In a state where it has considerable influence, the sect’s climbdown is unique. Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, inaugurated the Hanuman monument where the murals had been removed in April, for instance. The Vadtal Swaminarayan sect owns a temple in Salangpur, in Gujarat’s Botad district. The furor caused by Hindu religious sects over murals on the pedestal of a Lord Hanuman statue there, and the fast climbdown by the strong sect, are signs of the simmering hostility between the two groups.
After seeing the fresh murals at the pedestal of the Hanuman statue at the temple, a devotee from the Ramanandi community who does puja at Lord Ram temples first brought up the issue on August 20. He photographed the “offensive” murals, particularly one that looked to depict Hanuman seated at the feet of Sahajanand Swami, the sect’s founder who founded the Swaminarayan movement 200 years ago.
The issue was soon raised by prominent preacher Morari Bapu and other Hindu religious leaders claiming to represent Sanatan Dharma. Bhupendra Patel, the chief minister of Gujarat, met with a group of Swaminarayan sect leaders on Monday. After some time, it consented to take down the murals.
The sect’s retreat is rare in a state where it has considerable influence. For instance, Union Home Minister Amit Shah dedicated the Hanuman statue at the sect temple in April.
Points on Hindu Religious Rally
When Ram Madhav, the leader of the RSS, visited the temple, the situation got worse and the Congress got involved. Mahesh Rajput, the party leader, and other Congress workers, one of whom was costumed as Lord Hanuman, submitted a memorandum to the Rajkot District Collector asserting that the murals were present when Shah dedicated the statue.
One wonders if Gujarat’s and India’s current and former home ministers have seen the murals. Why didn’t he object to the derogatory murals depicting Lord Hanuman and the Sanatan Dharma? Rajput enquired.
BJP leaders avoided making any comments on the matter, with the exception of Union Minister Parsottam Rupala, who called it “unfortunate”.
After moving to Gujarat from his native state of Uttar Pradesh in 1799, Swaminarayan, also known as Ghanshyam, Neelkanthvarni, and Sahajanand Swami, created the Swaminarayan sect. Although the group also welcomes leaders of the Congress and other parties, it is widely seen as a BJP ally.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among those who traveled to Salangpur to pay their respects to Pramukhswami, the head of the Bochanvasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan (BAPS) Sanstha, which split apart from Vadtal Swaminarayan when he passed away in 2016.
The Akshardham series of temple complexes was also constructed by the BAPS; the first of these was located in Gandhinagar, which was the subject of an alleged terrorist attack in 2002. Bhupendra Patel, the chief minister of Gujarat, makes a point of stopping by Swaminarayan temples while touring the state’s various regions.
The Swaminarayan sect has previously come under fire from rival Hindu organizations. Anandsagar Swami, who had previously been associated with the Haridham Sokhda group of the Swaminarayan sect, was accused of “demeaning Lord Shiva” in an FIR filed in Rajkot in September 2022 by Mihir Shukla, the national general secretary of the Brahmadev Samaj.
Finally, a meeting between the Vadtal Swaminarayan faction leaders and the protesting Hindu leaders took place in Ahmedabad thanks to the efforts of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha (HDAS), an association of Hindu religious leaders, and VHP.
Even though the group pledged to take down the artwork, the uproar has not subsided. Tuesday’s conference of Hindu religious leaders saw them decide to forbid Swaminarayan leaders from holding positions in their institutions and voice their disapproval of the sect’s use of various tilaks to portray Lord Swaminarayan as a more powerful deity on idols of Hindu gods and goddesses.
The current leader of the Vadtal Swaminarayan faction, Rakesh Prasad, attempted to broker a truce during the conference by admonishing everyone to uphold Sanatan Hindu Dharma.
The convenor and general secretary of the HDAS, Swami Parmatmanand Saraswati, who organized the truce meeting in Ahmedabad, referred to the debate as a byproduct of an ecosystem fueled by social media. He continued by saying that both sides had suffered losses. “Responsible persons should discuss these issues when they also profess to be Hindus… He said, “We don’t want to offend our culture.