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| Devotees take on Agnivesh, threaten SASB | | Amarnath Yatra | | Neha
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, May 29: Situation in and outside Jammu is getting out of hand. It appears. The immediate causes are two. One is the decision of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) to reduce the Yatra period from 60 days to 45 days. The other is the provocative comments made by the controversial and essentially pro-separatist and pro-Maoist Swami Agnivesh against Lord Shiva and the Holy Amarnath Yatra. The devotees of Lord Shiva have interpreted the SASB decision and the comments of Agnivesh as a direct attack on their faith and they have threatened an agitation against the SASB and action against Agnivesh.
In fact, action against Agnivesh has already started. In Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Swami Nityanand not only slapped and dragged Agnivesh in the presence of Anna Hazare and his followers who had assembled their to moblize public opinion against the menace of corruption, but also told India TV that his ultimate objective was to “kill” Agnivesh. It happened just two days ago, May 26. Swami Nityananad was, like other devotees of Lord Shiva, was angry with Agnivesh. The reason: Agnivesh had not only pooh-poohed the Amarnath Yatra and described the Holy Lingam as a mere ball of ice, but had also ridiculed Lord Shiva and his devotees. He had also said: “Amarnath Yatra is a religious fraud” and “I fail to understand why people undertake Yatra to the cave of Amarnath?” Agnivesh made these remarks on May 16 at Srinagar while participating in the so-called peace conference on Kashmir. Nityanand was arrested the same day and was subsequently released.
The extreme action taken by Swami Niyanand against Agnivesh constitutes one part of the story and it indicates the extent to which Agnivesh has injured the religious sensitivities of the devotees of Lord Shiva. The other part of the story also doesn’t augur well in the sense that the devotees of Lord Shiva have adopted a threatening posture. That things have started assuming alarming proportions could be seen from the two recent developments. One, in New Delhi, on May 25, VHP international general secretary Dr Pravin Togadia, who also happens to a cancer specialist, threatened that the SASB would “face stiff resistance and reaction from the entire country, consequences of which will fall on Governor, who heads the SASB, if the SASB tries to create hurdles in terms of not providing infrastructural arrangements and streamlining the whole process.” He declared that the Yatra would start on June 15, the “auspicious day of Jyestha Purnima, and end on Shraavan.” He also accused the SASB of bowing before the separatists of Kashmir.” “They have bowed before the separatists of Kashmir, who are supported by PDP and the central government…By doing so, the Board has humiliated the Dharmic-patriotic sentiments of the Hindus of the country,” Tagadia bemoaned and asserted.
Here in Jammu, the VHP and the BJP on Friday worked out a strategy aimed at ensuring commencement of the Yatra on the stipulated date, June 15. The VHP and the BJP are not the only organizations which have made up their mind to take on the SASB. There are several other organizations which are also thinking in similar terms.
It is obvious that all is not well and that things way turn ugly in Jammu and elsewhere in case the controversy over the duration of Yatra is not resolved amicably before June 15. One can only hope and pray that the SASB authorities and the VHP and similar other organization would across the table and settle the issue in the larger interest of the state and the devotees who have planned pilgrimage to the Holy Cave. |
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