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Today marks the first day of the Hindu new year which is celebrated as ‘Gudi Padwa’ in Maharashtra. To celebrate the same, Hindu Janajagruti Sabha (HJS) which is known to have had a chequered history of organising events and inviting speaker to deliver hate speeches, organised ‘Gudi Pujan’ events at various places in Pune, Sangli, Sindhudurg districts in Maharashtra.
Festivals are a time to come together and celebrate. It is supposed to promote a feeling of oneness and in a culturally diverse country like India, it means celebrating within its diversity. However, this sense of togetherness and brotherhood has been lost upon the extreme right wing in the country where every festival is taken as an opportunity to provoke other communities as well as their own to disturb public peace. Such an apprehension is not coming out of thin air but it is a serious one considering the dark incidents that marred Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti celebrations last year. Even garba events during Navratri in October last year were not spared and false propaganda against the Muslim community where they forced Garba Pandals to disallow non-Hindus from playing garba.
Ram Navami which fell on April 10, 2022 was marred with clashes, stone-pelting, trishul diksha, attacks on students and many other instances of violent communal confrontation in Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. One death was reported in Gujarat; at least 10 persons were injured in stone pelting in Jharkhand, 10 houses were burnt during violent clashes in Madhya Pradesh and violence was reported in West Bengal, all in one day when Ram Navami was celebrated.
Keeping this in mind and with the intention to throw caution to the wind, CJP wrote to the respective SPs of Sangli and Pune to intimate them and alert them that such events have been planned by HJS which otherwise only resorts to notoriety to disturb public peace. Their ‘gudi pujan’ events appear harmless, for that matter any celebration of any festival is a peaceful affair and rather a joyous gathering. Yet, an intimation to the local police was a need of the hour to remain vigilant and ensure that HJS does not stoop down to their usual mode of working and raise slogans against another community.
Accordingly, CJP wrote to Sangli and Pune Police explaining briefly why these events have a tendency of going haywire and how the nature of these gatherings could change given a crowd is gathered and some miscreants are up to mischief. CJP also highlighted the Justice Madon Committee [which was formed in Maharashtra after the communal violence of 1970] report recommended that before granting permission to the organizers to take out a procession likely to provoke trouble the officer concerned should undertake a thorough reconnaissance of the proposed route even before prescribing a route for it under section 36 of the Bombay Police Act.
CJP made a humble plea to the police, “Sir, in view of the history of such religious processions leading to disruption of law and order, just in the past one year, we urge that you take necessary preventive and cautionary measures to ensure no untoward incident takes place. Also, steps need to be taken keeping in view the history of Hindu Janajagruti Sabha (HJS) which is organising these events, since they have a long history of attempting to incite people to resort to violence against the minority community. We request you to closely monitor these events/rallies for incidents of violence and/or hate speech.”
The Complaints may be read here:
Related:
Communal confrontations mar Ram Navami celebrations in five states
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