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“Friends, Swami Vivekananda believed that educating the youth was the ultimate foundation for nation-building.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said these words recently in Mysuru while inaugurating the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Youth Centre, built by the Ramakrishna Ashrama on Narayana Shastri Road, in the heart of the city.

It is a place steeped in Vivekananda’s Mysuru connection. The memorial stands adjoining the historic Niranjana Mutt, where Swami Vivekananda is recorded to have stayed during his visit to Mysuru in November 1892. Spread across about 36,591 square feet, the new memorial is meant to preserve his memory, his ideas and his vision for generations to come.

But there was a history beneath those words that remained unspoken.

He did not mention that the memorial stands on the very ground where a 140-year-old school once stood, a school that was among the earliest institutions in Asia established specifically for the education of girls. He did not mention that this was the Maharani’s school, established under the patronage of Maharani Kempananjammanni Devi of Mysuru at a time when sending a girl to school was itself a radical act. He did not mention the thousands of girls who had passed through its doors, carrying books in their hands and dreams in their hearts.

He did not mention the protests, the petitions, the legal battle, the citizens who stood in the streets, the former students who refused to let their school disappear quietly. He did not mention that when the question arose of building a memorial to Vivekananda on that very land, Mysoreans did not say, “No memorial.” They said, “Let the memorial come. But let the school live too.”

After all, this was never a battle between a school and Vivekananda.

And Modi certainly did not mention the night when the school was finally brought down under heavy police protection. By morning, the........

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