The Kashi Vishwanath corridor was inaugurated on the 13th of December with much deserved pomp and show. Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers at the Kal Bhairav temple, took Sankalp at the Kashi Vishwanath temple and presented to the city of Varanasi and the country at large, a corridor that is historic in India’s fight to reclaim its civilisation.
“The sparkling water like the minds of good people, excessively sweet like the divine nectar, pleasant to the touch like the limb of a cow, scent excelled the sweet smell of lotuses…”. This is how Skanda described the water of Jñānavāpī or the Wisdom Well to Agastya in Skand Mahapurana. It is believed that the original Shiva Linga that was at Kashi Vishwanath Dham now resides at the bottom of Jñānavāpī Koop. The priest of the temple sacrificed his life and jumped into the well with the Linga before Aurangzeb’s army could destroy the temple. The Koop is now again part of Kashi Vishwanath Dham. It took 352 years for someone to take the initiative and bring back the glory that was lost due to countless attacks on the temple. In the past, when the temple was demolished and the Gyanvapi mosque was built by barbarians, the Koop was a part of the mosque complex itself. Now, however, the historic Koop is a part of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple corridor.
This step is historic by every measure. The sacred well where the original Shiva Linga rests, is no longer a part of the mosque complex. While people now realise the significance of the corridor, just a few weeks ago, that was not the case.
I was a part of an altercation on Twitter a few weeks ago, which was immensely tiring. It started with my response to a Tweet with bizarre observations. Ironically, the link to the news article was also posted, carrying just opposite content in it.
Usually, I would have ignored any other Twitter handle, but the propaganda deserved a response. I have spent my prime youth in Banaras. Every time I would visit Baba Vishvanath Temple and come out through the narrow, congested, catastrophic filthy lanes, I wondered if it could ever be sorted and developed in our lifetime.
Kashi underwent a grand makeover after 1780 AD, when Maratha queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore last time renovated the temple and the area surrounding it.
The altercation I had was about certain Twitter yoddhas claiming that Kashi Vishwanath was now to be a “revenue generating machine” managed by a “foreign company” Ernst and Young. The question was posed to the Prime Minister’s Office asking if this was “correct”.
My response was rather polite, though factual. Firstly, E&Y was appointed as a consultant through a tender. The scope was to prepare a model of revenue generation, required for the operations and maintenance of the Dham and develop solutions for crowd management. In fact, the entire operation is to be managed by Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust. As evident, there was no “foreign company” managing the temple, as was claimed.
After that was called out, the next twist came with a change in the tone. I was called “sold to the Vikas” (development plan of the Govt) and a “Shiva-Drohi.” The further accusation was that the Modi government was doing all the developmental work by demolishing Temples and its sanctum Sanctorum. These loonies use the following picture every time they want to label Modi Govt anti-Hindu, which is also a hit job.
This thread on Twitter from @ishubhamm (a Banaras resident) dismantles all these hitjobs in detail.
What is essential here is to notice the hysteria of the propagandists over Hindu causes and projecting all that to the Modi Govt. One can check further altercations and all kinds of nonsense peddled to avoid the central contention – development of the Kashi Vishvanath Corridor, despite scores of complex issues, and without any provocations.
Kashi Vishvanath Corridor Project:
One of the most ancient living cities on earth and the epicentre of Hindu religion and Indic civilization, Kashi is undergoing a grand makeover, thanks to its local Member of Parliament, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India.
PM Narendra Modi launched this Rs 400 crore project in March 2018. The central idea is to preserve the existing heritage structures, provide new facilities in the temple complex, ease people’s traffic and movement, and connect the temple with the famous Ghats of Banaras through a corridor with direct visibility.
The local court in Varanasi directed the Archaeological Survey of India to survey the Gyanvapi Mosque compound adjacent to the Vishwanath Temple to find out whether it was a “superimposition, alteration or addition or there is structural overlapping of any kind. While this historical civilizational dispute continues, the Gyanvapi Mosque committee has handed over a 1,700 square feet separate plot of land in the periphery of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple for the under-construction Temple Corridor project, in exchange for another plot of land. Whether this reconciliation is enough or not is a separate debate.
A total of 314 buildings surrounding the temple were acquired for this project. On their clean-up, several ancient temples were unearthed on the corridor route. Once the project is complete and all these temples are back to their glory, the world would also witness the “Nandi” facing a Mosque. That debate on reconciliation can be taken up from there. The grandeur of Kashi taking an enormous facelift can’t wait for this legal-historical-civilizational dispute to end.
Read this report on how an 18th-century idol of Maa Annapurna, stolen from Varanasi more than 100 years ago and kept in a Canadian Museum, is brought to Banaras and is scheduled to be installed at the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor on 15th November 2021. It is a moment to cherish our civilizational and cultural glory. The credit goes to the relentless pursuit of the Narendra Modi govt, which has made “Bring Our Gods Home” a part of his stellar statesmanship. And these loonies have the gall to blame the same Govt for idol desecration?
Shri Kashi Vishvanath Temple Trust has appointed private consultants through open tenders for handling the operational planning to ensure the devotees a “memorable pilgrim experience.” The goal is to facilitate two lakh devotees at any time.
The various facilities in the premises include a Mandir Chowk surrounded by emporiums, a spiritual bookstore, Vedic Kendra, Bhog Shaalas, a Ganga-view Cafe, shops, a VIP guest house, Mumukshu Bhawan, a tourist facilitation centre, three Yatri Suvidha Kendras, toilet blocks, and two museums. After completing the project, the visitors will be able to stand on the terrace of the corridor and enjoy the scenic view of River Ganga and Manikarnika and Lalita Ghat.
It is planned that the Parishad will operate each of the facilities listed above through the appointment of an appropriate partner from the private sector in whole or in parts,” says the bid document.
This Hindu hating falsehood peddler, The Wire also runs the same agenda – “The demolition of buildings near the historic temple has triggered resentment and anger against Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi”, it says.
It is not an individual’s work. This Khap Panchayat has several elite elders. These self-appointed Thekedars of Hindus have one central agenda – to make vulnerable Hindus feel betrayed by the present BJP dispensation.
Here is another example:
Prof. Swati projects herself as a Hindu cause warrior and also despise RSS, an institution that has selflessly served the nation. Her position, as she projects, are all based on random statements of random RSS leaders, that she keeps sharing. How is it to rid oneself of an institution with a history of service only because one disagrees with the views of an office-bearer? How scholarly! But Prof Swati is an old RSS/BJP hater and has been very open about it.
Then there are others who smartly pretended to be well-wishers of Hindus and then began to sow discord.
Interestingly, I once chanced to speak in a ClubHouse Talk and called out his call to teach a lesson to the Modi Govt. for the post-election Bengal violence. As usual, in typical Congress style, they took off my mic immediately.
However, listen to this ClubHouse talk (shared on Twitter by a friend @alok_bhatt) where some individuals who claimed to be in support of Hindus were giving Congress supporters tips to defeat BJP.
The pro-Hindu group can certainly have disagreements, but the propaganda surrounding the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor was self-defeating. When one starts to burn down the entire forest because they may disagree with one tree, who we choose to be our warriors deserves a close, hard look.
