25 Years After 9/11, PM Modi Recalls Vivekananda’s Chicago Message of Tolerance

September 11 carries two profoundly different legacies: a call for religious harmony delivered in Chicago in 1893 and the terrorist attacks that struck the United States 108 years later. On Friday, as the US marked 25 years since those attacks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled Swami Vivekananda’s appeal for tolerance and universal acceptance.

“11th September 1893, Chicago. Swami Vivekananda’s captivating address offered a glimpse of the civilisational ethos of India. His inspiring words still reverberate across the world,” Modi wrote on X.

The prime minister shared excerpts from Vivekananda’s address at the Parliament of Religions, where the spiritual leader spoke about respect for different faiths and India’s tradition of offering shelter to persecuted communities.

“I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true,” Vivekananda said in the speech.

His address presented religious diversity through the image of streams taking different courses before reaching the same sea. Quoting the Bhagavad Gita, he reinforced the idea that people following different paths could ultimately arrive at the same spiritual destination.

That appeal for acceptance was accompanied by a forceful condemnation of sectarianism, bigotry and fanaticism. Vivekananda described the violence and destruction these forces had inflicted and expressed hope that the gathering would help bring religious hatred and persecution to an end.

“I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal,” he said.

Modi’s post recalling the speech coincided with the anniversary of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history.

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft in a coordinated assault on the United States. Two planes struck the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers in New York, while a third hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

The fourth aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew attempted to regain control from the hijackers.

The attacks killed 2,977 people, according to official US figures. Orchestrated by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, they prompted sweeping changes to American counterterrorism policy, military operations and domestic security.

At Ground Zero in New York, annual remembrance ceremonies honour those killed, with relatives and loved ones reading their names aloud.

On the same date, 133 years after Vivekananda addressed his Chicago audience, his warning about the human cost of fanaticism retains its resonance.

With inputs from ANI