Hindu Sadhvi in Kumbh Mela expressed concern over forced conversions of Bastar tribals

Adhik Vaishakh Pournima, Kaliyug Varsha 5112

Rediff.com’s Sanchari Bhattacharya met some sadhvis who made their presence felt at the holy gathering this year.

Bodh Mayi Ganga Maa Pragya Devi

Her disciples have the most interesting stories to narrate about her. She belongs to a royal family, they say, and her father was an inspector general of police.

Maa Pragya gave up a cushy life in a posh locality in Mumbai, and her husband and three sons, when she heard the ‘call of God’. It broke her heart to leave her sons behind, she says, and she missed them for one-and-a-half days, before "God gave me the strength to move on".

Her followers also talk about her spells of solitude when, for several months in a year, she leaves her ashram in Kulghati for unknown locations "to seek solitude and find truth". Even her closest disciples have no idea where she goes; they vaguely refer to "jungles in Madhya Pradesh and the Himalayas". On how the elderly sadhvi manages on her own, she says, "God’s grace and the kindness of villagers" ensure that she has no problems.

The smiling sadhvi with a soft voice could pass off as anyone’s affectionate aunt. Appearances, however, can be deceptive.

Maa Pragya tells us about her padyatra across India — from Varanasi to Rameswaram — in 2004. "The only thing that irked me was conversions," she says.

She describes her brush with the controversial issue while travelling through Bastar in Chhattisgarh. She dismisses the contention that tribals choose conversion as a way to escape a life of abject poverty and starvation.

"The tribals in Bastar are self-sufficient and content with their lives. But Christian missionaries are forcibly converting them. Today they don’t even know which religion they belong to. And the irony is, most of these so-called Christian tribals’ names still begin and end with Ram," she says indignantly.

She is quick to add a disclaimer, "I don’t have anything against Islam or Christianity. But tell me, if all religions are the same, why have conversions at all?"

Source: Rediff

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