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22 Jun 2014
UR Ananthamurthy should leave peoples faith
alone
By KS Muralidharan and Basavaraj Sindhur on
Jnanpith Awardee and distinguished Kannada scholar Professor UR Ananthamurthy (URA) has once again hit the
headlines, for the wrong reasons, and as some would say predictable reasons, given his penchant for anti-Hindu
writing.
This really doesnt make sense! That too coming from an award-winning scholar!
Reading it makes one wonder whether what one reads is what one reads.
Jnanpith Awardee and distinguished Kannada scholar Professor UR Ananthamurthy
(URA) has once again hit the headlines, for the wrong reasons, and as some would say
predictable reasons, given his penchant for anti-Hindu writing.
URA, as he is commonly known, said that he had once pissed on an idol which was
worshiped by the villagers. A crazy act though it may be but apparently he did so
because he wanted to prove that the idol had no powers. After his shock-and-shame act,
nothing shocking and shaming happened to him and so the learned professor concluded
that it was after all, only a stone.
The controversy sparked off due to a news report over a speech by MM Kalburgi, former
Vice-Chancellor, Hampi University at a public program in Karnataka. Kalburgi in his
address reportedly referred to an essay written by URA where the latter recounts a
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childhood experience when he urinated on a temple deity in a village. Apparently this act
was to challenge the belief systems handed down to him in his family which said that
everything was sacred.
A front-page story in Kannada regional daily Vijayavani on June 10, 2014 reveals how
URA goes on to deduce that:
a) people who believe in idol worship are pea-brained.
b) the practice of idolatry is fostering and increasing superstitious practices in society.
c) Hindu temples which are the abode of idols are a big hurdle to ending blind belief.
d) To remove superstitions from our society we have to first remove idols in temples.
e) A campaign should be launched against idolatry by removing all idols from temples.
The essay in question is from a book titled Bettale Puje Yake Kudadhu (roughly
translated as Why nude worship is not acceptable) published in 1996 and reprinted
many times since then. Predictably, Kannada channels like TV 9 went overboard hauling
the writer and the Vice-Chancellor in a feisty talk-show. Even a case has also been
registered against URA and Kalburgi in a Bangalore court for hurting religious
sentiments. The case has been reportedly posted for hearing on October 13.
URA urinates on a revered idol to prove his point that idols are just pieces of stone. But
will URA piss on the statue of someone he reveres? Suppose the person whom he
reveres means nothing to us. Following his own example, will URA tolerate and accept it
if we go and piss on that mans statue?
Of course, there is always a readymade exit route for such anti-Hindu intellectuals
disguised as so-called rationalists. They claim that their prime concerned is to create a
scientific understanding rathere than illogical belief systems based on faith and
superstitions.
How do these rationalists react when US based doctors encourage their cardiac patients
to chant Gayatri Mantra and Om? Possibly an scientific rationalist like URA may negate
all this since it is contrary to his belief system.
Swami Vivekananda had said, If a man can realize his divine nature with the help of an
image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor, even when he has passed that stage,
should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not traveling from error to truth, but from
truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. Idolatry in India is the attempt of undeveloped
minds to grasp high spiritual truths.
URA may well believe that his diatribe against idolatry gives him a halo, but who would
you rather accept, URA or Swami Vivekananda?
Idolatry is not about some stony structure but about a belief cast in stone. Faith is an
individual choice and an act of volition. Faith is a testament made to the self and intrinsic
to it. Faith is a spiritual conception derived from a material perception. Only a lazy mind
devoid of sensitivity will see it as co-terminus with superstition.
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URAs tribe of intellectuals hide under the veneer of rational thinking to humiliate Hindu
practices. You cant get more rational than this gem from Vivekananda who says that it is
humanly impossible to harbour any thought without a mental image of it. We can no more
think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law
of association the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the
Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships.
URA is perfectly entitled to believe that he is a greater authority than Vivekananda on
Hinduism. Just like how millions of ordinary Hindus are perfectly entitled to think of him as
plain anti-Hindu. The suspicion remains: Why is the Rational Standard applied only to
Hindus and Hinduism?
The harsh fact is, in terms of vitriol and hate-speech, even the notorious Hyderabadi,
Akbaruddin Owaisi pales in comparison to UR Ananthamurthy.
Image Credit: Wikipedia
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