? 
Hoody read this and may be this will open your eyes.
Nepal's Maoist rulers rile Hindus
By Dhruba Adhikary
Nepal's
first elected prime minister, the Maoist leader of the interim
coalition formed last August, remains in hot water due to his
enthusiastic involvement with the management of a major Hindu shrine.
Prachanda's
efforts to pacify the simmering discontent through a statement in
parliament on Wednesday have had only a marginal effect in calming the
instant - and ominous - flak his moves have drawn from devotees far and
wide. And the beleaguered leader is not out of the woods yet.
The
ongoing row began when Prachanda invoked a law legislated before the
erstwhile monarchy was abolished that gave the government a say in the
appointment of priests at Kathmandu's Pashupatinath temple, a holy site
for Hindus all over the world that houses a stone image of Lord Shiva,
the third god of the Hindu trinity.
Over 80% of
Nepal's 25 million people are Hindu, while in India an estimated 930
million of its population are followers of Hinduism. The temple area is
overwhelmed by swarms of pilgrims from neighboring countries during the
Shivaratri festival, an occasion marking the birth of Lord Shiva, which
usually falls in the month of February.
Many
Hindus strive to visit Pashupatinath at least once in their lives; its
significance can be compared to that of Mecca for Muslims or the
Vatican for Catholics. Locally, those who head to this Hindu holy place
frequently include Ilankovan Kolandavelu, the Malaysian ambassador who
is a member of his country's minority Hindu community.
Revolutionary
Prachanda and his minister responsible for cultural affairs, Gopal
Kirati, took the unprecedented step of appointing new priests to
conduct daily worship and rituals at Pashupatinath. In the process, the
Maoist leadership earlier "accepted" the resignations tendered by
traditionally-appointed priests, known as Bhatta, who are of south
Indian origin. This action, which broke a tradition maintained through
centuries, was bound to spark outrage across the country and beyond.
Deposed king Gyanendra, who lost his throne when the constituent
assembly declared Nepal a secular republic last May, issued a statement
urging all concerned to keep Pashupatinath above the political
controversy.
"Doesn't new Nepal need a new
Pashupatinath?" asked Minister Kirati at a news conference last week.
While he appeared satisfied with what he thought was a logical defense,
the media present could not help but laugh at his remarks.
As
the controversy dragged on, Pashupatinath remained virtually
unattended. Devotees were confused and skeptical about the moves of the
Maoist leaders, whose eyes seem to be fixed on the property and daily
income of the temple. (It wouldn't be the first time the temple was
utilized as a source of income. When slavery was formally abolished a
century ago, rulers of Nepal took some of the temple's money, gold and
other valuables to compensate those who were required to free their
slaves.)
Meanwhile, some of the immediate
stakeholders - including storekeepers, called Bhandaris - took the case
to the Supreme Court. On January 1, the court issued a stay order until
the case was ready for a detailed hearing. But the cultural affairs
minister challenged the court order in public: "We are not going to
honor the Supreme Court on this matter."
To
make things worse, the minister directed the temple trust to appoint
two assistants to help new appointees. But in view of the growing
public anger, the Maoist ministers submitted a petition to the court to
vacate its earlier order. A hearing is scheduled for Monday, January
12, and Nepal's public appears to be prepared to wait till the court
delivers its verdict.
But Hindus in India
aren't as patient. They have held demonstrations in front of the Nepal
Embassy in New Delhi and elsewhere; television pictures have shown
angry crowds burning effigies of Prachanda. The first high-profile
Indian to return home without visiting the temple was Mulayam Singh
Yadav, leader of the country's Samajwadi Party. He was in the capital
this week as a personal guest of Nepal's president.
Indian
Hindu nationalist leader Lal Krishna Advani took up the issue publicly
on Tuesday, saying how "deeply distressed" he was by the ongoing
controversy. He also expressed unhappiness over the way incumbent
Indian priests were being treated.
Earlier, his
Bharatiya Janata Party had published a statement claiming that the
controversial action had "hurt the sentiments of people in India".
Official India, however, has remained quiet, which is understandable
because of the country's constitutionally-secular status. Besides,
Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, whose Italian origins enter
public debate every now and then, may not have a particular interest in
the temple, given she was barred from visiting on an earlier visit to
Nepal with her husband, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Back
home, Nepal's President Ram Baran Yadav told Prachanda how concerned he
was over the issue that had hurt the sentiments of millions of people
within the country and beyond.
Whether or not
Prachanda anticipated this level of resentment, if not hostilities
against the Maoist leadership, remains a matter of conjecture. In any
case, Prachanda and his comrades later tried to neutralize public
outcry by presenting themselves as patriots; Indian priests were being
sacked to make room for Nepali priests. The objective, according to
argument put forward by pro-Maoist newspapers, was also to prevent
monetary donations to the temple from being misappropriated by Indian
priests.
Communications Minister Krishna
Bahadur Mahara told an audience in the western region of Nepal that no
"foreign intervention" in the country's internal matters would be
tolerated. He praised Prachanda's initiative to appoint Nepali priests
as courageous. Needless to emphasize, Mahara's allusion is to the
Indians. One pertinent question arises here: who is giving Indians a
pretext to be meddlesome if not the Maoists themselves? They were the
ones to stir the hornet's nest.
The masses
appear unwilling to accept Maoists as the trustees of the Hindu
religion. Prachanda's refusal to take the oath of prime minister in the
name of god is cited as an example of the party's atheist character.
The other relevant point members of the public often make is that since
communists consider religion as opium, the Maoists' sudden concern and
sympathy for Hindus is absurd and hollow. If the communists worship
anything at all, it would be the portraits of Karl Marx, Mao Zedong,
Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
There are
people who are in favor of giving Prachanda the benefit of the doubt,
but they also contend that the Maoists should have adopted proper and
transparent methods to select qualified and competent Nepali priests.
And that has not happened. What Maoists have done, as was admitted by
an official of the temple trust, was to randomly choose priests from
among their cadres. Credible media reports said the Indian priests did
not quit on their own accord, but were compelled to resign.
To
make matters worse, the priests the Maoists appointed did not know the
precise manner of how the rituals, prescribed by the first
shankaracharya (temple head), have to be carried out inside the temple.
In his book on Pashupatinath, writer Govinda Tandon explained why the
tradition of hiring priests from southern India was set in motion 300
years ago.
"Catholics go to the Vatican to see
the pope; nobody bothers whether he is from, Germany or Poland,” Sharat
Chandra Wasti, an associate professor of Sanskrit studies, told Asia
Times Online. Similarly, Muslims go to Mecca, not to a political entity
called Saudi Arabia, he added.
Wasti, who has
spent considerable time doing research on the temple, posed another
challenging question to Maoists: can their government appoint clergies
in Nepal's mosques and churches as well? No, they cannot. Clearly,
Maoists are taking undue advantage of the high level of tolerance that
exists among Hindus. Wasti even suspects that the Maoists have eaten
pecuniary bait thrown by some non-Hindu groups aiming to secure mass
conversions.
The legal aspect of the issue too
is not favorable to the Maoists. Since the monarchy, which stood as a
custodian of the Hindu character of the country, has already been
replaced by a secular setup, the state apparatus has no authority to
intervene in the affairs of a religious entity. The relevant law has
lost its validity.
"The state's right has to be
restricted to maintaining law and order, leaving [all] ritual matters
to religious authorities and devotees," said Badri Bahadur Karki, a
leading constitutional lawyer. This, he added, is the norm of a
civilized, democratic society. Perhaps this is something the Maoists
have failed to comprehend.