Make temples vibrant to end social evils – Govindacharya

Make temples vibrant to end social evils: SJM
Courtesy:www.newindpress.com

TIRUPATI: Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) National Steering Committee member K N Govindacharya emphasised reorientation of temples to make them vibrant institutions taking care of social issues apart from functioning as spiritual centres.

In his keynote address at the National Swadeshi Workshop here today, he said reorientation of temples would help harness their strength fully.

Unlike other tenets, Hindu philosophy never viewed spiritualism confined to four walls of the temples. Because of this outlook, this ancient tradition survived while others perished unable to withstand the alien onslaught.

‘‘The speciality of Hinduism was motherhood which played a key role in preserving the tradition and culture at family level which was the core of society,’’ he said.

However, due to distortions and confusions in the last two centuries, an uncertainty about our past crept in threatening to delink us from our roots, he said.

The only way out was developing mandirs (temples) into active Samsthas (institutions) to keep our moorings intact to prevent it from floating directionless and becoming easy prey to aliens, he explained.

TTD Trust Board Chairman B Karunakar Reddy said the alien cultural invasion in the past six decades was more than that of during the British rule. This was evident with more number of people getting attracted towards other beliefs due to a feeling of insecurity or for other reasons.

Reddy said TTD being the leading Hindu religious institution took the lead in initiating social service activities in a big way like Dalitha Govindam and Kalyanamasthu.

Dalitha Govindam is aimed at giving a jolt to those still in the arrogant belief that they are ‘superior’ to others.

‘‘By taking the idols of Lord Venkateswara to the Dalit colonies, besides making temple priests stay there, we want to teach a lesson to those coming in the way of equality in society,’’ he said.

Further, this kind of programmes would open the eyes of the conservative people and make them repent for the injustice done to the oppressed classes all these years, he said.

The three-day workshop is being organised jointly by the SJM and Sri Venkateswara Employees Training Academy (SVETA). TTD Executive Officer K V Ramanachari, SVETA Director BS Reddy, SJM leader Kumaraswamy and others were present.

Responses