The Supreme Court hit the nail on the head on Friday while ordering a special investigative team’s probe into allegations of contaminated ghee used in the making of the laddus given as prasadam to devotees at the Hindu shrine at Tirupati. The top court observed it was passing the order “to assuage the feelings of crores of devotees”.
On September 19, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu quoted a National Dairy Development Board report alleging that the ghee used to prepare the world-famous laddu at the Sri Venkateswara Swami temple was contaminated with fish oil, beef tallow and lard (pig fat).
This news came down as a tonne of bricks on countless devotees. While many know-alls dismissed the sordid episode as a “non-issue”, there were whiz-kids for whom it was one more move on the political chess board. Undoubtedly, the egregious controversy has far wider ramifications beyond the usual power matrix and murky account books of unscrupulous businessmen. As the Supreme Court observed, countless devotees’ trust and religious sensitivities are at stake.
The top court’s observation at the previous hearing of the case on September 30—that adulterated ghee wasn’t used in the prasadam—had brought tremendous relief to believers, who must have been writhing in guilt, pain and hurt after the contamination story had gone viral. The court had said the laddus were not contaminated; the ghee was.
It’s a matter of satisfaction that the contaminated ghee wasn’t used. But the fact that an effort was made to do so is equally disturbing. What’s worse, many of those who have appropriated the platform of secularism tried to trivialise the issue. Their concern wasn’t that some vile characters had tried to hurt the sensitivities of the devotees. They were instead worried that the nationalists (read: the BJP and RSS) might take political advantage of this controversy.
The feelings of devotees on these unsavoury developments were mixed, ranging from disbelief to utter helplessness. There was hardly any ruction, which one often sees in India over lesser issues. What is the reason for this? Perhaps, after centuries of oppression, the sensitivity of the Hindu society has dulled. Acquiescing to injustice and putting up with indignities has probably become second nature to Hindus.
When the British, with help from the communists and Muslim League stormtroopers, partitioned the country in August 1947, millions trudged to residual India, leaving behind their ancestral homes and life savings. Lakhs of innocent Hindus and Sikhs fell victim to frenzied mobs and lost their lives. The larger Hindu society didn’t react. The refugees began to rebuild their lives. They even politically and socially accepted the very class responsible for forcing such a bloody partition on the country sans any warning.
Mahatma Gandhi recognised this escapist facet of the Hindu mindset. During the communal riots in the wake of the Khilafat movement (1919-24), when the movement’s activists targeted Hindus in a big way, he called the Muslims “bullies” and Hindus “cowards” in an article published in Young India in May 1924. The first significant instance of Hindu insensitivity in independent India occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, when Kashmiri Pandits in the valley were targeted by Islamic zealots, many of them financed and trained by Pakistan. An entire community of five lakh people was forced to flee their ancestral homes and reduced to refugees in their country. None even blinked.
Nearly a decade later, on February 27, 2002, jihadists burnt alive 59 kar sevaks in a train coach near the Godhra railway station in Gujarat. There wasn’t any significant reaction inside or outside parliament the following day. A prestigious English daily’s editorial even blamed the Hindu victims, stating that they had invited the tragedy upon themselves by provokingly chanting “Jai Shri Ram” in a Muslim-majority area while returning from their pilgrimage to Ayodhya.
In December 1963, a relic Muslims believed to be Prophet Muhammad’s hair—the Moi-e-Muqqadas—was reported missing from the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar. The rumour of its theft spread like wildfire. In Pakistan and across Kashmir and the rest of India, millions of Muslims began protests and demonstrations.
The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent senior minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and chief of the Intelligence Bureau Bholanath Mullick to Kashmir to handle the situation. In January 1964, the Moi-e-Muqqadas was found. According to Mullick, when he informed Nehru of the recovery, the latter remarked, “You have saved Kashmir for India.” Nehru’s comment highlights that issues related to faith cannot always be addressed with ordinary administrative measures or legal processes, as their consequences for the nation can be far-reaching.
In several states across India, thousands of temples, including the one at Tirupati, are managed by state governments. Sri Venkateswara Swami is an ancient shrine. It’s a spiritual institution and a symbol of social harmony. The day in the temple begins with the chanting of ‘Suprabhatam’, when the lord is awakened. The Yadavas have the privilege of having the first darshan after ‘Suprabhatam’ because of a boon believed to be granted by Lord Vishnu to a cowherd.
The pilgrims climbing the hill also visit a shrine at Alapiri. This statue is dedicated to Chinnaiah, a Dalit cobbler. Legend has it that he decided to stitch a pair of slippers for his lord one day. Although he procured the necessary materials, he wasn’t sure of the size of the lord’s feet; so he placed a sheet covered with flour in front of the lord and prayed all night. Impressed by his devotion, the lord put his feet on the flour and made footprints. The next day, Chinnaiah saw the footprints, stitched the slippers and carried them on his head to present them to the lord.
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, which manages the Tirupati shrine, is the country’s wealthiest temple trust, valued at USD 36 billion. The pertinent question is: why can’t it have a transparent tendering process for the supply chain and set up a modern laboratory to test the quality of ingredients used daily? There has hardly been any discussion on systemic improvement even after the worrying revelations.
(Views are personal)
(punjbalbir@gmail.com)
Balbir Punj | Author of the recently published Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India