Topics for discussion: 007, Craze for land, Murky money
If the 1st Century A.D. invention of the second millennium is the miracles around Jesus Christ, the last Century invention of the same millennium is Shirdi Saibaba. Both were humans. While the colonising and invading Euro-Americans imposed Jesus and Yehova on the whole world with missionary zeal, the craze for Shirdi Sai Baba is spreading in India, for no valid reason, except for a blind belief that Sai Baba protects his devotees and fulfils their desires whether asked or not.
Just as love is blind, faith can also be blind.
We should not have any problems as long as faith and love do not devour resources of a Nation, which is starved of lands for raising even small thatched huts for poor, on pieces of 50 sq.yds. There will be no problem, as long as prayerhouses do not cost millions of Rupees, bricks, cement, iron, marbles, granite.
Choked highways and rail-tracks
India is a country with scarce fuel for transportations. There is a scarcity of railway tracks for transportation of food grains. When more and pilgrim Centres start attracting millions of people, arranging road-rail-air transport for them becomes a great problem. India will be forced to import more and more crude oil and aviation fuel, for running Volvos, airconditioned trains and flights. This will aggravate the Balance of Payment Position of India. Highways and rail-tracks will be choked. Airports will be crowded.
Now see this Shirdi Sai Baba temple at Ghorabandha, Near Telco, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. It is built on two acres. Why does a prayer house need two acres to house a just 5.5 ft marble idol?
Do grand prayer houses generate employment through tourism?
Towns and cities with great prayer houses may become tourist centres and generate some employment. But the employment they generate, in this ybrao-a-donkey's view, is an employment of very low quality.
Tourist Centers create lot of garbage in the form of plastic covers, abandoned plastic water bottles, tea cups. Some Tourist Centres, though ostensibly have a religious fervor, have indeed become centers for booze, and prostitution. Whether pious or not, many Tourist Centers in India have become wanton locations for amoral behaviors, may be owing to non-availability of separate locations for honey-mooning.
Prayer houses of most religions thrive on donations made by black-marketers, bootleggers, corrupt bureaucrats, money-launderers, smugglers, tax-evaders etc. I feel that prayer houses and religious institutions throughout the world should develop a policy and custom of not-accepting donations from unscrupulous donors, howsoever large the amount may be. They seem to believe that money does not get tainted when it passes through the turbid hands of wealthy.
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