by B. R. GOWANI
Jain religious leader Tarun Sagar speaking in the Haryana Assembly on August 29, 2016 PHOTO/The Indian Express
Religious leaders in most countries all over the world exert overt or covert influence over political and business leaders who get votes or business from their followers. South Asia is a region where this prevails also. The politicians and business people get the religious leaders’ blessings in order to woo their followers, gain their support in exchange of a favor for the leaders. (The “greatest democracy,” United States, is no exemption. Donald Trump, who has no particular affiliation with religion, is getting lot of support from televangelists.)
Naked monk
Three weeks ago Tarun Sagar, a Jain Digambara monk, was in the news after his address at the Haryana State Assembly. The reason for his newsworthiness was twofold: his comments on the role of religion in politics and his naked condition, literally. (The Digambara monks are required to shun clothes to display one of their vows of freedom from possession.)
One wonders why the hell would a religious monk, a naked one at that, who has nothing to do with the materialist world, would take the trouble of addressing fully clothed materialistic people?
Well, he was invited by Ram Bilas Sharma (of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, which rules the Central Government and the State of Haryana) to deliver a speech. (Watch the speech here.) It also had support from the main opposition Congress Party. Additionally, Sagar is very fond of talking; and his speeches are known as Kadve Pravachan or bitter speeches. Sharma is the second most important person in Haryana government. In his speech, Sagar advised the law makers not to permit daughter-less people to contest elections, not to marry their daughters in daughter-less families, and also advised the saints to not take alms from daughter-less houses.
The problem inherent in the above advice is too obvious. In India, it’s not easy for parents to find a son-in-law because of family’s demand for a big dowry. In a three year period (2012, 2013, 2014), 24,771 women died in dowry related cases. In this situation, parents can’t afford to avoid families with no daughters if those families have grooms suitable for their daughters.
After advising the Haryana State Assembly on political, social, and religious issues he lamented the state of gender bias:
“We are living in the 21st century. Even today, when boys and girls are differentiated, I feel we are living in the 14th century.”
We cannot disagree with Sagar on this statement. But then this 21st century man showed his patriarchal mentality.
“The control of dharma over politics is essential. Dharma is the husband, politics is the wife. It is the duty of every husband to protect his wife. It is the duty of every wife to accept the discipline of her husband. If there is no control of dharma over politics, it will be like an elephant out of control.”
Sagar’s attack was based on the twofold philosophy: religion should prevail over politics and men should rule over women. It is tragic that in today’s age Sagar was allowed to emit this backward attitude in Haryana’s state assembly. Sagar’s hold over politicians is immense, including his power over Modi. (See the picture of naked monk blessing the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.)
Dadlani
This travesty was mentioned by Indian music director Vishal Dadlani who correctly pointed out Sagar’s idiocy in his tweets:
“People actually trying to defend the colossal idiocy of some naked monk, addressing Haryana assembly, telling women how to live! UNREAL!”
“That dude has the same education, as he has clothes on. None. I’ve no problem with nudity. I have a problem with religion in governance.”
“I wonder how the idiots defending that shit, don’t see the hypocrisy of it. Or ‘hipocrasy’, as they spell it.”
But all hell broke loose against Dadlani and he was forced to cave. He deleted his tweets and asked for forgiveness and was granted one by monk. Altogether, Dadlani had apologized 32 times on Tweeter! Dadlani had to go in person to seek the monk’s forgiveness because, according to Sagar:
“I was talking to Vishal today and I told him that Jain community has been hurt, it was their demand that he should come to me in person and apologise only after which they will stop protests against him.”
Surely, the community would have listened to Sagar if he had requested them to close the entire issue. This publicity seeking naked monk wanted the spectacle of a face to face apology from Dadlani to show his own power.
Dadlani’s party boss Arwind Kejriwal was also upset at him. Kejriwal capitalizing on the opportunity tweeted:
“I met Shri Tarun Sagar ji Maharaj last year. Our family regularly listens to his discourses on TV. We deeply respect him and his thoughts.”
“Tarun Sagar ji Maharaj is a very reverred saint, not just for jains but everyone. Those showing disrespect is unfortunate and shud stop.”
Kejriwal did not think before his tweets praising the naked monk and his displeasure of Dadlani. It was another half naked monk who introduced the issue of religion to the mainstream politicians that eventually tore a country apart and resulted in the partition of India. Yes, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was that politician.
The tremendous power of the naked monk was clearly evident when Dadlani announced his decision to not only quit the party, but also quit politics altogether.
Pakistan
Sagar also reminded his audience about Pakistan’s terrorism attacks but of course left out mentioning the atrocities of the Indian troops i.e., Indian terrorism in Kashmir. Writer Sanjukta Basu points out Sagar’s anti-monkish behaviour by noting that Jain monks are supposed to be “calm and devoid of wrath” but such was not the case with Sagar who was “far from being calm and his wrath towards Pakistan was shooting through the roof.”
It’s a sad thing that religion is gaining increasingly more influence in India, too. It is following the Pakistan route of self-destruction.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com