On seeing this article on the ecology and solitude of kShetras by Ashish Dhar as far as I understand(Surajit Dasgupta’s name ended up there by mistake),I have a few comments to make.
- There is a section of Hindus who are rightly worried about the demographic concerns of Hindus vis-a-vis Muslims and want to have more Hindus than Muslims in a comfortable proportion. This is a good aim in itself,yes. But one cannot really talk about this on one hand and then complain when the population load avails themselves of the same kShetras ever increasing and shrine boards taking the inevitable changes in infrastructure to manage this load;they cannot really ignore the increasing numbers of pilgrims. This being India at its current stage,something eventually gives way:Either solitude or environment or cleanliness(if it is ill managed). Hindus who have both these issues in mind cannot have their cake and eat it.
- Ashish Dhar once got into a heated debate with some other people regarding places like Kedarnath etc. I had made a suggestion elsewhere,which I am recording here for more visibility: In the case of places like Kedar we can make replica kShetras in other places(with the same energy and shakti of the devatA),so that people can visit these and have their spiritual needs fulfilled. This is however very much easier than done(since we don’t seem to be cultivating the sort of tapasvI or niyamadhAri types to be able to cultivate that kind of shakti for such replica kShetras). Example in this vein could be the Balaji temples TTD is building(all vaikhAnasa run I think). Even if it is much easier than done,it is still worthwhile to put efforts in that direction and cultivate environments suitable for sAdhanA and tapasyA.
padmavajra 