O India! Forget Not

O India! Forget not that the ideal of thy womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; 
forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Uma; 
forget not that thy marriage, thy wealth, thy life are not for sense-pleasure, are not for thy individual personal happiness; 
forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; 
forget not that thy social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; 
forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers. 

Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." 
Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother." 

                   - Swami Vivekananda, 
                     ‘Modern India’ – an article written in Bengali 
                      for Udbodhan