Thursday, October 8, 2009

story of a syncretic shrine being turned into temple!

Flouting laws, inciting communalism, vitiating public taste is what the people of western Karnataka (to be more precise, at chikmagalur) witnessing from their district officials and the leaders of BJP, a national party. Violating Supreme court’s stay order, they begun the reconstruction work at the contested shrine of Sri Guru Dattatreya Bababudan Swamy Dargah to restore a part of the cave that collapsed in June 2008 with the holy spirit depicted in the act of “bhumi puja” that they performed, at the onset of the project, on September 2008 with alacrity. Members of the Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike (KKSV; Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum), a State-wide forum of activists has raised their voice in protest against the sangh paarivaar’s endeavor to raise the shrine to a hindutva status and convert it into an exclusive place for hindus.
The shrine is believed to date back to the 11th century. Given the obliviousness and uncertainty of its creator, both hindus and muslims regularly visit the place. This picturesque hilly area has been holding up the true spirit of togetherness and the ideology of the real India for years, in its true sense. But the integrity might be lost if being tinkered. As seen after the babri masjid demolition, when abruptly a small hindu festival “datta jayanti” was turned into a massive,grandeur “datta mala” to gain public legitimacy and to establish it as an exclusive hindu temple.

BJP claims the actual muslim created place to be few kilometers away from that shrine and has denied to call the shrine as “a disputed one” any longer. Therein, I would like to place a question for the leaders and their hangers-on, what bugs them if the two deadliest rivals in the world, can find a place, for themselves, where they can offer their prayers to their (and ofcourse,’our’) “Father” in common? why can’t they restrict the use of their perverted brains in the realm of mainstream of politics? Instead of morally supporting and radiating and publicizing the mighty effort of the local inhabitants to befriend others ( that could have been a little help in fostering harmonious feeling ), the putrid minds of those vicious netas are up for harvesting yet another seed of communalism by hurting the religious ethos of the people.

the excerpt of the above post can be viewed at the following link ('frontline' magazine):
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20091106262212100.htm

2 comments:

Shady West Side said...

Thats just a way they try and garner hindu votes, see not everyone is educated and sane, so thats why these things, I am sure one day this will stop, because slowly these things are changing, we are changing

Tathagata Ghosh said...

@ shahid: i hope we r changing for good! thanks anyways...