Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Religious Trade/Tourism in Kerala-India



Religious Trade/Tourism in Kerala


Kerala state is distinct from all other states in India . Some of the remarkable features in this respect are highest literacy, longest span of life, highest civic consciousness, unique economic development without the support of agriculture or industry. Besides, the life style of Keralites is considered almost equivalent to that of a developed country. In spite of all these positive features some unhealthy trends badly affected the image of Kerala. The recent police raid in a Christian worship hall, Divine Retreat Centre, near Chalakuudi has sent shocking waves to all. The Divine centre is very famous for its peculiar prayers attracting not only Christians but also from all other sects from the entire parts of Kerala and all over India. It conducts treatments for mental health and other related illness. Recently, a compliant was filed in the High Court of Kerala about unnatural deaths in the Divine Centre. Even the government was not daring to take any action against the Divine Centre although many such complaints rose. Now when the Police conducted the raids on the basis of High Court direction, it unfolded the history of more than one thousand unnatural deaths. Many complaints are related to sexual persecution. It is nothing but the part of religious trade or better says a tourist spot with religious cure centre. Every day hundreds of people arrive at the centre for the purification of mind and treatment. But what actually going on was the exploitation of the people for money and sexual purposes. It has the support of all political parties cutting across their differences in their ideologies.

This is the story of not the one institution in Kerala. There are hundreds of such centres from small-scale to large scale operated by all the major religions – Hindus, Muslims and Christians. The intensity of cases is more in Christians and Hindus. In fact, the most recent trend is the worship in the name of Human God like Amrithananthamayi. It is very surprising the trust in the name of Matha Amrithananthamayi has billions of assets. The question is from which source they accumulated such money. But nobody is ready to raise their finger against the Trust. Amrita institutions are now the leading charitable trust in India. It has Universities, Medical institutions, Engineering institutions etc. What more…she is recognised as one of the highest respectable personalities in India. It was stated by the natives that Amrita was born to a poor family and later led a nasty life

Monday, May 14, 2007

Communal Propaganda Backfired in UP Elections


Mayawati’s BSP victory in UP elections is an eye opener to all the national political parties and SP. The significant outcome is the outright rejection of communal propaganda of the BJP resulting huge loss of the seats it already held. The BJP once again failed miserably in promoting any fruitful policy agenda. Rather the Party was attempting to capture vote by hook or crook, which found result in some state elections, especially in like Gujarat. It is very surprising that a leading national party like BJP does not have any crystal policy in securing votes. Now the credit goes to Mayawati for defeating all other parties single-handedly. In this process Mayawati employed a new strategy of appeasing non-Dalit parties. She successfully influenced the Brahmins and Muslims and converted most of their votes in favour of BSP. Now UP came under a single party rule after a long period. The sad point in the UP election outcome is that regional parties are gaining upper hand in their respective states and the national parties are losing their ground. In the longer run it would damage the national perspectives of India since all regional parties would focus on their states and never bother about the unity and consensus with all other states.