Today's newspaper came out with a shocking news of over 100 deaths in a stampede near Sabarimala temple, Kerala.30 deaths in Queensland, Australia due to floods and its already termed a catastrophe with all kinds of disaster mitigation apparatus swiftly into action.A stumbling question comes to my mind, when will we Indians start giving human value its true worth ? Do we even have a true statistical record of the number of deaths? At a time when people and media are crying for a new reliable index for industrial production, why is there no public demand for a true death statistic. The answer is staring at us, we simple don't want it!! But why? Is this part of our "pompous" culture and religious history?
Time will heal the wounds of the affected families in the Sabarimala tragedy. But as a society we need to introspect and come out with clear answers to delineate faith and truth. Vested interests should not be allowed to gain mileage by fooling millions of devotees in the name of tradition.
Hinduism talks about "moksha" or salvation from the vicious cycle of birth and death. But for god' sake noone wants to attain moksha by way of a death by stampede. In spite of this tragedy, rest assured there will be a bigger crowd next year and even poorer disaster management force in place. A news article pointed out the presence of National Disaster Response Force(NDRF) at Sabarimala supposedly experienced at crowd control and management. A lakh of hooligan swami's to be managed by a handful of "experts"? ...Guess the district administration is still in a utopian world but totally unfair to blam them either.
Why was there such a big crowd assembled ? To see the biggest farcical side of our religious devotion. Makarajyothi (picture above)- A divine glow emanating from the eastern hills, supposed to be the assertion of Lord Ayyappa himself.Now if God himself comes every 14th of January without fail just to assert himself as a divine glow, why is that divine spot not a temple? In a country where rumours of Divine touch or birth can trigger a series of religious spots(Read Ram Janmabhumi) why aren't the very same religious fanatics crying for a temple here at the spot of Makarajyothi where God visits every year.
Time will heal the wounds of the affected families in the Sabarimala tragedy. But as a society we need to introspect and come out with clear answers to delineate faith and truth. Vested interests should not be allowed to gain mileage by fooling millions of devotees in the name of tradition.
1 comments:
Yeah man. That Sabarimala things was a real tragedy. But I am sure everyone must have forgot. Most of the died people are from other states who are crazy about ayyappa swamy. My doubt is that if they are great devotees then why didn't GOD save them? I asked this question to some of my relatives and they where like, don't question god or he will make you suffer!
And about the Makarajyothi things, some body should go there and check it out. Atleast people should know whether it is a real or made up thing. May be we can arrange a trek to that place..:)
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