Englishmen who died for Indians!

Surprised?

We have studied in our history books that many Indians died in India’s freedom struggle and also in the World Wars (43,000 Indian soldiers died in the First World War fighting for Britain). We have read how badly the Englishmen treated the Indians when they ruled India and also about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which British Indian Army soldiers opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children that killed more than 350 and wounded more than 1500. All these remind us of the sufferings of people during the British rule in India before Independence.

This is our understanding of pre-Independence India that Indians were made to suffer lot of hardships by the Britishers. Therefore I was surprised when I read the biography of Swami Vivekananda, which mentions about some Englishmen who died for India. Here is the passage:

When Swami Vivekananda returned to India from Europe on December 9, 1900, he was told about the passing away of his beloved disciple Mr. Sevier at Mayavati in the Himalayas. He was greatly distressed, and on December 11 wrote to Miss MacLeod: 'Thus two great Englishmen (The other was Mr. Goodwin.) gave up their lives for us – us, the Hindus. This is martyrdom, if anything is.' Again he wrote to her on December 26: 'He was cremated on the bank of the river that flows by his ashrama, a la Hindu, covered with garlands, the brahmins carrying the body and the boys chanting the Vedas. The cause has already two martyrs. It makes me love dear England and its heroic breed. The Mother is watering the plant of future India with the best blood of England. Glory unto Her!'

On reading this passage, I got curious to know more about the two Englishmen, Mr. Sevier and Mr. Goodwin. My search provided me with the following details:

J.J. Goodwin (born 1870, died 1898) was inspired by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda during the latter’s visit to Europe and America. He became Swami Vivekananda’s disciple and came to India. Goodwin was a fast and accurate stenographer and most of Swami Vivekananda's lectures were reported by him. He was simple as a child and wonderfully responsive to the slightest show of kindness. He died, due to enteric fever, at the young age of 28 years.
Swami Vivekananda – on the death of Mr. J. J. Goodwin May 1898 – wrote to Goodwin's mother:

“With infinite sorrow I learn the sad news of Mr. Goodwin's departure from this life, the more so as it was terribly sudden and therefore prevented all possibilities of my being at his side at the time of death. The debt of gratitude I owe him can never be repaid, and those who think they have been helped by any thought of mine ought to know that almost every word of it was published through the untiring and most unselfish exertions of Mr. Goodwin. In him I have lost a friend true as steel, a disciple of never-failing devotion, a worker who knew not what tiring was, and the world is less rich by one of those few who are born, as it were, to live only for others.”

"It is entirely due to his efforts that the Swami's utterances in those countries (England and India) have been preserved." – Sara Ellen Waldo

The other Englishman mentioned in the biography of Swami Vivekananda is Captain James Henry Sevier. The founding of Advaitha Ashrama at Mayavati in the heart of the Himalayas, near Almora, is credited to Mr. Sevier and Mrs Charlotte Sevier. They had met Swami Vivekananda on his second visit to England in 1895, and at once a close relationship formed between them and the Swami. Earlier, Mr. Sevier had served in India for 5 years in the British Indian Army. Almost on the first occasion when he saw Mrs Sevier, the Swami addressed her by the sweet name of "Mother” and to Mr. Sevier he at once manifested a most kind and intimate bond. With these two he felt very much at home, discussing with them all his plans and his troubles, as though he were their own child, for both Mr. and Mrs Sevier were considerably older than him. From the very beginning he chose them, among his other followers of London, as his confidents and future helpers.

When Swami Vivekananda confided in them, in Switzerland, his desire to found a monastery in the Himalayas, they readily consented, and they came to India to carry out his intention. They renounced their worldly life to settle in India, virtually as Sannyasins. The Sevier couple along with Swami Swaroopananda identified a place, purchased it and built an ashram that eventually came to be known as Advaitha Asrama, where the principles of advaitha philosophy are followed and idol (or image) worship is strictly prohibited.

After the sudden death of its first editor, 24-year old B. R. Rajam Iyer at Chennai, the publication of the English journal Prabuddha Bharata was halted for a few months in May 1898. Meanwhile in Almora, Swami Vivekananda asked Mr Sevier and his wife to revive the magazine, and the editorship was given to Swami Swarupananda.

It was the good fortune of Mr. Sevier to pass away while occupied with his heart and soul in his great work, and before his death he had the satisfaction of seeing a monastery started and in efficient working order. On his death, he was cremated according to Hindu traditions, as per his wish.

On reading about Mr Goodwin and Mr Sevier, we are reminded that there are good and bad people in every civilization, every country and every group of people.

Every day we hear about terrorist attacks, bomb blasts, and death of innocents. It is time to understand that these are the handiwork of a very small group of people, misled to the wrong path or who have chosen the wrong path due to misfortune or for monetary gains. It is not right to extrapolate such incidents and nurture bitterness towards any community as such. Discriminating people on the basis of religion, caste, language, wealth, or education is cowardice.

Let the following message of Swami Vivekananda guide our thinking in the right direction:

“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external or internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary.”