New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Jitendra Awhad Saturday demanded legal action against Jaggi Vasudev, the founder of Isha Foundation also known as Sadhguru, for remarks made about who was the “guru” of 17th-century Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji.
In a YouTube video titled “Why Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj still lives on in people’s hearts” uploaded on 1 May, Sadhguru shares an extended story about the Maratha ruler. According to Sadhguru, philosopher Ramdas Swami was Chhatrapati Shivaji’s guru and had given his saffron robe to Shivaji and advised him to use it as the kingdom’s flag.
“[Ramdas] gave his orange cloth and said ‘Use this as your banner, and go back and rule the country, but just know that this is not your kingdom. If you know this doesn’t belong to you, you don’t own it and you will do the best that you can for the people. That is the way you must rule.’ Shivaji always used the orange cloth or flag as his banner and he administered the kingdom in the most enlightened way possible,” Sadhguru said in the video.
The contents of Sadhguru’s video were deemed to be a “false story” by NCP leader Awhad, who claimed that false information about the Maratha ruler is often circulated and stands as an insult to the state of Maharashtra and its people.
“Maharashtra will not tolerate this insult. The state government will have to take strict legal action in this regard, otherwise it will cause public outrage!” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Sadhguru is yet to respond to Awhad’s complaint over the contents of his video.
Past incidents
Awhad’s response to Sadhguru’s video is not the first time controversy has arisen surrounding Ramdas Swami and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The historical legacy of the Maratha ruler on modern Maharashtra’s culture and society is a topic of frequent debate.
As reported by ThePrint in March this year, former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari had faced criticism from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition leaders and the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Udayanraje Bhosale, a direct descendant of Shivaji, for making the same claim — that Ramdas was Shvaji’s “guru”. According to MVA parties and Maratha organisations that held protests at that time, Chhatrapati Shivaji’s mother, Jijabai, was his real guru.
The validity of records over Shivaji’s relationship with Ramdas also remains disputed, with Shraddha Kumbhojkar, professor and head of the department of history at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, as well as Kolhapur-based historian Indrajeet Sawant telling ThePrint that the claim stems from a Brahmanical bias taking agency away from the Bahujan Samaj.
Controversy over Chhatrapati Shivaji’s history also goes as far back as 2004, when the Congress-NCP government had banned a book by James Laine titled Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India after widespread protests.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)