MUMBAI: The Bhim Army has demanded a ban on "Ravana Dahan" this Dusserrah. Office bearers of the organization would give memoranda in this regard to government officials including police starting Monday.
"Ravan represents our rich cultural heritage. He was a judicious and popular king who had a good flair in various arts and cultural pursuits. He has been wrongly depicted as a villain in our scriptures. Some of the tribes worship him as a god and hence, we want the unjust act of burning effigies of Ravan on Duserrah," Ashok Kamble, Maharashtra head of the Bhim Army Ekta Mission told The New Indian Express.
"In India, we have several temples of Ravan. Most of them - over 350 are in Tamil Nadu, while the one at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh is the biggest one - about 15 feet in height," Kamble said while stressing that he had been worshipped as a god by sections of society across India.
"Though the traditional scripts depict him as a Brahmin, it denoted the knowledgeability of a person during those days," Kamble said adding that like several social ills of our society the tradition of burning effigy of Ravan too shall be stopped.
"We shall be giving memoranda to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at 2 pm on Monday. Most of our district units too would meet the district collector as well as the police chiefs of the districts and hand them over the memoranda," said Sunil Thorat, general secretary of Bhim Army's state unit.
"We shall also demand that those who conduct such programs to burn the effigy of Ravan should be acted against relevant sections of the IPC regarding hurting sentiments of a community and creating public nuisance," Thorat said, and added that if people burn the effigy as a symbol of all ills, we won't have any objection to it.