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TS, AP come under fire for funding river fest.
Chief Ministers of both the Telugu speaking States spending crores of rupees on Krishna Pushkaralu does not seem to have gone well with rationalists and atheists.
Hyderabad: Chief Ministers of both the Telugu speaking States spending crores of rupees on Krishna Pushkaralu does not seem to have gone well with rationalists and atheists.
While the Telangana and the Andhra Pradesh governments are leaving no stone unturned to make the 12-day spiritual extravaganza a grand success, critics are of the view that both the Telugu States are acting against the Constitution and promoting superstitions by spending people’s money on the river festival.
While Andhra Pradesh is spending over Rs 1,000 crore for the mega event, Telangana released Rs 825 crore for providing amenities to devotees during the festival which began on Friday.
The authorities built bathing ghats along the river to enable pilgrims to take holy dip. They deployed over 40,000 policemen for maintaining law and order during the event and employed thousands others for making and maintaining arrangements for the pilgrims.
Special buses and trains are being operated to transport pilgrims. Over 6.5 crore people are expected to take part in the festival.
G Samaram of Atheist Centre of Vijayawada termed this as a waste of public money.
Speaking to a news agency, he said, “Ours is a secular State and celebrating one particular religion’s event in such a big way is not at all good.”
He said Pushkar entering the river was a superstitious belief and by promoting this, the government was going against the Constitution.
“The Article 51A (h) of the Constitution of India clearly states that the government should develop the scientific temper but the governments in these two States are promoting superstitions,” he said.
Samaram, a physician by profession and former president of Indian Medical Association, also warned that people may contract infection by taking bath in Krishna river during the festival.
“During the Godavari Pushkaram last year, a large number of people suffered skin, eye and throat infection and the same will happen this year in Krishna as there is hardly any water in the river,” he said.
Another well-known atheist G Vijayam too voiced concern that the distinction between State and religion was blurring.
“It’s not just the money they spent but the very attitude of mixing State with religion is objectionable. They are religionising the politics and politicising the religion so that they have an advantage in elections,” he said.
Vijayam believes that religion is a personal matter in a secular State and the State should be equal to all. “Religion is a personal matter while State is everyone’s matter,” he said.
He said no one denied that the government could make minimum arrangements for such events to maintain law and order.
“But encouraging people to come in large numbers, inviting religious heads and making this an agenda of the government for 10 to 12 days in a way that the governance comes to a standstill is not correct attitude,” said Vijayam.
