Some time back, more precisely during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, I had a
couple of visitors knocking at my door, complaining about a banner that was
displayed outside the Mahalaxmi Temple Hall in Panjim. The visitors
identified themselves as members of the 'Hindu Janjagruti Samiti'.
I am a member of JCI St. Inez, a Youth organization and every year, during
the Ganesh Chaturthi Festival, we organize a cultural programme for the
Children in the Mahalaxmi Temple hall premises. Our event banner displayed
during the festival had a very creative picture of Ganesha playing a flute
figuring on it, along with other programme details.
I was informed by these two gentlemen that their organization had found this
banner highly objectionable. Their reason- depicting Ganesha in this
particular manner was highly insulting to our religion, as according to our
Hindu traditions and beliefs it is only Lord Krishna who plays the flute and
not Ganesha.
I knew one of these persons as I had seen him previously partaking in the
activities of the Sanatan Saunstha, a radical Hindu organization. When
cross-questioned, he candidly admitted that they were now operating under
the banner of the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti since people in Goa tended to stay
away from the name of the Sanatan Saunstha, given their known opposition to
the 'Narkasurs' which were such a rage in Goa.
A lengthy 16th Century kind of a discourse followed wherein I was told how
we Hindus were our own worst enemies always making a mockery of our own
religion by creatively depicting our Gods, how wearing T-shirts with Ganesha
images was bad, how crackers with images of Gods was bad and so on and so
forth. While I have always known Hinduism as a religion which has no book or
no authority to preach what is right and what is wrong and which gives its
followers vast creative and cultural freedom, here, I was being sermonized
just the opposite.
This same organization was in the news recently for opposing the artworks of
India's most celebrated artist M.F. Hussain. While Hussain has been one of
India's most gifted painters and is an artist who has always found
inspiration for his work in the Hindu Mythology, it is quite ironical that
the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti has chosen this route to expand their base and
get into the limelight.
Just a simple question to the Hindus who are looking at organizations like
these as their guiding force: If you do not take the blind man's description
of what an elephant looks like, why do you take the word of such publicity-
seeking and self-proclaimed moral custodians to describe complex subjects
like art?
Is it fair that an artist who has been described by the Forbes magazine as
the "Picasso of India", an artist who has been more inspired by Hinduism
than Hindus themselves is now branded anti-Hindu and forced to live outside
the Country in exile?
Cheers
Sandeep Heble
Panaji-Goa
- [Goanet] 'Hindu Janjagruti Samiti' & Sanatan Saunstha- ... sandeep heble
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