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- By Manoj Kar
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In a departure from caste-bound tradition, hundreds of Dalits from an obscure village today made their way into a 900-year-old Hindu temple that that till date had remained out of bounds for them.
“It was a festive occasion. There was palpable amity and goodwill among the residents of Kisinapur village under Souri gram panchayat. The upper caste people besides Sarvodyaya workers exchanged warm pleasantries as lower caste devotees entered the local Shiva temple. After the deity's darshan, they offered puja,” narrated Sandhyarani Mallick, coordinator of Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust.
There never existed caste-bound ill-will or the conflict in the backward. However, Dalits were adhering to the tradition and never made their way into temple, Mallick narrated.
- Kendrapara
- Later, the villagers cutting across caste spectrum dined together in a grand community feast that was organized to mark the occasion.
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
KalingaTimes.com: Dalits make their way to Hindu temple in Odisha
NE Borders Reassessed :: KanglaOnline
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- Source: IMPHAL FREE PRESS
- The recent hiccups in diplomatic relations between Indian and China over the disputed MacMohan Line in the event of the visit to the border town of Tawang and Bomdila by the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, the Dalai Lama who head the Tibetan Government in Exile in beautiful hill station of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh should be an eye-opener on not just how sensitive the international boundaries that “contain” the northeast region are but also however arbitrarily they came into existence with little or no consultation with the immediate populations along them whose lives would be profoundly affected by them. Apart from the MacMohan Line, there is also the Radcliff Line in the south and indeed the Indo-Myanmar boundary in the East. To begin with the last named, it is extremely ironic that if not for the executive whim of a single colonial officer in 1885, the British Secretary of State, Randolph Churchill, who decided not to treat the Ava Kingdom (Burma) as a princely state after King Thibaw was defeated and his territory annexed to the empire on which the sun once never set, for all that the history of the post colonial world has been witness to, India’s eastern boundary could have been very different from where it is now. Rather than keep it as a princely state, the Ava kingdom, like the Mughals in India in 1857, was systematically and totally dismantled and a new British administration put in its place. The last of the Burmese king was exiled without ceremony in Benares in India just as the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah was similar banished to Rangoon. Had the British officer decided to keep Burma as a princely state like Manipur and Tripura for instance, in all likelihood, at the time of the British departure, Burma could very well have ended up a state of India, leaving Thailand and Laos as India’s immediate eastern neighbours.
- it is extremely ironic that if not for the executive whim of a single colonial officer in 1885, the British Secretary of State, Randolph Churchill, who decided not to treat the Ava Kingdom (Burma) as a princely state after King Thibaw was defeated and his territory annexed to the empire on which the sun once never set, for all that the history of the post colonial world has been witness to, India’s eastern boundary could have been very different from where it is now. Rather than keep it as a princely state, the Ava kingdom, like the Mughals in India in 1857, was systematically and totally dismantled and a new British administration put in its place. The last of the Burmese king was exiled without ceremony in Benares in India just as the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah was similar banished to Rangoon. Had the British officer decided to keep Burma as a princely state like Manipur and Tripura for instance, in all likelihood, at the time of the British departure, Burma could very well have ended up a state of India, leaving Thailand and Laos as India’s immediate eastern neighbours.
- Down south the non-intrinsic nature of the border is again as pronounced when the manner in which the populous province of Sylhet came to be in Pakistan and not India in the 1947 Partition of India. A bitter entangle between linguistic nationalism and religious nationalism ensured that this Hindu majority province dominated by Bengali speaking population was left behind on the Muslim side of the Radcliff Line, although the Partition of India was on religious line. The only way Sylhet could have become a part of India was by its merger with Assam, but Assamese bitterly opposed such a move, for such a merger would have made Bengali speakers the majority in Assam. A letter by Gopinath Bordoloi to Jawaharlal Nehru while the Partition process was going on, melodramatically declared that every Assamese would resist a merger with Sylhet to the last drop of their blood. Nehru was known to have remarked in exasperation as to who the chief minister thought he was adding sarcastically that the chief minister might as well think Assam is an independent country. Like Sylhet, the Buddhist Chakma dominated Chittagong Hill Tract could and should have been on the Indian side of the Border as well. Had these been so, the Indian boundary in the northeast region would have been a lot different from what it is now.
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Devraha Baba's indictment enrages seers in Ayodhya - The Times of India
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- Inclusion of Sant Devraha baba - the ageless Yogi with a secular image - in the list of Babri accused by the Liberhan Commission even though he died two years before the demolition, has set off a spate of holy fury in Ayodhya. In a show of aggressive posturing, two most powerful mahants of the temple town, the president of Ram Janma Bhoomi Trust and Mani Ram Chhavni Nritya Gopal Das and head Akhil Bhartiya Akhada Parishad (ABAP) and Hanuman Garhi temple, Mahant Gyan Das, have sought "public apology from justice Liberhan or be prepared to face the aftermath of his evil doings."
For records, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das commands unflinching loyalty from more than 2,000 temples in Ayodhya and heads the body empowered to grant holy affiliation, ABAP headed by Mahant Gyan Das is the highest recognised body of seers combining both Shaiv and Vaishnav sects. The Parishad, among other things, charts out the agenda to be followed at the Kumbh congregation.
"This is a lowly mischief aimed at hurting the sentiments of Hindus," Nritya Gopal Das declared. "Baba was a spiritual guide to everyone from a pauper to the most powerful and was above narrow confines of caste and community. Each saint and guru in Ayodhya is deeply anguished at Liberhan's folly and meetings are being held all across the town to chalk out a retaliatory strategy," he said.
"Does Justice Liberhan know that the departed saint he slandered so casually in his useless report could quote Quran and Guru Granth Saheb with the same felicity as Gita or Vedas? Or that the list of his callers even included late president Zakir Hussain. Dragging his name in the muck is a sin which needs to be atoned, a visibly disturbed Das said while talking to TOI. The matter, he said, would be taken up by the congregations of saints in Magh Mela at Allahabad in January followed by the Kumbh congregation in Hardwar. - AYODHYA
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Devotees have darshan of Datta padukas - The Times of India
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- CHIKMAGALUR
- The Datta padukas, which were kept in district treasury after the closure of Datta cave shrine following its collapse, have been placed atop the hill for the devotees to get a glimpse.
- Last year, the district administration had turned down the request of Sri Rama Sene, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishath, to keep the Datta's silver sandals atop the hill on Datta Jayanti. However, this year the government intervened and instructed the deputy commissioner to keep the padukas atop the hill.
More than 15,000 devotees thronged the hill to participate in the Datta Jayanti programme. The devotees relinquished their malas and offered Irumudi (rice, jaggery, oil and coconut) in the ritual place.
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VHP is committed to Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya—Dr Pravin Togadia
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- VHP is committed to Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya—Dr Pravin Togadia
- VHP general secretary Dr Pravin Togadia said the VHP is fully committed to building a magnificent Shri Ram temple in Ayodhya and the Hindu society is ready for any sacrifice for the temple. He was reacting to the Liberhan Commission Report tabled in Parliament on November 24. He said the saints would take a decision for starting the construction of the temple at the Kumbha Mela in Haridwar in January next year.
- Dr Togadia reassured that a magnificent Shri Ram temple would be built at the very site in Ayodhya. “It is a socio-religious, cultural and legal right of the Hindus of Bharat who worship Shri Ram for ages even before invaders’ religions were even born. Playing with Hindu religious sentiments has become a fashion these days. But over 85 crore Hindus in Bharat and many millions of Hindus internationally have been waiting for the glorious Shri Ram temple at the site. VHP is fully committed to it and to the Hindus. Shri Ramjanmabhoomi movement is not just a one off event and the movement has been taking place for over 450 years in different forms.
- Bharat recently saw the similar Hindu unity in Rameshwaram Ram Sethu movement, in Amarnath movement and in Gouraksha movement. This Hindu unity will make wonders for Bharat and stand up against any odds. Hindus and VHP are ready for any sacrifice for building Shri Ram temple at the site,” he added.
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