Durban: In recent weeks the South African Hindu Dharma Sabha has had to endure and overcome an unprovoked, baseless and venomous onslaught from the Maha Sabha.The Dharma Sabha has risen undeterred and stronger, with unprecedented support for our common Hindu cause.
Pursuant to an overwhelming mandate from over 1000 Hindu leaders (including former Maha Sabha presidents, namely Dr NP Desai, Haribhai Naran and Pranlal Lakhani) from KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Eastern Cape and Western Cape in 1981 at the first National Hindu Convention in Durban, the Dharma Sabha has remained committed to “protect and promote Hindu interests”.
The Dharma Sabha is a mass-based people’s organisation enjoying wide- spread grassroots support through 121 branches throughout South Africa. Dedicated Dharma Sabha members have built five temples with two halls.Dharma Sabha officials have successfully represented Hindus at national, provincial and local government levels after huge mandates obtained at mass public meetings, for example, in 1975 to stop Ahmed Deedat’s distribution of Oh You Hindu Awake!; in 1998 for the continued teaching of Eastern languages; in 1998 to deport Hindu-bashing Pastor Lucas Famidumo of Nigeria; and in 2006 to stop the anomalous allocation of crèche sites in Phoenix to Christians only.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Dharma Sabha branches were established in Chatsworth and Phoenix, which were being overrun by Christian conversion and fake healing crusades.In the 1980s, the Dharma Sabha got government permission to start Hindu satsangs at schools. In 2004, it succeeded in persuading the Common Grounds agency to divert a sewer along a railway line to the Indian Ocean, instead of via the Eastbury River in Phoenix, used for Hindu rituals.
In 2004, it became the first organisation in the world (outside India) to bring 104 Christian converts back to their Hindu roots at a historic homecoming ceremony at the Northcroft Hindu Dharma Sabha Hall in Phoenix.The Dharma Sabha has decided not to indulge in any further correspondence, as Hindus do not need a war of words but a wave of work.
The National Hindu Renaissance Campaign, launched on May 6 2006 by Pundit Munelal Maharaj of Trinidad, will be driven forward in July 2008 by one of the world’s greatest bhajan singers and Hindu missionaries from New York.The popular national Hindu Light magazine, which grew from a four-page pamphlet in 2005 to a glossy 32-page magazine in 2007, will be distributed more widely to enlighten and empower Hindus like never before.
Notes on a basic course in Hinduism are ready, and formal lessons in our pilot programme in Stanger began in January. A mass community Havan ceremony involving 108 kunds will be led by the India-based Gayatri Parivar Council at the Woodview Hindu Dharma Sabha Hall on Hindu Day, May 4.Let us Hindus not become our own worst enemies. Let no one tear our wider Hindu family apart. No one can divide us but we ourselves. Let us leave behind a legacy of Hindu solidarity and strength.
Source: www.thetimes.co.za
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