Bengaluru, Sep 27 (PTI) Late VHP international working president Ashok Singhal used the temple movement to mobilise people across the country, the organisation’s central vice-president Champat Rai said on Sunday, recalling his role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, his efforts to preserve Vedic traditions and his promotion of social harmony.
Addressing the state-level inauguration of Singhal’s birth centenary celebrations, Rai said Singhal had brought together different traditions of saints and sought to address issues concerning Hindu society.
Rai, who served as the founding general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, recalled his close association with Singhal and his family since the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
He narrated an incident from Singhal’s student days at Banaras Hindu University, saying Singhal had abandoned his Mining Metallurgy studies after dreaming that he was using Indian religious scriptures as fuel in a furnace, following which he devoted himself to Hindu cultural work.
“Ashokji used the Ram Janmabhoomi movement as a means to create mass mobilisation in three lakh villages across India. It was an unprecedented mass mobilisation in the country,” Rai said.
He said Singhal had brought around 15,000 sadhus from different sects onto one platform and worked towards strengthening social harmony.
As part of this effort to draw religious and political figures into the movement, Sangh leader Rajju Bhaiya had asked Singhal to meet former Congress leader Daudayal Khanna, who was campaigning on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue; Khanna later resigned from the Congress, Rai said.
Recalling the 1989 Sadbhavana Yatra from Haridwar to Amritsar, Rai said around 400 sadhus had travelled by road despite terrorism being at its peak in Punjab. “That was his contribution to society. He had such courage and such inner strength, and he instilled that inner strength among the saints as well,” he said.
Rai recalled Singhal’s role in ensuring that Kameshwar Chaupal, a Scheduled Caste worker from Bihar, performed the shilanyas ceremony at Ayodhya on November 9, 1989. In 1994, Singhal facilitated the participation of the Dom Raja at a Dharma Sansad in Varanasi, Rai said.
The Dom Raja is the hereditary keeper of the sacred, eternally burning flame at Varanasi’s cremation ghats.
He said Singhal had sought to bring Hindus and Buddhists together, recalling the participation of the Dalai Lama in the 2001 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad at Singhal’s invitation, where the Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham and other sanyasis sat with the Dalai Lama and issued a joint statement on Hindu unity.
“This was his thinking: Hindus and Sikhs were both part of Hindu society; Buddhists were part of Hindu society; and social discrimination had to be eliminated from society,” Rai said.
Rai also recalled Singhal’s work to preserve Vedic mantras, particularly in North India. “Matha (monastery), temple, cow and Vedic mantras—these were his concerns,” he said.
“These were the principal thoughts and works of Ashok Singhal during his life—not only in India, but for Hindu society throughout the world,” Rai said.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has announced year-long programmes across India and abroad to mark Singhal’s birth centenary, with inaugural programmes planned at 47 prominent locations between September 27 and October 4.
Other speakers at the event paid tribute to Singhal. Retired Guwahati High Court Chief Justice K Sreedhar Rao, who presided over the programme, recalled Singhal’s work and called for greater emphasis on education and social outreach, urging the VHP to establish a school in every development block that would impart quality education along with Indian culture and values.
Madara Chennayya Swamiji of Madara Chennayya Matha, Chitradurga, recalled Singhal’s role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and his emphasis on social equality, and said the next generation should carry forward the work he had initiated. PTI GMS SSK
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.