Smuggler devotees help build a 'better Akshardham' in Rajasthan

[Guest guest]

VFA-family, "vrnparker" <vrnparker>

wrote:

Smuggler devotees help build a 'better Akshardham' in Rajasthan

Monday May 3 2004 00:00 IST

MANDAPIYA: Less than 10 km from the gleaming and swishy National

Highway 76, Narendra Mistry is supervising the renovation and

construction of ''the temple of thieves''.

http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?

ID=IEP20040502133501&Title=States&Topic=0&Full~Story

As devotees swerve off the four-lane highway between Udaipur and

Chittodgarh and wind their way to the famous Sanwariyaji temple

devoted to Lord Krishna, what they can see is the foundation of a

new `Akshardham', bang in the heart of opium country.

 

``This is going to be bigger and better than Akshardham,'' says

Mistry, who is just back from a field visit to Ahmedabad to check

out the real thing. ``Actually, the real shrine in Gujarat is not

much to write home about. This temple is much better and we will

make it even more beautiful.''

 

For the last six odd months, Mistry and his men have been working to

change the face of the temple, legendary for the opium offerings

made by its ''smuggler devotees''. The silver chest in the shrine

accumulates about Rs 1 lakh every day.

 

``The idol was found when they were digging nearby to build a gravel

road between Udaipur and Chittod,'' says advocate and part-time

historian B.L. Sisodia. ``People believe that their wishes are

fulfilled and that's how it got famous, especially with opium

cultivators. Today, every crook very diligently shares his profits

with God, making this one of the richest temples in Rajasthan.''

 

Cheques, drafts, fixed deposits, jewellery and cash pour into the

temple coffers everyday. And of course, there are those who brazenly

walk in with opium in their shirt pocket and drop it off in the

chest. ``We accumulate tons of opium and periodically hand it over

to the Narcotics Department,'' says the guard, brandishing his gun.

 

But despite all the riches, inside his gloomy, rat-infested room,

Kallu Lal Gujjar is a despondent man. Chairman of the temple trust,

he is credited with getting the construction work going. But while

Mandapiya is abuzz with talk of the new temple, Gujjar is only

talking politics.

 

``I am waiting to be sacked,'' says Gujjar, who has just completed

18 months of his three-year-tenure. ``It's just my luck that I got

nominated by the Congress government. Now that the BJP is in, I am

definitely out.''

 

Ignoring the mellow voice of a group of women singing 'bhajans'

outside the shrine, a bitter Gujjar sullenly walks past the new

pillars propped up against the old temple wall. ``Here and in all

the 15 villages that are part of the temple trust, nothing gets done

because the government knows we'll do it. So from building schools

to bus-stands, hospitals, 'gaushalas' and even initiating drinking

water schemes, the temple trust did a lot of work.''

 

Gujjar talks a lot about the past and in the past tense because he

thinks the present sucks. ``Till we were a private trust, we managed

to do a lot. But after 1990, when the government took over and began

nominating the trust, no work ever got done.''

 

In hushed whispers, in the market outside the shrine, they

elaborate. ``All the grand structures you see were built 20 years

back, much before the government came into the picture,'' confirms

Bhairu Lal, as he shoos flies away from the toffee boxes in his

shop. ``Later all they did was appease governments and got so

involved in politics that everything else ceased to matter.''

 

Over the years, the temple has ``slowly been reduced to a political

playground''.

 

So when the trust wanted to do a êishilapujaêr before starting

construction and invited then chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the BJP

was up in arms. ``They were upset because Vice-President Bhairon

Singh Shekhawat had laid the foundation stone earlier,'' explains

Gujjar. He adds that political parties come here openly and ask them

for funds. ``They visit the temple and hold rallies nearby. We

shouldn't be a part of all this but it is very difficult,'' admits a

trust member.

 

So today, when politicians talk development elsewhere, here the only

issue is control of the shrine trust. Tired of the uncertainty,

Gujjar wants all of it to be over. ``Today any development work

project the trust wants to undertake has to be cleared by the state

government,'' he says. ``Right now decisions are not forthcoming,

not even in proposals dealing with drinking water. So even if it

means me not being here anymore, this thing better get sorted out.''

 

And as far as the government'######-talked about highway is

concerned, nobody is impressed. ``It's 10 km too far,'' says Lal,

matter-of-factly. ``Contrary to what most believe it hasn't

increased the number of pilgrims who come here. Instead everyone

burns extra fuel to get around. That's been the biggest contribution

of politics here!''

--- End forwarded message ---