[Assam] From Hindustantimes :: How Racist we can be

Fri Mar 2 11:58:54 EST 2007

If you are thinking that severing the political and administrative link to India will also isolate Assam from the religious and cultural links to India, you must have "pol-potian" designs in your mind. 
  You and I may have liberated ourselves from the religious shackles but the average citizen in Assam has not. As for culture, I do not want to comment since even after 35 years of living abroad I feel very connected to Indian culture and Assamese sub culture.

  To answer your question in the email below, religious and cultural connections are the big reasons why Assam chose to be with India and not Pakistan in 1947. Remember Assam's people and its leaders struggled to remain in India. 

  You use the word "servitude to India" a lot. What do you really mean? By constitution Assam had and has the same status as any other state. In reality if it has changed, it is due to how Assam's leaders have represented the state to the center and the other states.
  Dilip 
  ==============================================================

Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
        >I hope people don't jump up and down, and use this as a show case to show why >Assam should gets its independence (because of rampant bigotry in Puri, >Jagananath) :).

  *** And why not :-)?  It does underscore, once again, the hollowness of the Hinduism that SOME proponents of Indian servitude for Assam wave as a reason.

  At 9:24 AM -0600 3/2/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
  Hi Utpal     First the HT is not correct in terming this as "racist". Its more religious bigotry, intollerance, and simply blind faith than anything else.     Years ago, Indira Gandhi was allowed into the Trupati Temple in spite of the fact that widows were not allowed - but then she was the Prime Minister.     I hope people don't jump up and down, and use this as a show case to show why Assam should gets its independence (because of rampant bigotry in Puri, Jagananath) :).     Hope you and Malabika are doing fine.     --Ram da  

   On 3/2/07, Malabika Brahma <malabikabrahma at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
  Food destroyed at Jagannath temple after foreigner's entry

Indo-Asian News Service

Bhubaneshwar, March 2, 2007

In a country where millions go to bed hungry, food worth Rs 1 million, meant for holy offering at Orissa's Jagannath temple was destroyed on Friday because a foreigner had entered the shrine, an act seen as defiling the premises.

Priests at the temple in Puri, 56 km from here, also performed rituals to cleanse the shrine after Paul Rodgier, a 55-year-old American Christian, visited it on Thursday afternoon.

The priests fined him Rs 209 when he pleaded that he was not aware of any restriction on the entry of foreigners to the temple. Rodgier had reportedly come to the government-run National Thermal Power Corp in Angul district on official work a few days ago.

The shrine administration then decided to destroy the food that was prepared for offering to the deities, temple official Laxmidhar Pujapanda told the agency. A mud pit was dug inside the premises and the holy offering was thrown in it.

The priests, who had stopped all the rituals of the temple since Thursday afternoon, also performed purification rituals on Friday, he said. The kitchen areas of the temple were also washed thoroughly, he added.

Foreigners are not allowed to enter leading Hindu temples in Orissa, including the Jagannath temple at Puri and the Lingaraj temple here.

An American woman, Pamela K Fleig, who had converted from Christianity to Hinduism after marrying an Uttar Pradesh resident, was denied entry into the 11th century Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar in 2005.

Thailand's Crown Princess Sirindhorn was also not given permission to visit the Jagannath temple the same year because she is a foreigner and a Buddhist.

Even former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a born Hindu was not allowed to enter the temple when she was in power because she had married a Parsi.

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