Author: Paritosh Parasher, Indo-Asian
News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: May 27, 2002
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/020527/43/1oyzk.html
A caricature of Hindu god Ganesha,
published in the leading financial tabloid Australian Financial Review,
has infuriated Hindu community leaders here.
The four-armed god with an elephant
head was shown juggling a nuclear bomb, a time bomb made of dynamite sticks
and a peacenik dove with an olive branch held firmly in its beak.
What has invoked Hindus' wrath even
more is the fact that Lord Ganesha has been drawn as a belligerent looking
juggler, sitting on an imaginary India-Pakistan international border and
showing his middle finger towards Pakistan. The picture was published Monday.
"I do not know what was the need
of publishing such a ludicrous caricature of Ganesha, who is worshipped
and adored by the Hindus all over the world," said A. Balasubramanium,
president of the Hindu Council of Australia, while speaking to IANS.
Sydney-based doctor Balasubramanium
has also fired a protest letter to the Fairfax management, which includes
publishers of the Financial Review, to express the "Indo-Australian Hindu
community's anguish over this sad episode."
He is also miffed by the fact that
the caricaturist has tried to make Ganesha a representative of the whole
of India, which is considered to be a secular state.
"The cartoonist seems to be insinuating
that since Pakistan is a Muslim country, Ganesha is provoking the war on
behalf of a Hindu India," he said.
He has reminded the Australian Financial
Review editor that this caricature is not only offensive to the Hindu community's
religious sentiments but also projects a wrong image of India, which has
enshrined secularism in its Constitution.
But Balasubramanium's main concern
is about Ganesha's association with vulgarity and aggression. "How you
can depict Ganesha, who symbolises everything good and sacred, as someone
who throws around nuclear and time- bombs," he has written in his protest
letter.
The president of the Hindu Council
of Australia has also mentioned the fact that Fairfax Press, which controls
some of Australia's largest circulated newspapers like The Sydney Morning
Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review, has been responsible
for "insulting Hindu religion and its symbols earlier too."
Beside Hindu leaders, other community
members have also expressed anguish over the publication of Ganesha's caricature.
The Hindu Council of Australia is
planning to pursue the matter but its leaders are yet to decide on the
course of action.
"I have been inundated with emails
and telephone calls by perturbed Indo-Australian Hindus since this morning
and we would decide future plans after discussing the matter with other
organisations," said Balasubramanium.
