CHHATARPUR, India (The Thursday Times) — Police in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district stopped a Yadav Mahasabha march on the Bageshwar Dham shrine on Friday and detained its participants, as supporters of the shrine’s head, the preacher Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, blocked a national highway in a counter-protest over his remarks about Lord Krishna.
Supporters of Bageshwar Dham blocked the four-lane National Highway 39 near Brijpura, leaving hundreds of vehicles stranded on both sides of the road, according to reports. Some of them carried sticks and shoes, and effigies of the Mahasabha’s district president, Damodar Yadav, were displayed, reports said.
Members of the Mahasabha had announced that they would march to the shrine and lock it down. Police stopped the rally near Chhatarpur railway station and took the marchers away in buses, reports said, putting their number at between about 200 and 250. Some of them had tried to breach police barricades. No injuries were reported.
“Keeping today’s programme in view, local police personnel, forces from outside and station in-charges from other police stations have been called here,” the district’s superintendent of police, Rajat Saklecha, said. “Multiple layers of barricading have also been put in place to ensure that no situation arises that could pose a challenge to law and order.”
Saklecha said objectionable posts had appeared on social media on Thursday afternoon, that most had been deleted, and that the people who posted them had been bound down and served notices. Police were monitoring the area with CCTV cameras and drones, he said.
What started the row
The dispute began with a religious discourse that Shastri gave at Karera in Shivpuri district on October 29. Comparing Lord Ram with Lord Krishna, he contrasted Krishna’s tribhanga posture, standing bent in three places, with Ram’s upright stance, and said that playing the flute was no great feat, according to reports of the video.
Yadav community groups, for whom Krishna is central to their religious identity, said the remarks had hurt their sentiments, and the Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav criticised them. Shastri later apologised in a video message. “We were not trying to create any distinction between Lord Ram and Lord Krishna. Both are one and there is no difference between them. If anyone was hurt by my words, explanation or sentiments, I sincerely apologise to them,” he said.
The Mahasabha has said it will campaign for a boycott of Shastri’s religious gatherings if no action is taken against him, reports said. Supporters of Bageshwar Dham have said the protest is an attempt to divide Hindus.
