May 27, 2007
Nashik Temple Priest Joining BSP
to 'Atone' for Grandpa's Sin By Shyam
Pandharipande
Nashik (Maharashtra)
The chief priest of this famous Hindu pilgrimage centre's historic
Kalaram temple and a prominent functionary of the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) has created quite a sensation here by announcing his
decision to join the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
After meeting Mayawati in New Delhi Saturday, Mahant Sudhir Das, the
VHP's advisory board (margdarshak mandal) member said, he was
joining the Dalit-centric party in order to atone for the "sin"
committed by his grandfather Mahant Ramdas in 1930 by denying entry
to the Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar and his followers in the
temple.
The BSP leader has accepted the Mahant's invitation to visit the
Kalaram temple next month after her scheduled visit to Mumbai, he
informed his aides from New Delhi. Mayawati's cabinet colleague
Satishchandra Mishra was also present at the meeting, a temple
functionary told IANS quoting Mahant Ramdas.
It was his "failure" to persuade the then temple priest (Mahant
Ramdas) to allow entry to the 'untouchables' in the temple that had
led a dismayed Dr. Ambedkar to proclaim that though he was born
Hindu, he would not die in that discriminating religion.
The subsequent epoch-making action of Dr. Ambedkar, of leading
thousands of his Dalit followers into Buddhism at a place in Nagpur
that the world today knows as Deeksha bhoomi, came on the auspicious
Vijaya Dashmi day (Dussera) in 1956.
Interestingly, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Sudarshan had
referred to the Kalaram temple episode in his Vijaya Dashmi speech
at Nagpur (the Hindu nationalist organisation's headquarters) last
year and said the sitting priests had atoned for the sin in 2005 by
inviting "Dalit brethren" to the temple.
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