We came across a picture of Lord Ganesha at this link with the subtitles. “Two participants walk past a hand-painted billboard featuring the Hindu god Ganesh, on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair. India is the guest of honour at the world’s largest book fair which opens 04 October 2006.(AFP/John MacDougall)” The picture shows Lord Ganesha standing on a structure like a keyboard with eight hands and with items like a laptop computer, CD, floppy, mouse, dish antenna etc in his hands. This is a very disgusting denigration of Lord Ganesha which has hurt our religious sentiments very badly and caused disrespect to our beloved deity of worship.
Lord Ganesha is a very popular deity of the Hindus and the Ganesh Festival is widely celebrated in India with great splendor. The use of a deity for a commercial event like a book fair, that too, in a distorted manner is very highly objectionable. In the Hindu religious ‘stotra’ of ‘Atharvashirsh’ Lord Ganesha is described as one with four hands with weapons like paash (noose), ankush (goad), and a sweet (modak) in his hands.
The Director, International Section of ‘Frankfurt Book Fair’ confirmed that they have removed the poster and rendered their apology. Thus we have stopped this protest. We thank all the protestors for support.
Letter from HJS to OrganisersSree To, Subject: Denigration of Lord Ganesha at Frankfurt Book Fair 2006 Dear Sir, We came across a picture of Lord Ganesha at the following link with the subtitles. “Two participants walk past a hand-painted billboard featuring the Hindu god Ganesh, on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair. India is the guest of honour at the world’s largest book fair which opens 04 October 2006.(AFP/John MacDougall)” The picture shows Lord Ganesha standing on a structure like a keyboard with eight hands and with items like a laptop computer, CD, floppy, mouse, dish antenna etc in his hands. This is a very disgusting denigration of Lord Ganesha which has hurt our religious sentiments very baldy and caused disrespect to our beloved deity of worship. Lord Ganesha is a very popular deity of the Hindus and the Ganesh Festival is widely celebrated in India with great splendor. The use of a deity for a commercial event like a book fair, that too, in a distorted manner is very highly objectionable. In the Hindu religious stotra of Atharvashirsh Lord Ganesha is described as one with four hands with weapons like paash (noose), ankush (goad), and a sweet (modak) in his hands. Through this act of yours you have distorted and denigrated Lord Ganeshas form, which has hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. Hindu Janajagruti Samiti is an organization working for the awakening and unity of Hindus. Our activities include religious education of Hindus, protests against various denigrations of Hindus deities and the various assaults on Hindu Dharma. Our details can be obtained at www.hindujagruti.org. We demand immediate removal of this picture of Lord Ganesha from the exhibition and an unconditional apology for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus through this distortion, denigration and commercial use of Lord Ganesha. Lastly we would like to ask you that in the recent wake of the worldwide crisis over the Prophet Mohammeds cartoons would you dare to do such acts in relation to icons of other faith? With regards |
