A year of Swami Vivekananda, 2012–13

Swami Vivekananda was born on 12 January 1863. On 12 January 2012 the Foundation began a year of programmes for his 150th birth anniversary, in the villages of Nawabganj block and in Bareilly city, and kept the celebration going well past the anniversary itself.

The programmes were simple and they belonged to the villages. On 15 August 2012 the flag was hoisted at the village centre and the children sang. On 14 January 2013, Makar Sankranti, villagers and volunteers sat down together on the ground for a khichdi sahbhoj, a shared meal. On 26 January 2013 the villages marked Republic Day together. And on 16 April 2013 a seminar in Bareilly closed the year, with speakers on Swami Vivekananda's message for young India.

These gatherings followed a habit that began earlier: on 2 October 2011 the Foundation had marked Gandhi Jayanti with a goshthi, and farmers' meetings were held around Govardhan Puja every autumn. Festivals and anniversaries were the Foundation's way of bringing a village together before asking it to plant trees or send its children to school.