PM Modi Opens Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav Global Sammelan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav Global Sammelan at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 23 October 2026. The gathering marks the celebration organised by the Chinmaya Mission, the spiritual and educational body founded by Swami Chinmayananda. Calling the occasion a deeply emotional one, the Prime Minister said the Mission was not merely an institution but a living thought founded by a sage, and that what is truly of the spirit is by its nature immortal.

A meeting recalled after three decades

At the event a Holobot allowed the audience an interaction with Swami Chinmayananda, and the Prime Minister said the experience carried him back to his meeting with the spiritual leader in Vadodara in 1993. He recalled travelling to invite Swamiji to Chicago for the centenary of the Parliament of the World's Religions, which marked a hundred years of Swami Vivekananda's address there. Swamiji campaigned for the event across America and passed away in San Diego on 3 August that year, and his absence was felt at the Chicago gathering held on 11 September. Their last conversation, the Prime Minister said, had turned on building the strength of the young.

The Mission's work

• Swami Chinmayananda began the Gita Gyana Yagna to carry the Upanishads, Vedanta and the scriptures to ordinary people.
• More than 100 Chinmaya educational institutions now teach lakhs of students, combining modern subjects with Indian values.
• His radio programme on the Art of Man Making guided countless listeners, and his Guru Swami Sivananda had blessed him with the words go and roar like a lion.
• A commemorative coin was released during his birth centenary in 2015.
• He stood behind Eknath Ranade's resolve to build the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in the sea off Kanyakumari and gave the very first financial contribution to the project.

The volunteers' journey

The Prime Minister praised the young volunteers of the Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav, who covered 40,000 kilometres over 300 days to reach more than one lakh young citizens. He said lakhs of the Mission's youth today act as cultural ambassadors for India and pass Indian values on to the next generation.

Towards 2047

Quoting the Upanishadic line that calls us children of immortality, the Prime Minister said the idea of an Amrit Mahotsav on the seventy-fifth year of Independence was meant to serve both as a launch pad for a developed India and as a revival of the country's old concern for humanity. He pointed to the rebuilding of Kashi Vishwanath Dham, the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Ujjain's Mahakal Mahalok, Kedarnath and Badrinath, and to the return of stolen antiquities, as proof of a cultural revival. He noted that in 2047 the centenary of India's Independence will fall in the same period as the centenary of the Chinmaya Mission, so the two journeys must move forward together, and he asked the Mission's volunteers to unite society against divisive forces and to connect every citizen with the goal of a developed India.