Swami on Fast

There is a two-line news item on today’s (Aug 21, 2012) edition of Times of India. Titled “Sage on indefinite fast for probe into Nigmananda’s death”, it reports from Dehradun that 67 year old Shivanand Sarswati, the founder of Matrisadan Ashram in Haridwar has entered 15^th day of his fast-unto-death seeking a fresh CBI probe into the death of Swami Nigamananda who was campaigning against illegal mining around the river Ganga. Upon reading this, many things instantly come to my mind.

I think only Hindus (an umbrella term for many sects) can be so willing to sacrifice their lives to protect rivers and trees, essential our mother nature making our country. It is because from the smallest rituals to the biggest philosophical concepts, protecting nature is so much part of Hinduism. Secondly, our media has done a great injustice by neglecting such news and events of gravest importance while giving highlights to populist superficial news. Even love affairs of cinema and TV stars or mundan of a minister’s son gets better media coverage. Also, just give it a thought on the nature of the protest and you won’t remain without getting touched by Swami’s gesture. He is not storming into Delhi or making his followers erect road blocks. He has entered into a self-sacrificing act with the sole intention to awaken our consciences. Rivers like the Ganga are inherent part of our religion, our culture, the ecology and the environment of our land and should we neglect these with an excuse of being busy in things like checking others status messages on FaceBook?

To me, this two line news item is more touching than the other twelve pages in the newspaper.