The Mandla district collector participating in the state-sponsored yatra of a Hindu revivalist saint has provoked controversy in Madhya Pradesh, with the ruling BJP tweeting her photos and a Congress Rajya Sabha member objecting to her becoming a 'tool' in a political event.
Mandla collector Sufiya Faruqi carried a charan-paduka (footwear symbol) of saint Adi Shankaracharya as part of the month-long Shankaracharya Ekatma Yatra. The official walked a few yards with the symbol as a mark of respect for the saint, who is being promoted by the state government as having revived India's culture and given it self-respect.
Faruqi is an IAS officer of the 2009 batch. She was among the top 20 in the main exam of Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) out of 791 candidates. A resident of Bhopal, Faruqi became collector of the tribal district of Mandla in June this year.
Since it was a government-sponsored yatra, the collector was present on the occasion when it reached her district to welcome the charan-paduka. Being the administrative head of the district, she not only welcomed the yatra but even did puja of the charan-paduka along with several other BJP leaders.
Later, photographs of her worshipping the charan-paduka of the Shankaracharya and carrying it on her head, wearing a saffron saree, were tweeted by BJP media in-charge and spokesperson Lokendra Parahsar.
In his tweet, Parashar claimed the collector was immersed in her faith for Adi Shankaracharya. He welcomed her act of carrying the charan-paduka.
The controversial Ekatma Yatra is being conducted by state government at the behest of RSS, which wants to re-establish the legacy of Adi Shankaracharya by erecting a huge metal statue in the holy town of Omkarashewar.
However the decision of the collector to carry the charan-paduka on her head was not received kindly by Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tanka. He objected to it, declaring that she should have kept away from the event as the yatra is a political one. He even said that it is not good for her career as she appeared to be bending backward to please political leaders. “A collector is supposed to look non-partisan and this is not her job,” Tanka declared.
The Ekatma Yatra is being organised to collect metal from towns of the state to erect a 108-feet-tall statue of Adi Shankaracharya at the holy town of Omkareshwar. The yatra had previously been criticised by a former attorney general and the sitting Shankaracharya of Dwaraka Mutt.
The month-long Ekatma Yatra was started by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on December 19 from the temple town of Ujjain with religious fervour by sending a multimillion-rupee air-conditioned rath (motorized chariot), carrying an urn filled with soil of Ujjain Mahakal Shiva Temple.
The yatra, sponsored and planned by the culture department of the state government, will terminate on January 20.
The yatra had invited criticism from the Shankaracharya of Dwarika Mutt, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, who said, “The chief minister is preaching incorrect ideology of Adi Shankaracharya. The yatra should have been nationwide, starting from the birthplace of Shankaracharya to Kedarnath.”
He complained, “This is a government yatra, which has nothing to do with the teaching of Adi Shankaracharya. At least, we shankaracharyas should have been consulted before starting such a yatra.”
Previously, a former attorney general and senior-most lawyer of Madhya Pradesh, Anand Mohan Mathur, served a legal notice to the chief minister with copies to the chief secretary and principal secretary, school education. Mathur challenged the decision of the state government to erect a statue at a cost to the state exchequer.
In a two-page legal notice issued through his advocate, he said, “(Adi) Shankaracharya's philosophy was against Article 14 of the Constitution, which says that state cannot deny any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the law on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.”
In the notice, he said “Shankaracharya was born in 788 AD and has revived the ‘Manu philosophy’ and caste system propounded by him. He also opposed Buddhism, which was the religion which introduced equality in the society.”
The controversy over the yatra has its roots in the BJP’s ideology of Hindutva. “The yatra in the election year (polls are due in November 2018) has raised many eyebrows as the hidden objective is to consolidate the Hindu vote bank,” said Praveen Dubey, a senior journalist and political analyst.
