The debate on the caste of Lord Hanuman continued with the latest entrant in the row being Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhary Laxmi Narain, who termed the Pawan Putra as a Jat.
Earlier, Lord Hanuman was dubbed as a Dalit by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at an election rally in Rajasthan while BJP MLC Bukkal Nawab had added some extra spice by saying that Bajrangbali was a Muslim.
“There is no iota of doubt that Lord Hanuman was a Jat because Jats are descendants of the Ape God,” Chaudhary told a select group of reporters in Lucknow on Friday.
The minister’s argument was vague but interesting. Chaudhary said that Jats had a penchant to interfere in any issue.
“If injustice is being done to any person, a Jat will definitely intervene, irrespective of his being acquainted with the victim. This happened in Ramayana. Ravana kidnapped Sita and Ram killed Ravana. Hanuman did not know Ram and Ravan but he burnt Lanka because injustice was done to Mata Sita,” he said.
“We Jats are powerful as Lord Hanuman and revere Him as our Lord. So, I can say with certainty that Hanuman was a Jat,” he said.
Incidentally, a day earlier BJP lawmaker Bukkal Nawab had claimed that Hanuman was a Muslim. He had said that Muslims had names like Rehman, Ramzan, Farman, Zishan, Qurban and in this way phonetically Hanuman sounds more Muslim than Hindu.
The controversy was kicked off by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who, in an election rally in Alwar (Rajasthan), said that Hanuman was a forest dweller, deprived and a Dalit.
Incidentally a Jain priest claimed that Lord Hanuman was neither a Dalit nor a tribal, but a Jain.
Rashtriya Lok Dal national spokesman Anil Dubey had attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party for reducing Lord Hanuman into a mortal by attaching caste to him.