Jagannath Temple and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Jagannath Temple and Mahatma Gandhi 

 

I have known of the importance of the temple at Puri being open to Harijans as it certainly was years ago and, as I know from first-hand evidence, always has been so long as Harijans have gone without asserting their rights. But I have no lead to give about opening the temple beyond this that public opinion should be cultivated in that behalf. 1 You know that in the whole of our country the land of Orissa is the dearest to me. As soon as I returned to India I began to hear of Orissa’s poverty and famine. We raised an amount and sent over Thakkar Bapa in the capacity of a servant of this afflicted province and organized famine relief. I also realized that if I could serve Orissa somewhat I would by so doing serve India. Thus Orissa became for me a place of pilgrimage not because the temple of Lord Jagannath was there for it was not open to me, as it was not open to the Harijans but because I thought of a novel way of touring the country for the sacred mission of the abolition of untouchability. I had heard that the so-called sanatanists were enraged at my mission of removing untouchability and would even try to frustrate it with violence.

If they were really so minded, I said to myself, I should make their work easy by discarding the railway train and motor-car and trekking through the country. Moreover, people don’t go on a pilgrimage in cars and trains. They walk to the sacred place, with the name of God on their lips. Meditating on Him, they proceed along their way, forgetful of the fitful fever of the world, and mindful only of offering their homage to the Lord the homage of service. At least for me it is not possible to be so engrossed in meditation while on a rail journey. And if there was trouble in Puri because of the anger of the sanatanists, we could not flee from their wrath. It does not behoove a satyagrahi to run away. We must face it. I could not do all this in a car or a railway train, and so I decided to perform the rest of the Harijan pilgrimage on foot. The temple of Lord Jagannath has the reputation of being the most famous in India, for there all human distinctions are supposed to vanish, and all sorts of people, Brahmin and pariah, brush shoulders with one another vying for the darshan of the Lord and even eat His Prasad out of one another’s hands. But evidently it had outlived that reputation and the description had become a fiction, for the priests would not admit Harijans, but throw them out of the doors of the Lord of the World. I said to myself that so long as these distinctions of high and low endured before the very eyes of the Lord of the World, that Lord was not my Lord, that He was the Lord of the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas who exploited his name and kept Harijans out, but certainly not the Lord of the World. My ambition of restoring its old reputation to the temple is yet unfulfilled, and you have to help me in fulfilling it.

So long as the doors of the Jagannath temple are closed to the Harijans, they are closed to me as well. Ever since my tour along with the local workers and Thakkar Bapa, my contact with the province has been very close. The people of Orissa have the doubtful reputation of being opium addicts, even learned men not being free from the vice, as I found ten years ago. They are also indolent and lethargic. I know you will not mind my using this language, for you know the spirit in which it is being used. You know what great love I have for you. The people of Orissa are responsible for its poverty. Orissa is the land of poverty because of its opium, indolence and bigotry. The Exhibition gives me the hope that Orissa can rid itself of all these evils and be once again a land of happiness and plenty. After a round of the Exhibition the predominant thought in my mind is that if Oriyas can throw off their indolence they can get rid of poverty. The Exhibition is bound to be a revelation to the villagers attending it of the great capacities and potentialities of the province. All those who have come here should see the Exhibition not once but several times.

When it was decided to hold the Exhibition in this place, no one had any idea that the Government might offer help. The workers’ co-operation was taken for granted, for after all they are our own people. But the local Government is also ours. There is nothing surprising if they extended their co-operation. Yes, thanks certainly are due to them. The workers with the co-operation of the Government have been able to bring into being an exhibition which is well worth a close study by men and women, young and old. There are so many young people around who, if they chose to pick up a thing and make a study of it so as to learn how it was done, could earn their livelihood without great effort. 2

 

References:

 

1. 1.      Amrita Bazar Patrika, 30-5-1934
2. 2.      Harijan, 2-4-1938