Hundreds of Ganesha Murti makers in Tamil Nadu staged a protest at the Tamil Nadu Assembly due to loss of their livelihood due to MK Stalin’s government policy of banning Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations by installing Ganesha Pooja Pandals in public. This has resulted in extremely low sales of Ganesha Murtis in Tamil Nadu, hitting the Murti makers, who are largely Hindus, very badly.

The Hindu Murti makers in Tamil Nadu make most of their money during the Ganesha Chaturti festival. The Murti makers are reduced to penury making it difficult to take care of their family and young children. The Murti makers therefore staged a protest on Wednesday against the Talibani Firman of MK Stalin to ban Ganesha festival celebrations in public.

In contrast, the MK Stalin government has allowed the Christians and Muslims to take out religious processions during their holy festivals. For instance for the Velankanni Festival which is 11 day long starting from 28th August to September 8th, the public procession of Mary’s idol is not banned, MK Stalin has only requested Christians to not turn up in large numbers for the procession and the Church Flag hoisting event in front of Velankanni Church.

But not only is public celebration of Ganesha festival banned, even the procession for immersion (Visarjan) of the Ganesha idol is not allowed. Hindu devotees are allowed only to do immersions of Ganesha Murti individually.

So any form of collective puja or procession or religious expression is completely banned for Hindus under the garb of Covid regulations, while the same is allowed for other Abrahamics, albeit with restrictions.

Similarly, Hindu artisans and Murti makers’ livelihood and earnings is not even contemplated when they come up with draconian rules during Hindu festivals. The same governments, be it DMK in Tamil Nadu or the Left Front in Kerala allow all shops to remain open during Eid and Christian festivals ostensibly for saving traders and retailers from losses. But when a Hindu festival like Onam or Janmashtami or Vinayaka Chaturthi comes, all the restrictions of movement are put in place, citing Covid and poor Hindu Murti makers and artisans suffer from complete financial loss and are driven to poverty.

So, it seems according to the DMK and the leftists, Covid also seems to be secular by selectively infecting human beings only during Hindu festivals and becoming very inert in big gatherings during Abrahamic festivals!

When these Hindu artisans and Murti makers tried to protest against the loss of income and livelihood due to whimsical arbitrary policies of MK Stalin government, the government arrested and detained scores of Murti makers along with their families, women and young children.

They were kept together in a closed area without any regard to Covid norms and not even provided basic food or water. Young children of the detained Murti makers suffered inhuman treatment, were left thirsty and starving because their parents were Hindus, trying to enforce their traditional livelihood rights.

Senior BJP leader and spokesperson, Ashvathaman reportedly went to the place where the poor Murti makers and their families were detained. He questioned the lack of basic facilities for the young children detained along with their parents.

The police officer in-charge responded very nonchalantly which further angered the people.‎

This brazen behaviour prompted many Hindus to question the MK Stalin government whether Hindu lives matter at all in a “secular” State or does the definition of “secularism” mean anti-Hindu state policy? These are questions that seems to get no answer, irrespective of which party is in power in Tamil Nadu.

News input and image sourced from: Mediyaan

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