Ramesh Baba is continuing his campaign to stop the blasting in the Braj hills. He and his large group of followers will be surrounding the District Magistrate's offices in Mathura, complaining that he has not done enough to stop it.
A word should be said here about Ramesh Baba, or Sriji Baba. You can read about him at www.brajdhamsewa.org. He is a Nimbarka sadhu, a great kirtan singer and speaker of Hari katha. He is the single most important force for ecology and the preservation of Braj's natural heritage.
Though he is agitating for the purification of the Yamuna and the declaring of the entire Braj area as a green belt, currently his main issue is the mining of the Braj hills--thankfully not Barsana, Nandagaon or Govardhan, but other similar hills in the chaurasi kos area.
Ramesh Baba has felt that the people of Vrindavan and Mathura do not give enough importance to his issues and has written that "Braj is more than just Vrindavan or Mathura." For him to understand and support Vrindavan issues requires that we also recognize and support the issues that are important to him.
The fact is that he has the largest support base of any sadhu interested in these issues in Vrindavan, so his help, even if only in words, is almost an absolute necessity. Ideally, we should find a way of joining forces by creating a publications, websites and public relations efforts that deal with the entire gamut of environmental issues that Braja Dham faces.
So this request is for those who are in Vrindavan on the 10th to find their way to the DM's office and participate in this event.
(2) Feb. 17.
A big meeting of sants and sadhus at the Kumbha Mela in Vrindavan.
I should mention here that there has been quite a bit of work behind the scenes here, for which Paramadvaiti Maharaj in particular is responsible. First of all, when in Hyderabad for the Dharmacharya conference there, at which Dayananda Saraswati presided, he met one of the top men in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Ashok Singhal. That led to a meeting the day before yesterday in Delhi, with Singhal and Champat Ray, the joint secretary. Sevak Sharanji was also there.
The VHP is a very big deal. In an earlier event on the day after the Global kirtan, several members of the RSS (Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangha), a related organization. These people are very disciplined and very active.
First of all, the VHP leadership gave a sympathetic ear to the situation in Vrindavan and suggested that the Vrindavan sadhus be petitioned as far as possible and made aware of the matters related to the bridge and preservation of Vrindavan's heritage.
It appears that they will be in Vrindavan on the 17th and will help to promote the matter at this Dharmacharya conference. So this is a very important event.
Here is a translation of the announcement in the Vrindavan newspaper (Amar Ujala) of Feb. 1, 2010:
The Religious Leaders will meet on Feb. 17 at the Kumbha Mela
The saints and sadhus will share ideas about how to protect the Sanatan Dharma
They will discuss how to increase cow protection and the rebuilding of the Ram temple [in Ayodhya]
Emphasis will be put on giving the Kumbha Mela government status
This year at the Kumbha Mela in Vrindavan, leaders of the Vaishnava sampradayas will discuss a dozen topics related to the protection of Sanatan Dharma. Along with issues related to the Yamuna and the mountains of Braj, they will also freely discuss cow protection and the rebuilding of the Ram temple [in Ayodhya].
Before the Kumbha Mela in Haridwar, representatives of the various maths, etc., will hold an assembly in Vrindavan on February 17. The Vaishnava acharyas have made many proposals concerning the preservation of Hindu symbols and dignity. The pollution of the Yamuna River, the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the preservation of the Kumbha Mela grounds [by the Yamuna in Vrindavan] and giving the Kumbha special government protected status, declaring the entire 84-kos Braja area a green belt, mending pilgrimage sites in Braj, protecting heritage sites from the "land-Mafia" are some of the issues that will be debated at the meeting by the religious leaders.
Besides stopping the blind frenetic development that is going on in Vrindavan, Govardhan and Barsana, with the building of multistoried buildings, etc., it will be proposed that the illegal mining be stopped in the mountains throughout entire area of Braja, parts of which are in Rajasthan, Haryana and U.P., which was witness to Krishna's pastimes and has its ghats on the Yamuna.
It should be noted here, with respect to the pollution in the Yamuna, that many sadhus refused to bathe in the holy river on the day of Shahi Snan (Jan. 30) and notified the government of their displeasure at the situation.
[The promise had been made that a large amount of Ganga water would be diverted to the Yamuna to make the water clear on the day of this important bath, but the amount was insufficient. The DM absolved himself of any blame, but whatever happened, the dirt in the water was too great to be cleansed even by the addition of Ganges. As an eye witness, I can say that there was little difference between the Yamuna on Jan. 4 and Jan 30. I rather doubt that the water was diverted as promised.]
Vishwa Hindu Parishad district captain Harihar Sharma said that they expect Jagadguru Shankaracharya, Jagadguru Nimbarkacharya, Mahanta Nritya Gopal Das of the main encampment in Ayodhya, Sant Jnana Das of the Akhila Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Jnanananda, Sadhvi Ritambhara, Vallabhacharya Vallabha Ray Goswami, etc., to be present.
Needless to say, the issues that Ramesh Baba holds dear are prominent on this list. This shows clearly that supporting him is an essential part of making sure that the issues of Vrindavan get a fair hearing at this meeting. The general issues that are supported by Ramesh Baba are the same as ours, so there should be no controversy, but he has let it be known that he expects support for his pet issues from us.
I do not think that it is too much for him to ask, and I therefore ask anyone who is in the Vrindavan area to go to Mathura on the 10th to join his demonstration, and again on the 17th to the Kumbha Mela to press for the bridge issue and the specific problems of Vrindavan to be addressed at the Dharmacharya Conference.
One other thing: It is clear that many people still do not understood what is at stake in the bridge issue. Many people think that its purpose is to help the pilgrims make the parikrama. They do not realize that it is being built for cars, trucks, buses, tempos and motorcycles, not people. If Ramesh Baba wants Braj to be declared a green belt, let us start by declaring the Parikrama Marg a green belt of protection around Vrindavan town and its temples and lila sthalis.
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Just to show that the issue is not dead: From the same issue of the Amar Ujjala, the following article was published just beside the one above quoted:
Bhagavatacharya Haraprasad Shastri declared his opposition to the PIL leading to the stoppage of the half-moon bridge over the Yamuna and called it a conspiracy. In an announcement made on Sunday, Shastriji said that the building of the bridge would help those who want to do the parikrama and that one person from outside had made use of people in Vrindavan to achieve that end.
This reference is to J.P.S. Gill who is a Panjabi Sikh and lives in the old Bharatpur temple on Keshi Ghat and is an opponent of the bridge. But this accusation is entirely false and needs to be countered. Gill is not making any puppets in Vrindavan dance. Those who oppose this bridge oppose it because it is wrongheaded and destructive. It will NOT help those who want to do parikrama. It is only meant to facilitate and increase vehicle traffic, to the DETRIMENT of those doing parikrama. Besides which, it will increase pollution and environmental degradation. It must be stopped.
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