Indore: Akhada Parishad, the apex body of 13 Hindu ascetic denominations, Monday said politicians making statements about caste and creed of Lord Hanuman seem to have lost their “mental balance”. In a strong-worded criticism of political leaders, Parishad president Mahant Narendra Giri said they should immediately stop making such statements about the Hindu deity.
“The ignorant politicians who are making unnecessary statements about the caste and religion of Hanumanji have lost their mental balance. They should treat their brains”, Giri told PTI. He said a deity cannot be “divided” into castes. “Lord Hanuman is an incarnation of Lord Shiva. He is a Rudra incarnation. It would be appropriate for politicians to stop making statements about the Lord now”, he said. Laxminarayan Tripathi, head of the third gender Akhada, also expressed anger over the political statements regarding caste and creed of the deity.
“It is a matter of shame that politicians are continuously making statements on Bajrang Bali for their own interests. The deities should be kept away from politics, because there is no caste in God’s incarnations”, Tripathi said. Addressing a public meeting during the campaigning for recently-held assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had reportedly said Lord Hanuman, one of the central figures in epic Ramayana, was a dalit. Last week, Bukkal Nawab, a BJP MLC from Uttar Pradesh, claimed that the monkey god was a Muslim while UP’s Religious Affairs Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary stated that the Hindu deity belonged to the Jat community. Samajwadi Party’s national general secretary and former MP Rama Shankar Vidyarthi had claimed that Lord Hanuman belonged to tribal ‘Gond’ community.
