On September 11, 1893, Swami Vivekananda stood atop a podium at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago and delivered a speech that shifted Western perceptions of Hinduism and set a new tone for relations between India and the United States. In his speech, Vivekananda addressed the intellectuals and clergymen at the conference as “brothers and sisters of America” and encouraged them to promote religious tolerance and universal acceptance. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History and South Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, tells us about the significance of the speech 120 years later.(Photo courtesy of HSS USA).