Art of Living

The art of living being promoted by the Narendra Modi government and Sangh Psrivar is visible in its ugliest form in Delhi. It reflects destruction of ecology, misuse of government machinery, including armed forces, collection of funds by duping the people and lording over the administration for the satisfaction of an individual who also claims to be a religious guru and saint.

The all in all of the so called “Art of living” Supremo Sri Sri Ravishankar, who prefers to be known as spiritual entity is organizing a three- day world cultural programme on the banks of Yamuna. He had captured 68 acres of land, though the lending authority, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) says that he was allowed to use only 24, and that too without developing any concrete construction. On both counts, the spiritual guru is found to be guilty. The whole area has been cleaned by wiping out all the greenery. All sorts of concrete construction have been done throwing all the dirt and filth in the river Yamuna. It is estimated that the environmental damage caused by these activities will take decades to restore the ecological balance.

All the construction activities have been undertaken without getting sanctions from concerned departments and government agencies as Sri Sri is close to the highest authority of the country meaning the Prime Minister himself who is bent upon to continue patronizing the fraud and even join it, though the President of the country has refused to join after the scam came to light.

The arrogance of the government could be realized by this single fact that army men have been used to build the platoon bridges exclusively for this function. The Sanghis, who now in their frenzy for so-called “nationalism” want people to keep mum on misdeeds of armed forces and any criticism is termed as “anti-national”, are bound to explain, whether turning the army men into ‘contract workers’ and misuse of army equipments and vehicles for an individual is nationalistic and raises the prestige of the armed forces? Many retired and serving military personnel have termed it as degradation of the armed force. Earlier same favour was done to Yoga guru Ramdev for one of his functions where the army jawans were used to spread carpets.

The National Green Tribunal which had received number of petitions against holding of this three -day programme as it will cause irreparable environmental damage had criticized almost all the activities undertaken for this event and actually imposed a fine of five lakh on the DDA and one lakh on Delhi Pollution Control Committee for not discharging the statutory function.

The National Green Tribunal has asked Sri Sri to deposit Rs. 5 crore as fine before the function starts. He has been also asked to develop the affected area as bio-diversity park at his own cost. But be assured that the spiritual guru is not going to do anything of that sort once the function is over. His foundation has already said that the imposition of fine of Rs. 5 crore will be challenged in court of law. He is supposed to have already spent Rs. 120 crore on preparation, the source of money is not known.

Another aspect of the Art of Living being promoted by Narendra Modi government and the Sangh Parivar is the case of the liquor baron Vijay Mallya who has swallowed thousands of crore of rupees of the banks. He has duped the banks and wanted the money to be termed Non-Performing Asset (NPA). This year, the Modi government has already written off Rs. 1,14,00 crore that was made NPA as the corporate houses refused to pay. In the case of Mallya, the banks insisted for some payment. But they moved legally demanding ban on foreign travel of the liquor baron only after he had already gone out of the country. It all seems to be well planned game of the government. After all it is a government of the Corporate, for the Corporate houses. This bares yet another ugly face of the Narendra Modi government and Sangh Parivar as it is using a futile debate on so called “nationalism” and branding almost all the opponents of its policies and economic activities as “anti-national’, to divert people’s attention from its political and economic misdeeds.