At 7:25 AM -0700 9/29/03, D Deka wrote: >This is Togadia speaking: You secularists do not understand. Our first >priority is to transform India to Hindu land. Once that is accomplished, >we shall clean Varanasi and Ganga.Right now Ganga water is being used by >non-Hindus as well. We'd rather wait till everyone in India is a Hindu so >that the benefits can be enjoyed by Hindus alone. :-)
*** I understand Doctor saheb :-). > >Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >This from the Sentinel/ cm > >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >- > > > >The Hindutva Campaign > >Tavleen Singh > >It amused me to come back from Varanasi last week and find those five star >generals of Hindutva - Ashok Singhal and Praveen. Togadia - at it again. >This time via audio cassette so if you're in the mood for Hindutva you can >now have instant replay. Well, let me say this, if Singhal and Togadia had >listened in to some of the conversations I had with devout Hindus in that >holiest of our holy cities last week they would have been more circumspect >about launching a new Hindutva campaign at this point. It is unlikely to go >down well. > >Allow me to describe only two of the conversations I had. The first was >with the son of a former Mahant of the Vishwanath Mandir. He is as devo! ut a >Hindu as I know but when I asked what he thought about the Ayodhya issue he >had this to say. 'Who do these people think they are? Will one of them >explain what it is they destroyed in Ayodhya? Was it a mosque or a temple? >As far as I see it there was a temple in which Ram-lalla was being >worshipped and that temple no longer exists. Can we trust the same fellows >who broke it down to build another one now? > >He added that under a so-called Hindutva Prime Minister he had seen two >ancient Hindu temples in Varanasi torn down recently in the name of a >'beautification' drive that has the sanction of our Tourism Minister, the >unstoppable Mr Jagmohan. What sort of beautification can there be, he >asked, that involves the demolition of a ancient temples? > >My next conversation was with Veerbhadra Misra, the venerable Mahant of the >Sankat Mochan temple, a man so revered in Varanasi that the devout believe >that to touch him is to touch Han! uman himself. Mahantji is a deeply unhappy >man these days because he cannot believe what is being done to his beloved >Ganga on a BJP Prime Minister's watch. Long before Rajiv Gandhi's >Government discovered the need for a Ganga Action Plan, Mahantji, a >scientist himself, had pointed out that the river was so polluted that its >waters were septic in some parts. When he heard that more than Rs 200 crore >were being spent on the Ganga Action Plan he spent time studying it and >discovered, to his horror, that it was unlikely to make any difference >because it would not stop sewage pouring into the river. > >Nobody listened to him, because Indian officials listen only to God, so the >money got spent and the water of the Ganga remains as unclean as it was >before the crores were spent. Mahantji points out that the only way to >clean the river is by diverting the sewage that pours into it instead of >trying to treat it en route. He has a plan to do this t! hat would cost half >what the second phase of the Ganga Action Plan will and, most importantly, >the municipality of Varanasi has approved it but on account of stubborn >resistance from the Central government and the Government of Uttar Pradesh >a dispute has arisen that has been in court for more than ten years. "If we >cannot save the Ganga" Mahantji says with tears in his eyes "then we will >lose all the things that make us what we are and this globalization will >reduce us to being just like everybody else. We are an endangered species." > >We speak in a room whose small, barred windows overlook the Ganga. Its >water is iridescent in the light of a mother-of-pearl tinted dusk, temple >bells sound from somewhere close and from a distance the start of the >evening worship of the river. From where we sit Varanasi, the Ganga and >Indian civilization seem as perfectly intact as ever but the minute I step >out of the Sankat Mochan temple into a narrow street! filled with stray >goats and cows I recoil from the stench of rotting garbage, clogged drains >and sewage. As I walk back towards my enchanting little hotel on the Assi >Ghat I find myself picking my way through mounds of excrement, both human >and animal. The stench mixes easily with the general smell of decay and >death that pervades Varanasi. > >Those who love this city fear that it is in terminal decline and that no >matter what anyone does any more it is already too late. And into this >atmosphere of decay and despair has walked Jagmohan with ideas of >improvement that only he seems to fully understand. So, in an attempt to >deal with the garbage problem he ordered the building of four or five >garbage centres which would have made sense if they were equipped with >incinerators. > >Since they are not, though, the end result of this exercise is that now you >not only see garbage rotting in the narrow, medieval bye-lanes of this >ancient city y! ou also see it rotting in cavernous sheds. Does it make >sense? No. And, it would make even less sense if you had spent time >watching rickety wheelbarrows trundle up to these garbage-filled sheds in >an attempt to clean them out. The end result is that Varanasi now has more >garbage instead of less. > >Jagmohan's intentions for the city are good. He wants it declared a >Heritage site so that funds can come in from abroad to save one of the >oldest cities in human history. This is a very good idea but surely we need >to begin by setting up a system that would clean Varanasi and preserve its >medieval streets and ancient buildings? If Jagmohan has any plans for this >there is no evidence of them yet so you walk to the most famous of temples >to Shiva - the Vishvanath Mandir - through streets so dirty that all >thoughts of worship and spirituality become infected with the stench of >excrement. It was while walking towards the temple that I heard from local >residents of plant to 'widen the road' so that important officials could >drive up in their cars. I was not able to verify whether there was any >truth in this but if there is then you can be sure that Varanasi is likely >to die even sooner. > >Even as someone who does not think of myself as a devout Hindu I find this >heartbreaking. I find equally heartbreaking that despite the failure of the >first phase of the Ganga Action Plan, hundreds of crores of rupees will now >be spent on phase 2. We have a right to ask what is going on and we have a >right to ask those who think of themselves as the guardian angels of >Hindutva why they are wasting so much time on building new temples when our >most sacred city is falling to pieces and our most sacred river is being >slowly destroyed. > >The only time I had the dubious pleasure of interviewing Togadia I asked >him this question and the only answer he could come up with was that I had >no r! ight to ask about the Ganga because I was a 'secularist'. > >Well, it is no longer just me who is asking this question there are many >devout Hindus asking it now and when you look at people like Singhal and >Togadia from a Varanasi vantage point they look really bad. In the two days >I spent wandering around the city, I did not meet anyone who had a good >word to say for either Hindutva or the Bharatiya Janata Party. Quite the >opposite. I met a lot of people who said that the BJP's image had been >damaged by its association with rabble-rousing groups who failed to see >that Ayodhya was no longer an issue. If we cannot save Varanasi, if we >cannot clean the waters of the Ganga, does it really matter if there is a >new temple to Rama? > > >_______________________________________________ >Assam mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam > > > Do you Yahoo!? > ><http://shopping.yahoo.com/?__yltc=s%3A150000443%2Cd%3A22708228%2Cslk%3Atext%2Cs >ec%3Amail>The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
