‘Rationalists’-‘Ritualists’ Clash Over Community Feasts In Odisha On Lunar Eclipse Day

Bhubaneswar: Tension prevailed in Odisha’s Berhampur city and state capital after ‘rationalists’ and ‘ritualists’ clashed over consumption of food at community feasts on lunar eclipse day on Tuesday, prompting police to resort to mild force to control the situation.

While activists of Bajrang Dal and other organisations strongly protested consumption of food by rationalists during a meeting in Berhampur, similar tension erupted at Lohia Academi and near Lower PMG in Bhubaneswar.

As the two groups clashed and entered into scuffles over holding of community feasts on the day of lunar eclipse, police personnel in strength were deployed outside Lohia Academy in Bhubaneswar as well as the meeting venue of rationalists in Berhampur.

As the activists protesting community feast allegedly hurled stones and mud at rationalists, police reportedly resorted to mild lathicharge to control the situation and prevent any major flare up. Around a dozen activists were also taken into custody while protesting community feast as a preventive measure, reports said.

While those gathered at Lohia Academy accused the outfits protesting consumption of food at their meeting of indulging in stone-throwing in an ‘uncivilised’ manner,  activists of Hindu outfits hit back and charged the rationalists with deliberately trying to create disturbance by organising connumity feasts.

Some members of the rationalist group were stated to have sustained injuries in alleged stone-pelting by Bajrang Dal activists, sources said, adding that window panes and flower pots at Lohia Academy were also damaged.

‘Rationalists’ claimed that they had organised a meeting and arranged food for the participants in a legal manner and none should have any objection. “We stand by what we believe. Anything which is not scientific should not be practised,” they said.

“We have not violated any law or acted against the Constitution,” they added.

Earlier, seers and religious heads in the state had taken umbrage at a recent incident of serving chicken biryani at a community feast in Bhubaneswar during a solar eclipse by a group of people describing themselves as rationalists to bust “blind beliefs”.

At least four FIRs had been filed in separate police stations in Puri and Cuttack by some religious outfits against the ‘rationalists’.

“They are ignorant. Their actions go against the basic tenets of Sanatan Dharma. The very food (chicken biryani) consumed by those people during the eclipse might be the bane of their lives,” Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saswati had said.

He said people who devise new theories, violating the basic principles, “do harm to their own lives and the society at large”.