a need to produce 'a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect', who could, in turn, develop the tools to transmit Western learning in the vernacular languages of India."
Referring to the globally growing respect for India, Chief Minister Adityanath said "earlier, if there was a dispute between two countries, intervention was expected from the US or Russia."