Kolkata, 19 February (H.S.):

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the Prime Minister of cultural insensitivity towards Bengal's great spiritual figures in a scathing post on the social media platform 'X'. She said that the Prime Minister's addition of the prefix Swami to the name of the great Yugavatar Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansadev on such a sacred occasion as his birth anniversary is unprecedented and inappropriate.

In her post, the Chief Minister wrote that Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa is widely worshipped and revered as Thakur, which literally means God. After his Mahaprayan, his monastic disciples founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, and in keeping with Indian tradition, these disciples are called Swamis.

Mama Banerjee clarified that the holy trinity of the Ramakrishna tradition is known as Thakur, Ma, and Swamiji. Thakur is Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansadev, Ma is Mother Sarada, and Swamiji is Swami Vivekananda. He said that the prefix Swami is not used for a guru, but for renunciant disciples of the Ramakrishna Order.

The Chief Minister urged the Prime Minister not to discover new prefixes and suffixes for the great renaissance figures of Bengal who played a key role in the making of modern India.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Priyanka Pandey