Haryana government believes babas would make villagers more ‘sanskari’

CHANDIGARH: Manohar Lal Khattar believes that babas would make the villages “adarsh (ideal), sanskarwan (well cultured), tanavmukt (stress free)”.

On Monday, the government organised a special camp which required all the sarpanches, secretaries of the panchayats in the district to attend the speech of Swami Giananand, head of Kurukshetra based Global inspiration and Enlightenment organisation.

The district development and the panchayat officer (DDPO) sent an official letter in which the agenda was stated as, “ideal, cultured and stress free,” and also addressed the religious leader as “maha mahim” which is a term only used for the governors in the states.

In the camp Swami Giananand said, “Bhagavad Gita is heritage and culture of the country and should be spread to every household and every person. Only Gita can inculcate cultural values in a child.”

He added that, “Impatience, physical deformities and other problems in the society are rising because people are running away from Gita. It is Gita only that helps in attaining spiritual enlightenment.”

He spoke about an event, Yuva Virat Chetna Utsav which will be held in Kurukshetra and five youths from every village will be selected and will have to pledge to follow the cultural values.

R S Chaudhary, a former Haryana bureaucrat and Indian National Lok Dal national secretary, criticised this event saying, “Calling an official meeting for a religious guru to deliver his lecture is gross misuse of official machinery.”

“Unfortunately, instead of focusing on public administration, the government is focusing on imposing saffron ideology on the public representatives and government officials,” said Ran Singh Maan, a former chief parliamentary secretary and Congress spokesperson.