HPI
NEW DELHI, INDIA September 8th, 2008 [by Rajiv Malik, HPI correspondent]: A public memorial
was held September 7 in Orissa in honor of Hindu saint Swami Lakshamanananda Saraswati, whose
brutal murder has shocked the nation. SwamiJi had served for four decades, walking miles through the
most difficult terrain of Orissa’s tribal belt and teaching Vedas to women and girls.
Shri Praveen Bhai Togadia, General Secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, noted that SwamiJi had
devoted his whole life to uplifting the downtrodden and needy scheduled-tribe and scheduled-caste
people in the remote interior of Orissa. He lamented, “No one could imagine that a Hindu saint of 84
years who used to walk with the support ofstick, could be murdered in such a gruesome manner. Not
only SwamiJi was brutally murdered, even the sadhvi who assisted him in running a gurukulfor the girls
was attacked and killed by the perpetrators of these crimes.”
Exhorting the Orissa government to immediately arrest and punish the murderers, Shri Togadia said that
although Christian missionaries and institutions have been credited with doing a lot ofsocial work, Hindu
organizations like RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are also running over one lakh socialservice projects
all over India. Pointing out that illegal conversions are being performed in India, against the letter and
spirit of the Indian constitution, he said that Swami’s selfless work, which has won the tribals’ hearts, was
intolerable to the Christians and they are known to have attacked him a number of times.
Swami Sarvananda, Siva Temple, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, gave a forcefulspeech, saying, “The time
has come that the saints’ community is feeling threatened and unsafe. If the government cannot provide
us safety and security, our saints will have to think about training our own people and deploying them for
this purpose. Every prominent saint will have a small group of trained in house soldiers who will defend
and save his life by all possible means. If the situation does not change, we have no other alternative left
but to pursue this idea.”