Ramakrishna Math elects 88-year-old monk as the order’s 16th president

HOWRAH: The Ramakrishna Math and Mission on Monday unanimously elected Swami Smaranananda as its 16th president. The board of trustees of the Math and the governing body of the Mission, in a meeting during the day, elected the 88-year-old monk who was functioning as the interim president since the demise of former president Swami Atmasthananda on June 18.
At a press conference at the order’s Belur Math headquarters, Ramakrishna Math and Mission general secretary Swami Suvirananda told reporters: “It is with a lot of happiness that we want to inform you that Swami Smaranananda has been unanimously elected as the 16th president of the order. Swami Shivamayananda will take up his position as the vice-president. The President Maharaj will formally take office on July 21.”
The Math and the Mission has five vice-presidents who form a part of 20-member governing body and board of trustees.
Congratulating the president of the order, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, “Pranam and heartfelt wishes to Swami Smaranananda for being elected for the post of president of Ramakrishna Math and Mission.”
Swami Smaranananda, the senior most vice-president of the order, was born in Andami village in Tamil Nadu’s Tanjavur in 1929. Right from his student days he was a voracious reader and a deep thinker. His first contact with the Ramakrishna order was at the tender age of 20 when he set foot in the order’s Mumbai branch and in 1952, the 22-year-old embraced monastic life.
Swami Shankarananda, the seventh president of the order, gave him spiritual initiation the same year, making him a third-generation disciple. Four years later, Swami Shankarananda gave him the bramacharya vows. In 1960, he took the sanyasa vows and the name Swami Smaranananda.
From the Mumbai centre, he was transferred to the Kolkata branch of the Advaita Ashrama in 1958. For 18 years, he served at both the Mayavati and Kolkata centres of the ashrama. For a few years, he was also the assistant editor of ‘Prabuddha Bharata’, the order’s English journal started by Swami Vivekananda. In 1976, he was posted at the Ramakrishna Mission Saradapitha, an educational complex near Belur Math, as its secretary. He worked there for the next decade and a half. In 1978, he took up extensive relief work during the devastating floods that ravaged Bengal.
In 1991, he was posted as the head of the Ramakrishna Math in Chennai. In April 1995, he returned to Belur Math as its assistant secretary. Two years later, in 1997, he became the order’s general secretary. For the next decade, he steered the worldwide movement and, in 2007, he became the vice-president of the order.