Ramakrishna Mission and Community Service in Eastern India 1922-1962 : A Qualitative

Contents Introduction. 1. Historical background years of consolidation (1897 1922). 2. Educational enterprise. 3. Health Services of the Ramakrishna Mission. 4. Rural reconstruction. 5. Uplift of Backward Classes and Tribes in Assam. 6. Relief operations. 7. Work for and among women. 8. Programmes for the Orphans and the physically handicapped. 9. Cultural activities. 10. Conclusion. Epilogue. Service to Humanity a Counter Hegemonic Device Swami Vivekananda (1863 1902) and Antonio Gramsci (1891 1937). Bibliography. Index. The work deals with the nature scope and impact of the varied community development activities of the Ramakrishna Mission in Eastern India. Serving man as God incarnate which is part of the spiritual Sadhana of the order has given a new orientation to their social activism. Vivekananda's dictum We help them to help themselves has made the Mission distinct from other philanthropic organizations as well as the government working for mass uplift. The Mission believes that it is not through doles and charity but only through assertion of self knowledge that one can achieve safety succour and salvation. This concept of seva is a potent device which it unleashed to tide over a divided disturbed and disintegrated human society reeling under hegemonic domination alien as well as indigenous. The work tries to evaluate how far the Mission was successful in its endeavour. The book also tries to show the similarity between Vivekananda's line of thought and that of Antonio Gramsci's concept of Counter Hegemonic and whether Gramsci was in any way influenced by Vivekananda's ideology. Hope this volume will be of particular interest to readers of religious social cultural and intellectual history as well as to NGOs working for community development. 400 pp.…