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Isn’t The Public Services Funded By Tax Payers When It Comes To The Godman Industry?

By Yadul Krishna

11 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org

The art of living is now spreading out the message that the art of misusing army is also a part of their ‘living’.

In the past few weeks, we have been seeing the nation going gaga on various issues relating to nationalism, freedom of speech, public funded money of tax payers misused in JNU, etc. The nobel laureate Amartya Sen once said “The success of a society is to be evaluated primarily by the freedoms that members of the society enjoy”. But this right to speech didn’t go out smoothly in the varsity as the ruling party intervened in between and started manhandling and arresting the students on sedition charges, attacking teachersand pouring acid on activist Soni Sori.One of the comments that came from the Sangh Parivar and the so-called ‘nationalists’ against the incidents that happened in JNU lately was that the expenses of the students pursuing their studies at JNU were funded by general public and they were meant for studies and not for politics or protests. Various left organsations at that time came forward and had put into words that at their time of ruling,even their studies become struggle.

But their patriotism for the nation and ‘public funds’ suddenly took an unexpected U-turn when it came to their beloved Guruji, their spirituality marketer. The army that they had been proudly telling us about as the sentinel heroes who guard our frontiers in Siachen, were made to do the labour of setting up the stage for the private program conducted by the art of living. When it comes to dissent in JNU, for them it happens because of the soldiers guarding the borders,but when it comes to sri sri, their efforts actually don’tmatter much. This clearly exposes the double standard of the governmentin favor of their religious mentors. If the studies in JNU are funded by the general public (Including the leftists as well as other sections holding different political and apolitical ideologies) isn’t the Indian Army, made to work here, also funded by the general public including me and you? Why do we fund the defense sector with the maximum share of the public budget? Is it to build stages and bridges for these godmans and make the soldiers work as their unpaid labourers? Instead of protecting our borders and people, 120 soldiers have been made to spend over a week building two temporary bridges that will float on the Yamuna river.On what grounds is this act justifiedby the government in calling them to do so?The constitutional mandate for our soldiers is to help the implementation of the constitution and not to turn them to cheap labourers who work for the interests of the BJP’s religious vote bank makers.

Apparently, the soldiers have become unpaid labour force that can be hired out to set up private parties. It should be noted that it is not a national or a state ceremony but a private event that will be attended by sri sri’s devotees over three days, as told, including the prime minister of India, who is the one who should be ensuring the job of a soldier gets respected. In their 35th anniversary Festival of Sri Sri's Yamuna cultural extravaganza, the art of living is spreading out the message that the art of misusing army is also a part of their ‘living’. Hindu Mahasabha’s Swami Omjee, who has a history of giving death threats, had threatened to kill an environmentalist for opposing the ‘Art of Living’ event and says “You will meet same fate asKalburgi.”

National Green Tribunal had already questioned the authorization of this event before. The Delhi government has pointed out to the National Green Tribunal that the event has no police or fire safety clearances. The NGT has gone hard on the Delhi Development Authority and has fined the Art of Living Foundation Rs 5 crore for damaging the Yamuna floodplains and ecosystem, as well as surrounding farmlands.NGT panel’s report says “The floodplain has been destroyed; the natural vegetation consisting of reeds, and trees have been completely removed”. According to CNN-IBN, almost 80 farmers have gone on a hunger strike against sri sri’s event claiming that their farmland had been converted into parking lots.A united Opposition in the Rajya Sabha slammed the government on Wednesday for allowing the Indian Army to be used for a private event of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living foundation. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of India(Marxist), Sitaram Yechury in the parliament had questioned the government on deploying the Army for such purposes and has stated that its highly irregular.Rashtrapati Bhavan in a statement had issued that President Pranab Mukherjee who was to preside over the valedictory function on March 13 will stay away from the event.

Yadul Krishna is a left activist and student of Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi



 



 

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