Mumbai: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fumes over Tamil Nadu minister Udayanidhi Stalin’s alleged remarks on ‘Sanatan Dharma,’ there is a different war brewing in the PM’s home state of Gujarat — one between the Sanatan Dharma and the Swaminarayan sect.
Hindu religious leaders have objected to murals at the Shree Kashtbhanjandev Hanumanji Mandir in Botad district. The murals, which show Lord Hanuman at the feet of Lord Swaminarayan, are “insulting” to the Sanatan Dharma, according to Hindu seers.
“In the Santa Dharma, there are 127 sects and ours is the core body. The Constitution doesn’t allow insult of another belief, to show your belief to be higher. A sect of Swaminarayan put up some murals showing Lord Hanuman at the feet of Swaminarayan ji. How will people accept this?” Swami Jitendranand Saraswati, a seer of the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, told ThePrint.
A Gujarat BJP leader told ThePrint that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Ram Madhav visited the shrine Sunday following which temple authorities said they will resolve the conflict soon.
ThePrint contacted Madhav through his assistant, but he was not available for a comment.
On Monday, the Gujarat government swung into action with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel holding a meeting of members of both sides where it was reportedly decided that the controversial murals will be removed.
The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti held a meeting in Lucknow where it decided to oust its Gujarat unit chief, Nautam Swami, who belongs to the Vadtal branch of the Swaminarayan sect, Swami Jitendranand said.
Moreover, some Hindu religious leaders and members of Hindutva outfits from Gujarat held a meeting in Ahmedabad Sunday where they passed 13 resolutions against the Swaminarayan sect, including a boycott decision.
The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS), a Swaminarayan sect branch, manages the Salangpur Hanuman temple. BAPS did not respond to ThePrint’s questions shared in an email.
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The controversy
The Swaminarayan sect has a massive following in Gujarat, especially among the politically influential Patidar community.
According to the Swaminarayan sect, Lord Swaminarayan was born in Uttar Pradesh’s Chhapaiya village in 1781 and settled in Gujarat around 1799 after nearly ten years of pilgrimage. In 1800, his teacher, Swami Ramanand, gave him the name Sahajanand Swami. After his guru’s death, he assumed leadership of the sect, which came to be known as the Swaminarayan sect.
Some of the murals at the temple carved on the platform of a tall Hanuman statue depict him as paying obeisance to Lord Swaminarayan, angering seers and believers of the Sanatan Dharma.
Last week, three persons vandalised the controversial murals, attempting to break them with a heavy rod and blackening them. The police arrested the accused.
On Sunday, Sanatan Dharma seers and followers met in Ahmedabad and passed a series of resolutions — a copy of which is with ThePrint — against the Swaminarayan sect. These include asking the Gujarat government to intervene and restrain leaders of the Swaminarayan sect from making statements about Hindu gods and goddesses, and not allowing Swaminarayan devotees to install the gods and goddesses of Sanatan Dharma in the sect’s temples.
“Of late, seers of the Swaminarayan sect have been attempting to disrupt the peace of Gujarat by making statements about Hindu gods and goddesses. This can lead to a mass protest that will disrupt law and order,” said Atul Dave, president of Ahmedabad-based local political outfit Gujarat Navnirman Sena.
Dave attended Sunday’s meeting where the resolutions, including not sharing a stage with any leader of the Swaminarayan sect and not accepting the sect’s invitation to any event, were passed in Ahmedabad.
“We have also passed a resolution against the insult of women by members of the Swaminarayan sect. Seers of this sect always ask women leaders or seers to step down from the dais. Whenever they go to any devotees’ house, they ask them to keep the women inside a room. This is not in keeping with Sanatan Dharma where women are an avatar of Goddesses Lakshmi, Durga and Saraswati,” Dave said.
Seers of the Swaminarayan sect have often been in conflict with other Hindu religious organisations over some of their comments.
Last year, the Brahma Samaj, a Hindu outfit in Gujarat, lodged a series of police complaints against members of the Swaminarayan sect. In one such case, an FIR was registered against Anand Sagar Swami, a leader of the Prabodh Swami faction, who allegedly at a sitting in Boston quoted Lord Shiva as having told a disciple that his “piety/good deeds were not enough to see the holy image of (the faction’s leader) Prabodh Swami”.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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