Today one of my
colleagues forwarded me a news link which claims that Mahisasur (the daemon
king) is worshipped in South India. When I told him that, "I have been to
Mysore and lived in Bangalore for one year and never saw anyone worshiping
Mahisasur. I did not even hear that Mahisasur being worshiped anywhere at all.
I had many Dravidian friends and no one told me that they have any respect for
Mahisasur." he told me that he had been to Chennai and he saw people
worshiping Mahisasur. When I asked him to give details of location in Chennai
where he saw people worshiping Mahisasur he was not able to give it. He later
told me that he saw it in Begampet, which he later retracted and said that
Begampet is in Hydrabad and not in Chennai.
The interesting
question is that did he saw someone worshiping Mahisasur in Chennai or he is
making false stories based on the news article? Anyone who has not been to
south India can believe in this story if someone says that he had been to south
India and himself saw Mahisasur being worshiped there by his own eyes. But this
might very well be a work of fiction based on a news article to impress his
friends about his knowledge (false knowledge). Today I came to know that you
should not trust so called eyewitness because their version can be based on a
false news item rather than being based on their own personal experience.
Following is
part of news item first published in Telegraph and later published by
abplive.com . This news article is based on Smriti Irani (Human Resources
Development Minister, Government of India)'s speech in parliament.
MAHISHASUR
Irani
referred to celebrations of Mahishasur — the demon slayed by Goddess Durga — in
JNU, and wondered whether that would be tolerated in Calcutta.
Fact
check: The
“demon” is celebrated in many parts of southern India, and some scholars have
suggested his popular, dark-skinned depiction in contrast to the fair-skinned
Durga is a pointer to an Aryan-Dravidian divide. Mysore, Karnataka’s
second-largest city, is an anglicised version of Mahishuru — which means the
“abode of Mahishasura” in Kannada.
Based
on this news item my colleague constructed story of him seeing worship of
Mahisasur by his own eyes. These kinds of eyewitness are real culprit of
dividing the nation. These people spread rumors which divide the country. We
need to be careful of these kinds of people.
I
again confirmed with one of my south Indian friend if Mahisasur is worshiped in
south India. He told me that south India is big area and he can't deny if in
some remote area a few people worship Mahisasur but as far as his knowledge
about south India the answer is No, south Indian people don't worship Mahisasur
or Ravana.
At
the following link one person analysed telegraph's post in detail.
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