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TogadiaSpeak
Ignorance and apathy are not the proofs of non-existence
By Dr Pravin Togadia
Over 10,00,000 poor students getting free and standard-quality education, over 20,00,000 poor being given free medical help, over 1,00,000 poor being helped by free legal aid, over 5,00,000 poor youth getting professional vocational training like computers, mechanical, etc., over 3,00,000 poor women got smiles on their faces through their own work aided by self-help groups, over 1,50,000 poor heart patients to be operated free at the most hi-tech ultra-modern heart hospital (2500 patients already operated at zero cost), 700 villages got clean drinking water free through modern efficient water pipes, over 5,00,000 AIDS patients to benefit from various programmes, over 25,000 poor couples are happy that they could get married at no cost, over 23,000 families of diamond/construction/textiles workers got monthly foodgrains free after the workers lost jobs due to the current economic slowdown and over 1,00,000 to get it, over 500 ambulances are moving all India all the time to help the poor anytime, over 30,000 health and medical centres with medical dispensaries/ mobile dispensaries are operating efficiently free for the poor, over 5,000 orphan children are under warm shelter of love and care and also getting modern education...
OK, OK. Reading any list is quite monotonous. The above list of great work where millions of the poor and needy have been benefiting is not of the work done by any government in power. Without any governmental power this work is being done for years by Hindu organisations like RSS, VHP and by the Hindu sadhu-sants like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sri Sathya Sai Baba of Puttha Parthy, the late Swami Laxmanananda, Sri Dudhababa, Sadhvi Ritambhara and many of such people.
Some of these names are heard in media but only when it comes to some religious agitation like Ram Temple or Amarnath. The same media conveniently ignores the same names when it comes to giving coverage to many Hindu organisations’ continued and committed developmental work in the above fields like education, health, water supply, vocational training, food supply. It is easy to first ignore such work and then shout that Hindu organisations and Hindu sadhu-sants do not do any concrete development work for the society/Hindus and that they only do agitations for the ancient issues like temples etc. It is high time the people at large who do not know the gamut of the above work (and know only of mutts and temple-related work of the Hindu organisations and Hindu sadhu-sants) woke up to the reality. Projecting Hindutva as anti-development has become a fashion of late. It is important to know, realise and understand the truth and then perceive anything and create perceptions in the minds of public.
The reality is that Hindu Organisations and most sadhu-sants are projected by a large section of media as those who live in some ancient era or who only give speeches (bhadkau bhashan as many media and many so-called pseudo-secular politicians love to describe) on issues that do not interest today’s youth or many even go ahead and say that people in these Hindu organisations can’t do anything in their lives and therefore join such organisations or take sannyas and do some outdated agitations as bhagva goondas. It is easy to do blah-blah when there is no adequate information or even purposely to serve some political party/groups’ specific purpose by saying all such derogatory things. But it surely takes commitment and sincere efforts to put together the kind and level of socio-developmental works, which have been mentioned above in the first para. And this is only the tip of an iceberg.
Very well-qualified professionals who have been successful in their brilliant academics careers as doctors, engineers from IITs, MBAs from IIMs/universities abroad, CAs, marketing professionals once launched great brands in MNCs and Indian FMCGs, learned and globally respected researchers in psychology/ sociology/economics/wcience/space research etc, renowned lawyers and judges, poets, music directors/singers, veterans in many other fine arts—such people are associated with Hindu organisations and rendering a yeoman's service. Be it RSS, VHP, ABVP or be it Ramakrishna Mission, Arya Samaj or be it sadhu-sants who may have long hair and beard but under those long haired or tonsured heads, many have very high IQ brains, some of whom being general surgeons, cardio-surgeons, cancer surgeons, space scientists, engineers from IITs, ex-judges and many other professionals. Most of them like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sadhvi Ritambhara, many mahants and Shankaracharyas are not just well qualified but also have given their lives for the betterment and development of Hindus. It is a basic responsibility of all Hindus in India and globally as well as of media to once and for all stop seeing what has been projected artificially by a section of the society to defame Hindu organisations and sadhu-sants and start looking at the other side of such organisations and such people. This other side occupies over 90 per cent part of Hindu organisations and the highly (and mostly wrongly) publicised (by the vested interests media) image of Hindu organisations and sadhu-sants who are doing the real socio-developmental work for years together without being in the governmental power and facing physical and political oppression in many states.
From UP to Arunachal Pradesh, from Karnataka to Jharkhand, from Maharashtra to Tripura and in many other countries, Hindu organisations and sadhu-sants have contributed to amazing socio-developmental work of the society. Just a glimpse of some of such projects and the number of the poor and the needy covered under those is mind-boggling.
RSS has 16,208 educational projects, 11,665 health projects, 8994 self-reliance projects and 16,412 social projects. These all total up to 98,768 as of now. These projects every year cover not less than 10,00,000 needy and poor children, old people, women, ill-people, etc. The work by RSS has been carried out whenever there is any natural calamity, which has not even been mentioned here but very silently and with dedication RSS is the first to reach any calamity-hit area to help people—be it floods, earthquakes, fires or so on.
(To be continued)
(The writer is a cancer surgeon and VHP’s secretary general and can be contacted at drpravintogadia@yahoo.com)
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