Rally to demand control over Buddha shrine

GAYA: Nearly 1,000 neo-Buddhists, most of them Nagpur-based Ambedkarites, staged organized demonstration outside Gaya Collectorate on Monday afternoon reiterating their long pending demand for total Buddhist control over Mahabodhi temple. The Mahabodhi temple is the most sacred Buddhist shrine where Prince Siddhartha attained enlightenment about 2,600 years back.

Samaj Kranti, a Nagpur-based organization of Ambedkarites, who converted to Buddhism after the change of faith by the main architect of the Indian Constitution, organized the protest. Mukund Khaire led the demonstration having a large contingent of women. Protesters marched on foot from the Gaya railway station to the Collectorate to press for their demand. The protesters also threatened to intensify the agitation if their demands were not met. Earlier,the National Minorities Commission recommended the amendment of the act and transfer of shrine management to an all-Buddhist body, a recommendation not acceptable to Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other organizations.

The protesters, who arrived from Nagpur (Maharashtra) by train, demanded amendment in the Temple Act, 1949, to facilitate transfer of shrine management to an all-Buddhist committee. The transfer of management to an all-Buddhist body cannot take place without the amendment of the 1949 Act, as the law stipulates joint management by a nine-member committee comprising five Hindus and four Buddhists, with the post of the committee chairman reserved for the Hindu district magistrate of Gaya.

In case of the Gaya DM being a non-Hindu, the state government is to nominate a Hindu as the Bodhi Temple Management Committee (BTMC) chairman. About four decades back when K M Zubairi was made the Gaya DM, the state government nominated Jugeshwar Prasad Khalish, then an MLC as the committee chairman.

VHP and other organizations oppose the demand as they claim Lord Buddha to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and equally revered by the Hindus. Prior to the 1949 legislation, the shrine was under the control of the mahanth (chief) of the Bodh Gaya-based Shaivite math(monastery).

(News: timesofindia.indiatimes.com)