Nagpur: The Bombay High Court has expressed anguish over the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s plan to recite a popular Hindu devotional hymn at an AIDS awareness program.
“Why only recital of the Hanuman Chalisa and why not from the Quran, the Bible or other religious literature?” the Nagpur bench of the court asked the corporation while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on April 5.
Millions of Hindus recite it daily the Hanuman Chalisa or Forty Quatrain in honor of Hanuman, a monkey-like humanoid deity. The hymn extols his strength, courage, wisdom, celibacy, devotion to Lord Rama and other qualities.
The Nagpur civic body planned to recite the hymn at an AIDS awareness event on April 7 it organized in association with a Hindu trust in the central Indian city. The event is planned at Kasturchand Park ground in Nagpur, Press Trust of India reported.
The judges disposed of the PIL filed by former corporator Janardan Moon, after the corporation and program convener Dayashankar Tiwari agreed to hold separately the aids awareness program and recital of the Hanuman chalisa and pay the cost of the stage and ground on a pro-rata basis.
Nagpur is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian people’s party), which is considered the political arm of rightwing Hindu groups. Tiwari is the BJP leader in the civic body.
The division bench of justices Bhushan Gavai and Swapna Joshi asked several questions to the civic body: “What is the nexus of AIDS awareness and Hanuman Chalisa recital? Is it only Hindus who contract AIDS? Is chanting of Hanuman Chalisa the only remedy for eradication of this deadly disease?”
“If people can come for this event, they will also come for recitation of Quran and the Bible,” the judges observed.
The judges asked the municipal corporation and the temple trust to keep at least an hour’s gap between the two programs.
“We dispose the PIL after accepting the statements of the NMC and Tiwari, that they would totally disassociate with the Hanuman Chalisa recital and only hold an AIDS program,” the court said.
The judges said that they were not against any religious program, but only concerned with government agencies associating with it.
The court further asked the organizers to put up separate banners at backstage during both the programs, with the individual names of the organizers.
The corporation was also asked to give wide publicity to its AIDS awareness program, without mentioning the Hanuman Chalisa event.
More than 150,000 people were expected at the Hanuman Chalisa recital in Nagpur.
Hanuman Chalisa is second best known text written by 16th-century poet Tulsidas in Awadhi language, the first being the Ramcharitmanas (story of Lord Ram).
Hanuman is one of the central characters in the Indian epic poem Ramayana. India has more temples devoted to Hanuman than any other deity.