Monk, Commander, Citizen: Political Theology from Vivekananda to Subhas Chandra Bose, 1893–1945

This article compares Swami Vivekananda’s ethics of seva , disciplined character and universalist Vedānta with Subhas Chandra Bose’s project of sovereign state-making. It reads Vivekananda’s published speeches and letters, early issues of Prabuddha Bharata , and Swami Gambhirananda’s institutional history of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission alongside studies of the Indian National Army (INA), Azad Hind Radio and the INA trial. The argument is that religious and ethical vocabularies could authorise practices of collective responsibility: service, accounting, education, military training and public commitment. The Mission’s institutional development connected spiritual authority with civil association, while Bose mobilised duty and sacrifice through an army and a provisional government. Placing these institutional practices in comparison, and the Chicago addresses of 1893 beside the Red Fort proceedings of 1945–46, the article tracks resemblance and divergence. Bose’s documented engagement with Vivekananda does not establish a direct institutional genealogy from Belur to Singapore. Nor do ideals of service and chosen obedience establish that discrimination or coercion disappeared. Political theology is used here as an interpretive framework for examining how moral claims authorise association and command. The comparison illuminates the formation of public capacities under empire while preserving the distinction between religious service and the pursuit of state sovereignty.