From Times of India

[Guest guest]

Hindus celebrate at largest fest outside India

 

 

RASHMEE Z AHMED

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2002 11:52:41 PM ]

 

LONDON: The age of ‘raga rock’ briefly returns to Britain nine months after

the death of its creator, Beatle George Harrison, as thousands of devotees

throng to the largest Janmashtami celebrations outside India at a stately

manor formerly owned by the singer.

 

 

The celebrations, which Krishna devotees said combine popular Hinduism with

pop culture somewhat in the manner of Harrison’s biggest solo hit ‘My Sweet

Lord’, centre around the Bhaktivedanta Manor temple at Watford, which has

been transformed "into a small Indian town" for the next two days.

 

 

The festivities at the mock Tudor temple, described by Om Prakash Sharma,

president of the National Council of Hindu Temples as "one of the most

important Hindu shrines in Britain", are expected to attract some 10 per

cent of Britain’s half-a-million-strong Hindu community.

 

 

The festival retains "the authentic mood of India's timeless and ancient

culture", said spokesman Bimal Krishna Das, even as its organisers, the

International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) officially billed

it as meant for people "of all backgrounds".

 

 

Commentators said the deliberate eclecticism of the British Janmashtami,

which is in keeping with the UK’s official policy of multi-culturalism,

comes at a testing time for British Hindus who are increasingly in the

spotlight in relation to the Gujarat violence.

 

 

In a sign of the times, British MPs Keith Vaz and Piara Singh Khabra are to

host an urgent conference this month (September) on the contemporary

concerns of Europe’s largest body of Hindu students, the UK-based National

Hindu Students Forum spread across 51 universities.

 

 

With Britain’s large Indian Muslim community spearheading a demand for the

government to ban the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (UK) and the RSS’s British wing,

the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh for their alleged moral and monetary support to

the perpetrators of the Gujarat violence, UK Hindus have stepped up a

campaign to stress the faith’s inherent tolerance.

 

 

Last week, on a high-profile visit to Britain, deputy prime minister L K

Advani appeared to distance himself from the controversy over the VHP and

RSS when he told this paper the UK government was within its rights to "ban

whichever organisation it deemed proper".

 

 

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Britain’s regulator of charitable

organisations, the Charity Commission, confirmed to this paper that it was

taking "very seriously a complaint about the VHP regarding alleged terrorist

links". The VHP denies the allegations.

 

 

The Commission also said it was evaluating the evidence for a formal inquiry

into "allegations of support for proscribed organisations in India by the

RSS".

 

 

British Hindu leaders point out that the controversy has done nothing to

dull the increasing popularity of the religion, which is the fourth largest

in the UK today.

 

 

At least some of the credit for this is claimed by ISKCON, popularly called

the Hare Krishna Movement, which counted Harrison as one of its most

high-profile celebrity Western supporters over more than 30 years.

 

 

(OPTIONAL) In the months since the singer’s death, the Movement has made

headlines for its fervent homage, in concert with Harrison’s more famous

Beatle colleague Paul McCartney, to his simple creed of joining Western pop

with Indian-inspired devotional music.

 

 

Now, nine months after Harrison’s death, Krishna devotees say his "gift of

faith to the godless West" lives on in the ongoing celebrations of the

largest Hindu gathering outside India.