Gaya: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is embroiled in yet another political storm — this time for taking a Muslim minister inside Gaya’s Vishnupad Temple, where the entry of non-Hindus is prohibited.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday criticised the CM for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments and demanded an apology.
Nitish visited the temple Monday to review the preparations for the 15-day Pitru Paksha mela, scheduled to begin on 9 September, and was accompanied by his information and technology minister, Mohammad Israil Mansuri of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), while entering the garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.
“Nitish Kumar has done what even Aurangzeb and the British government did not do — defile the sanctity of the temple,” BJP MLA Haribhushan Thakur Bachol told ThePrint, threatening to launch a statewide agitation over the issue.
Ever since Nitish ended his alliance with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on 9 August and joined hands with the RJD, BJP leaders have launched a battery of allegations against Nitish’s Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), and the Mahagathbandhan coalition government.
These include claims that the government has links with the Islamist group Popular Front of India (PFI), and that there’s a “terror network” in Bihar. The BJP has also accused Nitish of introducing ‘Sharia law’ in Bihar by allowing government schools in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal area to have hgolidays on Friday.
Nitish Wednesday won the floor test to prove the majority of the new Mahagathbandhan alliance government in the Bihar Legislative Assembly.
In its previous incarnation — when the JD(U) tied up with the RJD and the Congress for the 2015 state polls — the Mahagathbandhan secured nearly 8 per cent more of the vote than the BJP-led National Democratic alliance, which won just 58 of the 243 seats.
With the ruling alliance commanding a much larger social base than the BJP, political observers feel the latter will be inclined to use its “tried-and-tested method” of polarisation along communal lines.
JD(U) minister Ashok Choudhary has alleged just that. “The minister must have entered with the CM by mistake,” he told ThePrint, insisting that this is not a “big issue”. Meanwhile, the RJD’s Shivanand Tiwari said that the people making noise over the issue were the “same ones who used to stop Dalits from entering the temple”.
Another JD(U) leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity: “Polarising issues will be raised more frequently by the BJP, but CM Nitish Kumar would have done well to avoid the Vishnupad Temple controversy.”
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‘Entry of non-Hindus banned from ancient times’
The Vishnupad temple, with its iconic carving of Lord Vishnu, is the last stop for devotees celebrating Pitru Paksha, a festival during which Hindus offer prayers to their ancestors.
Made of black granite in an octagonal shape, standing 30 metres high, with a flag made of 51 kilogrammes of gold sitting atop it, the present structure of the temple was built by queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore in 1787.
The entry of non-Hindus to the temple is strictly prohibited and a signboard declaring this has been put up at its gate. According to reports, Chief secretary of Bihar Amir Subhani, who was with the CM Monday, stopped at the gate of the Temple.
The Vishnupad temple management committee has said it was up to the officials to stop Mansuri from entering the garbhagriha. “We did not know it [his religion] when the CM visited the temple. There are new ministers that we do not recognise. It is the officials who should have stopped the minister,” S.L. Vittal, executive president of Vishnupad Temple Management Committee, told ThePrint.
“Those guilty should tender an apology,” Vittal added, saying that VIPs have visited the temple in the past, too, but “a non-Hindu entering the garbhgriha has never happened before”.
The secretary of the management committee, G.L. Pathak, said that the tradition of banning the entry of non-Hindus to the temple was instituted in “ancient times”. Speaking to ThePrint, Pathak wondered why the minister was not stopped and the priests were not informed about his presence.
Meanwhile, speaking to mediapersons Tuesday, Mansuri said he felt “honoured” to have gone inside the Vishnupad Temple. “It was not my intention to hurt anyone’s religious feelings,” he added.
According to Abdul Qadir, who teaches at the Mirza Ghalib College in Gaya, a separate gate had been made in the early 20th century for non-Hindus, which led to the garbhagriha. The path, he said, was made to facilitate the entry of a viceroy in the British era. “But as time passed, encroachers took over the area around the gate,” he said.
Qadir also claimed that when Lalu Prasad Yadav visited the temple as chief minister, he was accompanied by a Muslim minister, Iliyas Hussain. “But that time there was no outrage,” he said.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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