Sunday, May 12, 2019
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Kumbh Mela: Economic Benefits
Here is a very good articles explaining the economic benefits due to Kumbh Mela:
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the apex trade body, expects the 2019 Kumbh Mela to generate business worth ₹1,20,000 crores. While the government expenditure on the festival is ₹4,200 crore.
The CII also says that the festival will create 600,000 jobs. In hospitality alone 250,000 people will receive work through the festival and hundreds of thousands more in tour operations and airlines, local transport and logistics, as formal and informal guides, and in emergency and ancillary support systems. Around 85,000 jobs will come from medical tourism and eco-tourism related to the festival alone.
But this is not new. In 2013, when the Kumbh Mela was last held, it created an estimated 100,000 jobs directly in the arrangements of the festival and an equal amount in the wider economy. Local authorities estimated that the impact of the Kumbh Mela is about 15 to 20 times the amount of money spent organising it.
In 2013, the local administration had raked in $2.2 billion on an investment of around $220 million.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
The Monk Who Lived India - Kanchi shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswatiji
It was 1992. In the wake of the Ayodhya movement, I met the Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswatiji for the first time.
I asked him: "People say a lot about the way Hindu sanyasis work. They don't help the so-called lower castes, they don't serve people, but only preach. What do you have to say?"
I was the editor of Panchjanya at that time and perhaps he didn't expect a question like this.
He paused and said: "We don't have to answer everyone. Ask them what they have done and tell them to find out what we are doing. Then you may repeat this question."
Then he laughed -- a very innocent, child-like, laugh.
I again asked: "Isn't it a reflection on Hindus that even after centuries they have not been able to get back the Ram temple?"
He smiled and said, "Why do you forget the centuries of resistance and success in protecting Dharma? It's a long struggle and soon the temple will be there. I have full faith."
On both counts, the Kanchi seer was right, and so perfectly.
Not only have I found hundreds of educational and medical centres of excellence run by Hindu monks in various parts of the country -- serving wonderfully, with humility to all, without discrimination -- I also discovered they were helping to erase caste-based hatred and apartheid.
As far as the Ram temple in Ayodhya is concerned, I think the Kanchi seer saw it coming in his last days -- and we all feel more hopeful now, more than ever before.
The Kanchi shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswatiji, started India's best eye hospital, the Sankara Nethralaya.
Described as 'Temples of the Eye', the Sankara Nethralayas serve all -- Hindus, Muslims, Christians -- in huge numbers, from down south to Punjab and up to the north east.
It is Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswatiji's great vision and commitment to serve the people, providing world class medical service at minimum cost.
He was an embodiment of Dharma -- in the footsteps of the living legend, Paramacharya, the 68th Shankaracharya, Chandrasekharendra Saraswati.
He inspired and saw to it to have the best schools, colleges and medical centres across the country.
He established temples with such finesse and grace that they serve Hindus in a great, harmonious, manner, showcasing the best and brilliant in Dharma traditions.
The Sankara Nethralaya Web site tells us: 'It was in 1976 when addressing a group of doctors, His Holiness Sri Jayendra Saraswati, the sankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, spoke of the need to create a hospital with a missionary spirit.'
'His words marked the beginning of a long journey to do God's own work.'
Strangely, often, the secular Hindu class attacks the saints and priests of Hindu Dharma, but never highlight their services to humanity, provided without discrimination, given to everyone.
The Kanchi seer was ahead of his times.
He began training Dalit archakas (priests) years earlier. He visited their temples and consecrated those centres of faith. He joined Kumbhabhishekams organised by them.
His special attention on the north east -- by establishing schools, hospitals and centres of Vedic studies -- is exemplary and an inspiration to all those who want to serve India and protect Hindu Dharma.
When we started the Sindhu Darshan festival in Leh in 1996, he was happy, saying this would bring the glory of the Indus back to the nation. He wanted it to be a collective event of Hindus and Buddhists.
In spite of being a harsh, cold, climate, he visited Sindhu and performed a special Sindhu Pujan, which he never forgot and always mentioned whenever I met him.
When the Kanchi seer was invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan, Colonel Ashok Kini -- President A P J Abdul Kalam's ADC -- tweeted today: 'Dr Kalam made the saint sit on his chair. When I asked, why was this honour. His reply: "I want this chair to get blessed and whoever sits on this chair in future must get blessings of this saint".'
Jayendra Saraswatiji virtually lived India.
He lived Dharma and served all with the great ideals and incorrigible faith in Advaita in his heart.
He will always live in the hearts of the millions of children who have studied in schools and colleges established by him and the faithful Hindus to whom he was a symbol of the invincible spirit of glorious Hindu Dharma.
He represented an era and his passing has left a blank that will be difficult to be filled.
(C) Tarun Vijay / Rediff
Monday, December 25, 2017
Remembering Swami Shraddhanand
A Newspaper Ad in Dainik Jagran, 25-Dec-2017 by MDH, remembering Swami Shraddhanand
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Swami Shraddhanand - Wikipedia
Swami Shraddhanand (1856–1926), also known as Mahatma Munshi Ram Vij, was an Indian educationist[clarification needed] and an Arya Samaj missionary who propagated the teachings of Dayananda Saraswati. This included the establishment of educational institutions, like the Gurukul Kangri University, and played a key role on the Sangathan (consolidation) and the Shuddhi (re-conversion), a Hindu reform movement in the 1920s.
Meeting Dayanand
He first met Dayanand Saraswati when Dayanand visited Bareilly to give lectures. His father was handling arrangements and security at the events, due to the attendance of some prominent personalities and British officers. Munshiram attend the lectures at his father's request. He originally went with the intent of spoiling the arrangements, then claimed to be strongly influenced by Dayanand's courage, skill, and strong personality. After completing his studies Munshiram started his practice as lawyer.[1][2]
Schools
In 1892 Arya Samaj was split into two factions after a controversy over whether to make Vedic education the core curriculum at the DAV College Lahore. He left the organization and formed the Punjab Arya Samaj. The Arya Samaj was divided between the Gurukul Section and the DAV Section. Shraddhanand headed for Gurukuls. In 1897, when Lala Lekh Ram was assassinated, Shraddhanand succeeded him. He headed the 'Punjab Arya Pratinidhi Sabha', and started its monthly journal, Arya Musafir.[3] In 1902 he established a Gurukul in Kangri, India near Haridwar. This school is now recognized as Gurukul Kangri University.
In 1917, Mahatma Munshi Ram took sanyas as "Swami Shradhanand Saraswati".
Shraddhanand established gurukul Indraprashtha in Aravali near Faridabad, Haryana.[3]
Activism
In 1917, Shraddhanand left Gurukul to become an active member of the Hindu reform movements and the Indian Independence movement.[2] He began working with the Congress, which he invited to hold its session at Amritsar in 1919. This was because of the Jalianwala massacre, and no one in the Congress Committee agreed to have a session at Amritsar. Shraddhanand presided over the session.
He also joined the nationwide protest against the Rowlatt Act. The same year he protested in front of a posse of Gurkha soldiers at the Clock Tower in Chandni Chowk, then was allowed to proceed.[2] In the early 1920s he emerged as an important force in the Hindu Sangathan (consolidation) movement, which was a by product of the now revitalised Hindu Maha Sabha.[4]
Swami Shradhanand was the only Hindu Sanyasi who addressed a huge gathering from the minarates of the main Jama Masjid New Delhi, for national solidarity and vedic dharma starting his speech with the recitation of ved mantras.[2]
He wrote on religious issues in both Hindi and Urdu. He published newspapers in the two languages as well. He promoted Hindi in the Devanagri script, helped the poor and promoted the education of women. By 1923, he left the social arena and plunged whole-heartedly into his earlier work of the shuddhi movement (re-conversion to Hinduism), which he turned into an important force within Hinduism.[5]
In late 1923, he became the president of Bhartiya Hindu Shuddhi Sabha, created with an aim of reconverting Muslims, specifically 'Malkana Rajputs' in the western United Province. This brought him into direct confrontation with Muslim clerics and leaders of the time.[3][6]
Assassination
On 23 December 1926 he was assassinated by a Muslim named Abdul Rashid,[7] who entered his home at Naya Bazar, Delhi, by posing as a visitor.[8][unreliable source?] Upon his death, Gandhi moved a condolence motion at the Guwahati session of the Congress on 25 December 1926.[9] An excerpt from the speech in relevant part reads "If you hold dear the memory of Swami Shraddhanandji, you would help in purging the atmosphere of mutual hatred and calumny. You would help in boycotting papers which foment hatred and spread misrepresentation. I am sure that India would lose nothing if 90 per cent of the papers were to cease today. . . Now you will perhaps understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swamiji's murder. Guilty indeed are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another. For us Hindus the Gita enjoins on us the lesson of equi-mindedness; we are to cherish the same feelings towards a learned Brahman as towards a chandala, a dog, a cow or an elephant." [10]
Today, the 'Swami Shraddhanand Kaksha' at the archeological museum of the Gurukul Kangri University in Haridwar houses a photographic journey of his life.[11]
A statue of him was placed in front of Delhi Town Hall after independence, replacing a statue of Queen Victoria.[12] This location in Old Delhi is termed ghantaghar because the old clock tower stood here until the 1950s.[13]
Personal life
Shraddhanad and his wife Shiwa Devi had two sons and two daughters. His wife died when Shraddhanad was only 35 years old. His granddaughter Satyavati was a prominent opponent of the British rule in India.[14]
References
- ^
- ^a b c d G.S. Chhatra. Some Indian Personalities of the Time: Swami Shraddhanand Advanced Study in the History of Modern India Lotus Press. 2007. ISBN 81-89093-08-8 p. 227.
- ^a b c G. R. Thursby. Controversy Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India: A Study of Controversy, Conflict, and Communal Movements in Northern India 1923–1928, BRILL, 1975. ISBN 90-04-04380-2. p. 15.
- ^ Chetan Bhatt. Shraddhanand Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths Berg Publishers, 2001. ISBN 1-85973-348-4. p. 62
- ^ R. K. Ghai. Shuddhi Movement in India: A Study of Its Socio-political Dimensions, Commonwealth Publishers, 1990. p. 43.
- ^ Kenneth W. Jones. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India: Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, Volume III-1 Cambridge University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-521-24986-4. p. 194
- ^ Jagdish Saran Sharma. Indian National Congress: A Descriptive Bibliography of India's Struggle for Freedom, S. Chand, 1959. p. 502.
- ^ Forbes, Geraldine (28 April 1999). Women in Modern India, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press. p. 148.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Bangladesh Hindus celebrate Holi festival
As elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh Hindu community also Wednesday celebrated Holi, the festival of colors, fun and frolic.
The festival has brought more Hindus to the temples in old part of capital Dhaka than at almost any other normal day of the year.
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