Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday described former Kerala Chief Minister R Sankar as a person who led his entire life along the path paved by social reformer and spiritual leader Sree Narayana Guru. Unveiling a statue of Sankar, also former general secretary of the SNDP Yogam, outfit of Hindu lower caste Ezhavas, at Sree Narayana College in Kollam, Modi said he belonged to that category of political leaders who lived in the minds of people long after their death.
“He was a leader who never deviated from the path shown by Guru,” the Prime Minister said.
At a function organised by the Sree Narayana Trusts, which runs several educational institutions, including those established by Sankar, the Prime Minister indirectly questioned the Congress’ alleged tendency to keep Sankar’s legacy as its private property by referring to Sankar’s friendship with Syama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Jana Sangh.
Modi said Sankar had invited Mookerjee to a conference of the Hindu Maha Mandalam he had initiated along with Mannath Padmanabhan, founder of the Nair Service Society, organisation of the Hindu upper caste Nairs of Kerala.
“But at that time, Mookerjee could not make it as he was not well. later, Mookerjee had met him when came down to Thiruvananthapuram.
After that, Sankar, though he was not part of the Jana Sangh, was invited to its conference in Kanpur,” Modi said perhaps in a bid to point out that the legacy of Sankar was not the exclusive property of the Congress.
Making no reference to the controversies surrounding his programme in Kollam over the dropping of the name of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy from the list of invitees, Modi limited his speech to recalling the greatness of Sankar, his contributions for uplifting the downtrodden through education and the Centre’s commitment to taking those efforts further.
“Sankar was a person who trod the path paved by Narayana Guru all his life. Practical politicians are known to make compromises but Sankar never compromised on his ideals… I am grateful to the SNDP Yogam and its general secretary Vellappally Natesan for giving me this opportunity to unveil a statue of that great soul. This moment will be there in mind always,” he said.
Modi’s participation in the programme of the Yogam came just ten days after a political party, Bharatiya Dharma Jana Sena, of the minority communities was launched under its leadership. The BJP, which had entered into an informal alliance with the Yogam for last month’s civic polls, is expected to forge ties with this party in the Assembly election to be held in April-May.
The unveiling of the statue was done amid the controversy over Vellappally’s act of requesting Chandy to stay away from the programme after inviting him due to “objections from certain quarters”. The Congress and the left had used the development to claim that Vellappally had acted under orders from the BJP, RSS and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Stating that any Government which wanted to uplift the backward and downtrodden people would have to choose the path shown by Narayana Guru, Modi said, “If any section in this country has any authority over the Government that now rules in Delhi, that authority first goes to the backward people, the downtrodden and the Dalits.”
later, the Prime Minister visited the Sivagiri Mutt, Sree Narayana Guru’s spiritual centre at Varkala, Thiruvananthapuram. In his brief address to those who had gathered there to see him, Mondi said Guru was the great soul who had shown how to practice the philosophy of Advaita in real life.
Guru’s birth was to end the evils in the society, Modi added. After paying floral tributes to the Guru at his Samadhi and participating in the special Poojas at the Mutt, he unveiled a plaque to mark the centenary of the writing of the Daiva Dasakam by Guru.