Nothing holy ever makes headlines. Some of us even call ourselves liberal humanists without realizing that those great Europeans one takes pride in were all very holy men. There is a difference between the holy and the good. The Ramakrishna Mission has recently lost its fourteenth President and will have to search for a new leader. The Order was founded by Swami Vivekananda and now languishes due to apathy from its very own people. The Statesman reports the death of the charismatic 91-year Swami Gahanananda. His death is not newsworthy because he has never been in any scandal, or pilfered money or did anything miraculous. That is if we discount the very miracle of the existence of the monks of the Ramakrishna Order. Oh there are no known pedophiles amongst the monks to make them wickedly interesting.

So why on earth anyone would be interested in some weird men vowed to apparently loveless celibacy?

a) The Order has opened Universities in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. There they offer courses on Indian culture and ethos. This is the need of the hour for us when we are bothered with only aping the West. Our youth see their culture as outdated and useless. They provide to the HRD ministry a suitable blueprint of creating successful higher educational structures.

b) These monks are super-qualified and could have had great careers for themselves. Yet they have sacrificed everything for India. They have twelve years of specialized training. This kind of human resource is invaluable and needs further cultivation.

c) They had once harbingered the Renaissance in India, now we need their spirit to enthuse a new awakening which will prepare India to become the next super-power.

d) When most other religious institutes are reeling from various corruption charges, these men have been so free of taint that none hears of them in the media. We thus have a trained corpus of single men, austere and honest to help provide much needed leadership to India. Being celibate they are often more free to help us in our fights against various evils like poverty and terrorism.

It is a shame that we gawk when a Shankaracharya is dragged to prison. We are constantly watching for bad elements in our religion. But alas, in the name of vigilantism we are killing our own selves. Roots are important and we are hell-bent to cut our own roots.

Most probably, you who read this will not take this article seriously. Only, because Hinduism has ceased to be of any importance to Hindus.