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KUMAR SHAKTI SHEKHAR
AHMEDABAD, FEB 7: Realising that self-help is the best help, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has decided to tackle the problems of illiteracy, ill-health and unemployment in backward areas of India, bypassing the Government and opening schools, hospitals, food distribution centres and sanskar kendras in 100 districts. The programme of social reform is also aimed at eradicating inequality, stopping conversions and speeding up reconversions.
To implement this plan, sadhus have been allotted areas -- mainly in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Manipur and Arunachal -- to adopt as their own; VHP workers will coordinate with the sadhus in their work.
Swami Chinmayanand Maharaj, MP, told The Indian Express that a study was being conducted by the VHP to identify the villages where the plan would be executed. Food distribution, he said, was a short-term solution; in the long run, only the employment generation programmes would pay off.
Chinmayanand, who has chosen to work in the predominantly adivasiBastar area of Madhya Pradesh, said the advantages of fertile land and temperate climate had been wiped out by the lack of any Government programme to make the adivasis self-dependent.
He acknowledged, however, that the sadhus and the VHP had realised too late that a large chunk of society was illiterate and hungry. ``We thought that after Independence, it would be the Government's responsibility to help the downtrodden, but it neglected illiteracy and unemployment -- the main reason behind conversions -- in 70 per cent of the villages,'' he said, and added,``Yeh sab sarkar ki laparwahi aur hamari galatfahmi ki wajah se hua,'' (it was because of the Government's carelessness and our misunderstanding). The VHP was now certain, he said, that the Government would not be able to improve the condition of the downtrodden.
There are also plans to eradicate untouchability and inequality, under which the sadhus will eat with the Dalits and the adivasis. The intention is that the upper castes will be motivated bythis action.
Pravin Togadia, VHP's international general secretary, said the sadhus would now work to their full potential and on a large scale, to bring about social reform, especially eradication of untouchability. ``Till a few centuries ago, it was considered a sin for a Hindu to cross the sea. But it has changed. In the same manner, inequality will be removed,''he said.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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