Soon after coming to Haridwar, the controversial Shankaracharya of Jyotir and Dwarika Peeth, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati declared on Monday said that there was no need to involve the Muslim community in the emotive matter of the construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
“There is absolutely no need to go for dialogue over this matter with other communities to evolve an inter-faith consensus. History bears testimony to the fact that no such Babri Masjid ever existed at the temple premises with Babar having never set his foot in Ayodhya,” he said.
The statement of the seer holding a revered seat in the religious order of Hinduism has assumed significance in view of the Supreme Court having in its recent ruling suggested an out of court negotiated settlement of the long-festering stalemate triggering communal flare-ups off and on.
The seer also demanded the Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to take prompt initiative to revamp the samadhi of Adi Shankaracharya at Kedarnath.
As the seer reached Haridwar on Sunday evening after a span of eight months, he was welcomed by the in-charges of the Shankaracharya Math Brahmchari Shridharanand and Brahmchari Ramanand along with other ashram inmates. Besides, a large number of devotees also thronged his Ashram to offer their obeisance to him.
Asked for his view over the RSS affiliate body Muslim Rashtriya Manch having stressed on opening dialogue involving the two
communities in course of its two-day seminar held at Piran Kaliyar in Haridwar, Swaroopanand said that such dialogues would create more confusions.
Advocating immediate removal of Article 370, the special section of the Constitution applying to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the seer said, “Along with the immediate scrapping of the Article 370, the Centre must see to it that the Kashmiri Pandits driven out from the state by the militants are fully rehabilitated in the state,” he said.
Elaborating further on the need to have Article 370 removed from the Indian Constitution, he said that it had been incorporated in the constitution as a temporary provision, granting special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir. “The state was accorded the special status under Article 370 of the Constitution of India under Temporary, Transitional and Special provisions. It is purely a temporary provision which has outlived its significance over the years,” he said.
Meanwhile, Swaroopanand has hailed the renaming of VIP ghat from Choudhary Charan Singh ghat to Shankaracharya ghat by the Uttar Pradesh minister of irrigation Dharampal Singh. The seer also demanded that the name of the Dehradun airport must be rechristened after Adi Guru Shankaracharya. “A memorial must be made where the Vedanta guru Shankaracharya had his education,” opined the Shankaracharya.