{"id":2416,"date":"2006-12-07T17:10:03","date_gmt":"2006-12-07T16:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2416"},"modified":"2007-02-02T22:46:18","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T21:46:18","slug":"another-day-in-delhi-visiting-ministers-and-parliamentary-representatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2416","title":{"rendered":"Another day in Delhi visiting Ministers and Parliamentary representatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Braja Sevaki Devi Dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n

December 7th, 2006<\/p>\n

Another day in Delhi visiting Ministers and Parliamentary representatives \u2014 this time we couldn\u2019t help but notice the extremes in Indian government and in the personalities who represent it\u2026.but that\u2019s possibly a whole other story (and one that Indradyumna Swami is very keen to tell in his Diary of a Travelling Preacher). For the time being, I can only say that visiting one MP who was surrounded by so much firepower was a unique experience. Even the seating arrangements in his lounge were such that to my right was an armed guard on the chair next to me, and to the left, next to Dhruva prabhu, another armed guard who was only too keen to show Dhruva his \u201ctoy.\u201d I\u2019ve said often that the person we met with on any particular day was \u201cpowerful\u201d or \u201cinfluential,\u201d but this one beat them hands down in his own unique (and very Indian) style.<\/p>\n


\nRamkanth Yadav, MP <\/font><\/p>\n

His name was Ramakanth Yadav, from Somajwadi Party. He was very definitely in the \u201cpersonality\u201d league. He took a personal interest in all of us, asking many questions about where we were each from, about temples in different countries, what our religious backgrounds were, etc. He loved it when Dhruva started speaking Hindi, and seemed to really like the fact that we\u2019d come to visit him and ask his assistance.<\/p>\n


\nIndradyumna Swami meets a new friend…<\/font><\/p>\n

He was voted by the team our favorite so far; Indradyumna Maharaja was particularly inspired by the amount of weaponry on display, and commented that we should have perhaps considered such a style ourselves and saved a lot of time :) On the way home, Maharaja said, \u201cDid you get a photo of the weapons, Braja?\u201d Sorry to say I didn\u2019t\u2026but trust me, they were big. And there were plenty of them. This country might be under the sway of Western materialism, but in so many respects India maintains it\u2019s particular style of doing things, and when it comes to situations like this, one can only appreciate that style when it\u2019s utilized for the right reasons. Mr. Yadav is indeed a person who invokes fear and respect from so many, and has the ability to sway things to our favor in Parliament. He said he would bring the topic for discussion in Parliament tomorrow. That\u2019s a guaranteed statement.<\/p>\n

Prior to that we met with Mr. Brajesh Patack, another MP who committed to raising the topic for discussion tomorrow, and we also met with Dr Sharma, who was on his way to a meeting with the Speaker of the House, Sonia Gandhi, our friend Mr. Advani (Leader of the Opposition), and several others. It was too good an opportunity to pass up: so Mahamantra prabhu rang Mr. Advani and asked if he could talk to the Speaker, Mr. Chatterjee. We then quickly faxed him for an appointment tomorrow, and are still awaiting an answer, but it looks good. And tomorrow we\u2019re meeting Sonia Gandhi.<\/p>\n

So one might ask what the upshot of all these meetings is: the answer is to get as much support across the board as possible, from all sections of Parliament \u2014 government, ministers, opposition, other parties \u2014 so that they support it in discussion when it\u2019s raised. If we have powerful people all moving to act on this issue on the grounds of human rights abuse and religious intolerance, it puts the issue in a different category than the one being pushed by the Kaz govt, which is some \u201clittle Hare Krishna land problem.\u201d This intense week of meeting after meeting culminates tomorrow with these two last, very important appointments. After that, we can really do no more: Parliament will vote to make an international statement on the issue. This is important, as India is a huge democratic nation represented by so many varied religions, but all will speak in favor of the Hare Krishna situation. It\u2019s a wonderful opportunity, and we\u2019re asking for the prayers of everyone worldwide that the result is a good one.<\/p>\n

Good news today, though: a representative from the British Embassy in Kazakhstan visited the property and surveyed the destruction, and spoke at length with devotees. They offered their assistance, and said our lawyers could approach their lawyers for direction and guidance. It\u2019s a bold and welcome move by the British Government, after the US Embassy statement yesterday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Braja Sevaki Devi Dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n

So one might ask what the upshot of all these meetings is: the answer is to get as much support across the board as possible, from all sections of Parliament \u2014 government, ministers, opposition, other parties \u2014 so that they support it in discussion when it\u2019s raised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-braja-sevaki-devi-dasi","category-iskcon-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}