Arrest of Kanchi Shankaracharya - Outrageous assault on Hindu honour

By R. Balashankar

The arrest and the manner of arrest of His Holiness Kanchi Shankaracharya Shri Jayendra Saraswati has shocked the nation. There was a palpable air of agony and disbelief, because it happened on Diwali day, at the behest of J. Jayalalithaa, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, whose eccentricities apart, many thought was keen to erase the Dravida Kazhagam blot, whose only contribution was in spreading hatred.

That 'the law should take its course' and 'everybody is equal before the law' are repeated ad nauseam in this context. We know how and what course the law takes (see pages 2, 10, 11) when it comes to politicians, minorities, organised thugs, terrorists and secessionists.

Shankaracharya's arrest has pained for many reasons. That the charges were cooked up, flimsy and contradictory, that the concerned law enforcing personnel, including the Public Prosecutor were absurd, abusive and disparaging, that the victim was convicted and almost punished, even before trial, by the media and the Chief Minister's ill-advised statement in the Assembly were not the only reasons for this pain.

Shankaracharya is a symbol. He is an institution. He represents the sentiments of millions of Hindus whose respect for him cuts across religious definitions, as he is a pious, unassuming, and progressive savant. He is heading a mutt founded by Adi Shankara and is its 69th Shankaracharya. He succeeded Pujaniya Paramacharya Chandrashekarendra Saraswati, whom many believed was a divine incarnation, indeed the greatest spiritual luminary of our time. The present Acharya is his disciple and like his guru, Shri Jayendra Saraswati's mission of restoring the Vedic Hinduism to its great glory is no less significant. He lighted millions of lives by his boundless compassion.

In the early eighties, he took up the challenge of Islamisation in Tamil Nadu. Even before that, he was closely associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other social reform movements. He was one of the first Acharyas of this age, who came out of the orthodox confines of the mutt and worked among the people, in the Dalit bastis. He even pronounced against caste, declaring that chaturvarna had no Vedic sanction. He is a revolutionary saint. He trained Dalit youth in temple rituals and declared them archakas giving them the sacred thread. Unwaveringly he stood for the Ram temple at Ayodhya and of late, he had acquired a universal reputation as a messenger of peace and harmony.

The arrest has shattered this image. The chargesheet is a bundle of contradictions. Everybody who knew the Shankaracharya and the mutt's standing and reputation will swear that he has been framed. For, it was said that the Acharya got Shankararaman killed by professional killers. And that they surrendered and confessed to the crime. Then that they were paid by taking Rs 10 lakh from the mutt account in the ICICI bank.

Professional killers are not known to belong to the tribe who go to police and voluntarily surrender. And if the mutt needed to give money for this purpose, why would it draw from the bank? Practically speaking, it can ask any devotee to pay up. And the much taunted telephone conversation is nowhere in the FIR. The police have also gone back on their previous claim that the bank account was of the mutt and operated by the Acharya. Now they are saying that the account was of an organisation close to the mutt. Jayalalithaa's police talk as if the Acharya is a hardened criminal. That he would have fled to Nepal.

The police said that they arrested the Acharya because he was about to 'flee'. They claimed to have got evidence of a clearance for a special flight to Nepal. Pray, how does one take off from Mehboobnagar? Acharya is the rajguru of the Nepal king. And after all, Nepal is no Pakistan and Acharya is no Dawood Ibrahim that the extradition is impossible. The tragedy is, in the name of law, the police harasses only the patriotic, law-abiding people of integrity.

K. Karunanidhi, the DMK leader, himself accused in numerous crimes, has been making all kinds of unsavoury noises. Remember, two years ago, when he was arrested in sleep on corruption charges by Jayalalithaa's police, what a racket he had created. He called it a political vendetta and Tamil Nadu as a police state. The man who raised such hullah about his human rights, health and reputation is now so abusive of the Acharya, that he wants the 2,000-year old mutt itself be taken over by the government. And also that a new Shankaracharya be appointed. This is the height of ignorance and blasphemy.

A Shankaracharya is not made in a day. Nor by the government. From the day of initiation in childhood, it takes at least two decades of rigorous training in philosophy and religion to make an Acharya of a mutt like Kanchi. That is why the Acharya's arrest was condemned by all the religious groups, including the Catholic Bishops Conference and the All India Association of Maulvis, who can appreciate the sentiments of faith.

Only politicians of pseudo-secular hues have justified the arrest and the manner, by saying that the Acharya did not deserve any special treatment. 'All are equal before law' trumpet the so-called justice lovers. The very men who are saying it are protected by unequal privileges, they themselves created. To arrest MPs, MLAs and ministers, special permission is needed. Are they more equal than the others?

'Justice should take its own course' is yet another nauseating reaction of politicians. What is their track record? Has justice taken its course in the case of Lalu Yadav and his horde of accused sitting in the Union cabinet? How many scandals have come out against them? And in how many have they been convicted? What is the track of justice in the endless list of cases of murder, rape, kidnapping and torture against half a dozen Congress leaders involved in the 1984 Sikh riots? The list is really long and listless. Jayalalithaa has walked out coolly in over a dozen charges against her, of course only to be revived by the DMK sooner than later. Justice takes the course the politicians want. Congress, which has reversed court decisions and ignored court directions, should be the last to speak about the rule of law.

Shankaracharya was woken up at midnight before Diwali, and was told that he was being taken for protection to Kanchi mutt. But he was then produced before a magistrate and sent to jail for a week. We would like to see the day when the police shows the same dare to make the Imam of Jama Masjid, who has been summoned many times by the courts in a dozen cases in many parts of the country if only to appear in the court.

The media also has played a dirty and deep game in the Shankaracharya case. Between Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, they own 90 per cent of the TV viewership in Tamil Nadu. The Sun TV and Jaya TV telecast 'news items' airing the so-called 'evidence' the police had supplied in the form of anonymous letters, and anonymous taped mobile phone conversations. They had drummed in so much about the 'activities' of Shankaracharya that even well-meaning people got confused. Taking recourse to these lies, which seemed to be appearing at the rate of one a day, the channels let their script flow unedited, suggesting, insinuating and sullying. Even for ethics' sake, words like 'alleged', 'supposed', or 'unconfirmed' were not used. They were all coming as direct, undiluted official versions. The owner of Sun TV is also the Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology. The owner of Jaya TV is the Chief Minister who ordered the arrest of the Acharya. Could anyone expect any objectivity from them? When the visual media was so much sensationalising the news, the regional press also got sucked in, adding to the propaganda calumny.