When Vivekananda called Khetri ruler his ‘only friend on earth’

As the nation paid homage to  Swami Vivekananda on the occasion of the 125th year of his historic address at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, the copper town Khetri in Jhunjhunu district too has reasons for celebrations. The trip to United States by the Swami was made possible because of  the financial help  given by the Maharaja Ajit Singh of Khetri. It was the maharaja who provided the saffron robe and the turban to the Swami that became his trademark attire.

The district administration of Jhunjhunu  in 1999 had discovered 106-year-old rare letters written by Swami Vivekananda to the then ruler of Khetri. Vivekananda lived in Jhunjhunu for a number of years at the invitation of the maharaja . The rare letters were found in the record room of the sub-divisional officer’s office. The record room was being cleaned on the eve of the visit of then collector Sudhansh Pant when the letters written by Swami Vivekananda were discovered by chance by a patwari. The village patwari (who keeps land records) brought the old letters to the notice of sub-divisional officer Ram Niwas Mehta who went through them and was surprised to know that they were written by Swami Vivekananda and Motilal Nehru.

The letters, all of them in English, were handwritten by the  Swami Vivekananda. They were written between February and December 1893.The letter which was a prized possession of the state government  was presented to the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur in West Bengal  on the suggestion made  by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi to the then Chief Minister  Ashok Gehlot in 2002. It was Sonia Gandhi,who presented these rare letters to the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur during a function.

There are  letters which are  now displayed at the Mission’s museum at Belur in which the  Swami  appreciated the role of Khetri state in providing him help and patronage. The Swami has elaborately written about his experience in Chicago.

Besides discovering the letters of Swami Vivekananda, letters written to the ruler of Khetri by Motilal Nehru, were also discovered. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s mother, Swaroop Rani, belonged to Khetri and her father was in the service of the ruler.

All these papers and letters, which belonged to the erstwhile princely state of Khetri, were transferred alongwith other papers to the Rajasthan government after its formation in 1949.

During the residence of the Swamiji in America, the  maharaja  wrote him  on March 4th, 1895,  in which the maharaja gave heartfelt thanks of his state for his worthy representation of Hinduism at the Chicago Parliament of Religion.

The Swami’s reply to the maharaja is also among the letters displayed at the Belur museum.

There are letters written by the Swami to the maharaja where he demanded two tiger skins for the Belur Math and also help for his poor mother and brother in Calcutta and had requested for Rs 100 per month’s help for the family and help to build a house for the family in Kolkata.